County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners meeting for August 12th, 2026. We'll begin with a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance.

To the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Any questions for Mr. Haggerty? Hearing none, we'll move to the solicitor's report. Mr. Owens.

Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Owens? Hearing none, we'll move to public participation related to agenda items. There will be two times for public participation. At the end of our meeting, we'll have general public participation. This is related to agenda items only. So if you'd like to speak to any of the agenda items before us today, please, you can come forward. You'll state your name. You'll have three minutes to speak. We are being live streamed. And you'll need to state which item on the agenda you're referencing. Anyone for public comment? Hearing none, we'll move forward to review an

Yeah, 1st of all, thank you for coming today and providing a presentation. You know, we haven't looked at our 457 plan place it out for bid for. Quite a long time and, you know, as I've engaged with over the course of years, particularly this year, we've heard a host of. Experiences from other commissioners that feel the way that I do related to ensuring that our employees have education. We're in a government environment where the pay is less. We're in a difficult. world of affordability where people cannot make their income work the way that it is let alone think about retirement savings and

So give me an idea. If we're targeting, let's say, young families and young mothers, I'm thinking of children and youth, for example, where we've got lower salaries, a whole host of needs in the young family, repaying student debt. How would you run a campaign if we'd say we would determine with Nationwide, we want to target those individuals and provide an opportunity of resentment to them? How would that look in that kind of relationship and sort of what would be your role in that? Going out and meeting with staff and employees and trying to encourage their participation. And the last part o

Because the general thing is big company, you get lost in the shuffle, no personalized service, and no ability to connect with somebody individually to be able to help guide me through this process.

I want to thank Mr. Hartwig for bringing nationwide to our attention. I want to thank you gentlemen for your presentation. It's more providing us with documents in front of us, and I look forward to comparing and contrasting the plans that we have in front of us moving forward. So thank you. Thank you, sir.

I have no questions. Thank you so much. All right. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. move to salary board uh item one under salary board this is the commissioners and controller we have the july 15th salary board meeting let's drive a motion so move second moved by controller bateman seconded by commissioner priest any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed motion carries salary board packet do i have a motion so moved second moved by commissioner hartwick seconded by controller bateman any discussion Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carr

Yes, just confirming everything within here falls within the accepted

2026 budget there is one item that is not budgeted that is number eight thank you any other questions entertain a motion for the personnel packet so moved moved by Commissioner seconded by Commissioner Hartwick any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed motion carries thank you just for Davis

We have a motion for the purchase order packet. So moved. Second. Moved by Commissioner Hartwick, seconded by Commissioner Preece. Any discussion? Yes. Is everything listed here within the budgeted 2026 numbers?

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We have a number of items before us today. I am going to request we pull item 274 for a separate vote. Other than that, are there any other items that need to be pulled?

Yes, I'd like to pull item number 9 and item number 16. Item number 9 and 16.

And the only other thing that we're going to have to do is take items 197 through 312.

Yeah, I got that. And vote on them conditionally. Yep. I'll entertain a motion for items one through eight.

Moved by Commissioner Hartwick, seconded by Commissioner Priest. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So we are now on item number nine. make a motion to approve item nine i'll second any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed no motion carries um entertain a motion for items 10 through 15. so move moved by commissioner priest second seconded by commissioner hartwick any discussion All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're on to item 16 now. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion for item 16. Second. Seconded by, motion made b

Yes, just for the record, that is an item related to Dauphin County Prison, and that is no longer able to be budgeted at the prison, so it's coming out of the County General Fund.

Yes, it is not budgeted for, although the recruitment of staff will drastically improve our overtime costs. So the idea here is we saw pretty good recruitment numbers under our last marketing for staff recruitment. And I'm hopeful that this will be, in the end, a net cost savings with the overtime. But I understand the concern for it not being budgeted.

Does anybody, Chris, do you have a listing of the current overtime budget for the President?

While we're waiting on that, I'm going to ask that the Chief of Staff provide us an update soon on which departments may be... on the verge of potentially being over budget for the 2026 year. Thank you. If you could present it to us at some point coming up.

And are there any other current, like, recruitment efforts that are happening?

I believe our typical HR practices, which was pretty significant online presence, indeed ads, social media ads. I think when I became a commissioner, we were hovering in the high 60s of how many correction officers we were down. We got that into the high 20s. And over the last six months, we've seen that rise, I think, into the 30s. I'm concerned that if we continue to trend that direction, overtime costs will inflate.

