New county board freezes hiring , By JOHN LATIMER, Staff Writer

Less than two hours after being sworn in, the new Lebanon County Board of Commissioners yesterday initiated an austerity program designed to trim spending and eliminate an operating deficit the county has maintained for the past several years by relying on a dwindling reserve fund.

But some county officials, including President Judge Robert J. Eby, spoke out against some of the changes, claiming they go too far.

Commissioner Larry Stohler, who was sworn in to his first term in office yesterday morning by Eby, wasted little time getting down to business by proposing eight cost-cutting moves that will go into effect immediately. They include:

A hiring freeze on all non-essential county positions, excluding EMA telecommunicators, prison guards and nurses.

Elimination of out-of-county education seminars, unless required to maintain certification.

Energy cost savings from reducing lighting levels by 25 percent in all county buildings, excluding Cedar Haven and Renova.

Energy cost savings from maintaining building temperatures at 68 degrees during the heating season and 78 degrees in the cooling season.

Elimination of overnight travel, except by sheriff's department.

Elimination of out-of-state travel, except by sheriff's department.

No unnecessary use of county vehicles.

No remodeling of buildings or replacement of office furniture.

All the measures passed, although Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz voted against the hiring freeze, eliminating non-essential out-of-county education, eliminating overnight travel and eliminating replacing office furniture.

She requested that the hiring freeze be tabled to review in greater detail what positions it will affect.

"I don't object to the theory that you are looking at, but I think there may be a few more (exceptions) than what are listed that we might include on the list," she said.

But Stohler did not want to delay on cutting costs.

"I am not interested in holding off. I want to start today," he said.

Stohler did not know how much money would be saved by the measures, but in the case of training, he said the county spent $100,000 on educational seminars last year. He did not know how much of that was required training, and how much was optional.

The recent elimination of 22 jobs saved the county about $500,000 in the 2004 budget.

Registrar of wills Dawn Resanovich said the hiring freeze would hamper her department's ability to do its job. It was already affected by recent spending cuts, when one of her three employees was reduced to part-time status, she said. Under terms of the hiring freeze, Stohler told Resanovich, that person won't be replaced if she leaves for a full-time job.

"I don't know how I am going to be able to run the office as efficiently as I did before," Resanovich said. "I was granted this position as a part-time position, and if she leaves me I get nothing? Wow, I guess that is really fair."

Eby also criticized the hiring freeze.

"I don't think there is anybody sitting here who thinks we have non-essential people," he said. "I'm concerned here. Adult probation. Juvenile probation. Do we want those people supervised less? . . . Domestic relations. Do you want to say to single moms, 'I'm sorry; we can't process your paperwork now, because we have less people than we had before'? ... These are essential services. That is what county government does."

Spending money on educating employees is worth it, said Eby.

"This is penny-wise and really pound-foolish," he said. "... I'll tell you what. I think Alcoa, or Hershey Foods, or whoever -- they want their people to be educated and they want them to stay in-house."

Eby predicted that the moves would dampen employee morale, and questioned their timing.

"This is the first day, guys," he said. "It would have been nice if you had been here for a while, I think, and then said, 'OK, now I think we should move here.' But to come in the first day ... If you are trying to send a message here, I think we are hearing it."

Claiming the county will face a $4.9 million deficit at the end of the year, Stohler repeatedly stated that the moves were unpleasant but necessary. He said they would be reviewed regularly to determine their effectiveness.

"I'm trying to ease the budgetary problems that we have to deal with," he said. "It is not something I want to do, it is something I feel we need to do."

Carpenter quietly went along with Stohler's motions, pointing out that services and education required by the state would not be eliminated.

Other cost-saving measures will be considered in coming weeks, said the commissioners. One will probably be a reworking of the county's tax-assessment ratio.

The county recently raised the real-estate tax rate to 25 mills, the maximum allowed by law for a fifth-class county. However, the county assesses properties at a ratio of 50 percent of their real value. By increasing that ratio to 100 percent, the county's tax rate would drop to 12.5 mills -- generating the same amount of money in the first year, but giving the commissioners room to increase the tax in future years.

Stohler said that state law limits the amount that property taxes can be increased in the year following such a change to 5 percent. But there are no limitations in subsequent years, he said.

The commissioners also voted 2-1, with Litz in the minority, to replace the county's long-time labor attorney Tim Sheffy with Scot Feeman. Feeman is Lebanon's solicitor and labor attorney.

No explanation was given for the move.

Litz said she voted against Feeman because she had not been informed by Stohler and Carpenter that they intended to appoint him, and she had no chance to review his credentials. Carpenter called that an oversight.