TIOGA - The Tioga County commissioners will vote at their March 13 meeting on accepting about $5.8 million expected to come to the county as a result of recently passed natural gas impact fee legislation.
Commissioner Mark Hamilton said the intention to adopt the ordinance accepting the fee will be in today's classified sections of area newspapers.
In response, Jackson Township Supervisor Walt Barnes commented "that would be the 60 percent after the "up front" money of $23 million, leaving 36 percent for townships and boroughs.
He also wondered if the state "thinks there is that much (gas) volume," considering "there's not a lot of producing wells because there's no market and no pipeline yet."
Commissioner Roger Bunn responded that the "numbers are based on 2011 figures."
In other business, the commissioners created a veteran's affairs assistant position and hired Paul Shaw to fill it at $13.40 per hour to start part-time and $15 per hour full-time with benefits following training. Current Veteran's Affairs Director Tim Cleveland, who serves in the Air Force Reserve, is being called up for active duty to deploy.
Shaw will go for a week's training to take Cleveland's place during the six- to eight-month deployment, Bunn added. The full-time position will terminate when he returns.
The commissioners also:
Employed Scott Zubek as GIS director at $41,000 per year with benefits effective March 6 to replace Robert Schwarz, who will remain on as an independent contractor temporarily for training in the GIS office at $19.76 per hour, no benefits. Hamilton said he doesn't expect the training to take more than a few days.
Tabled bid proposals from Harbor Counseling for drug and alcohol services, Wellspring Community Support Services for supportive housing, living, warm-line services, drop in center services and social rehabilitation and non emergency transportation and from Partners In Progress for facility based vocational rehabilitation services and non emergency transportation for further review.
Approved accepting a $386,550 DEP grant for the Marsh Creek Greenway committee to help with stream restoration and relocation.
Approved an agreement with KeyNet GPS to have the county courthouse as a host site for a GPS station installed on the roof at no cost to the county.
Approved a contract with Priority One Consulting to perform an audit on communications with the 911 center for $111,589.
Approved an agreement with Frontier Communications for long distance phone service for the courthouse at 4 cents per minute, for an annual savings of $5,131.68. The current rate is 6 cents per minute.