But the trend from positions, I think I remember the arguments were. It may not help. I'm sorry a 40,000 dollar investment that has had shown some level of achievement related to actual positions and. filling those spots as a possible opportunity to be able to curb those overtime costs. As we've seen, that's the approach.

That's the assessment, I think. That's the logic for me is that an investment like this, I mean, the challenge at the prison is also a churn rate, right? You know, people get in there. How many COs are we losing to how many we're adding to our number? We certainly know that recruiting is a big part in having a larger recruiting pool. you know, helps, but it's retention is part of this too. There needs to be, you know, more strategies applied to all that.

It was definitely in the prison board have shown that there were results from the Apollo efforts. 26 budget is 6.6 22 million hours just you got a microphone so you're good obviously i would prefer any of these dollars to come out of um the uh The prison fund, obviously those dollars are no longer available to do that, but I think it's a mistake to not continue to try to invest in some level of recruitment efforts to be able to address those overtime costs. I've got a couple questions.

When did the last contract we had with Apollo run out for these particular services? I'd have to check my notes. The reason I'm asking is if it was successful before, then we stopped it. If there was an opportunity to have had it done in last year's budget for this year, maybe we should have done that at that time, but I don't know when it ran out. And then you're saying it's $22 million per salary at $6.64 million in overtime?

Okay, so what is the projected of the $1 million that we're projected to be over in the prison budget? Is that specifically in overtime?

Sort of an offset, but overtime's up by a month.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Motion carries. Item 17 through 196, I'll entertain a motion for. So moved. Moved by Commissioner Hartwick. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Preece. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We are now at 197. This is where we'll need to.

Ensure we I will make a motion to conditionally approve based upon final terms and conditions Acceptable to the commissioners office second to the solicitors.

Well, well quickly I want to make sure we're clear about the items because I pulled 274 so can we do items? 197 through well, let's just do it this way items 197 through through 312 without item 274 second All right. And just, again, that's the motion to conditionally approve items based on final terms and conditions acceptable to the solicitor's office. We have a motion made by Commissioner Hartwick, seconded by Commissioner Priest. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. For item 274, so moved. Moved by Commissioner Priest. Do we have a second?

Motion to conditionally, can you, I'll give you the language. Are you amenable to motion to conditionally approve item 274 based upon final terms and conditions acceptable to the solicitor's office?

yes second seconded by commissioner hartwick any further discussion yeah i just want to take a moment i've said it before the great american outdoor show is the largest outdoor show in the world it's right here in dolphin county farm show takes place over a 10-day period 75 to 80 million dollars in revenue generated and it's a a boon to the local economy something that is over 200,000 people were here last year, 8,000 jobs created, and over $2 million in taxes.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Items 313 through 334, I'll entertain a motion for. So moved. Second. Moved by Commissioner Priest, seconded by Commissioner Hartwick. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

former business none before us today any new business hearing no new business we'll move to commissioner's remarks commissioner hartwood try to make them brief um first of all thank you to all uh county staff human service agencies our cultural celebration committee that have put a significant amount of work into the preparation for this weekend's cultural festival We're expecting an incredible turnout. Children's Corner, we had a slight adjustment in the musical lineup that due to unforeseen circumstances, we need to make a change between Sugar Hill Gang and Full Force. But we still expect th

that's all i've got commissioner priest i want to start off by thanking commissioner hartwick for over 18 years ago i know this will be the 18th cultural fest you said over 18 years ago uh you and team planted seed for this idea which has flourished over the years and forward to attending this weekend thank you and some of the initial folks that started this faye fisher ruby dow edgar cohen uh he's no longer working with the county but george connor helen spence and others who spent countless hours over the years working on putting the show together it's a tremendous event here for the county

as stated by commissioner hartwick ccap uh was was the reason for uh us not meeting together last wednesday i sit on courts and corrections committee just um uh always thankful for opportunities like ccap and daco just for those who don't live in the world of acronyms that's county commissioners association of pennsylvania and national association of counties for you know the opportunity to continue to be educated on things happening across the country for counties And things happening here in Pennsylvania for counties. With that, got a couple weeks of things just to run down of recaps that I'

before we close out i know it's under public participation but i just want to add something i see there's a couple representatives here in the audience from hrg our longtime county engineer we did make an adjustment today to the scope of work they're still being retained at the county i want to thank them for the great work not the good work the great work that they have done for the county over many years i have never once when talking to a director or department head ever heard anyone ever say anything other than they did great work here at dauphin county they're a dolphin county company and

Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. So moved. Moved by Commissioner Hartwick, seconded by Commissioner Priest. All in favor? Aye. We're adjourned.