Sun-Gazette File photo Executive Plaza.

A former Lycoming County commissioner urged the current ones to seek out the help of fellow Pennsylvania commissioners in the latest dispute with the county controller.

As the commissioners head for filing an appeal of a ruling by Potter County Senior Judge John B. Leete concerning county controller Krista Rogers, former commissioner Jack McKernan urged the commissioners to contact the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) to join them in seeking a final ruling on who is responsible for certain fiscal functions in the county.

Leete’s most recent ruling let stand his opinion that the law gives the controller, rather than the commissioners, the responsibility for the general ledger, payroll and accounts payable functions, The three commissioners interpret the county code as giving them that jurisdiction.

Speaking during the public comment portion of this week’s county commissioners meeting, McKernan said, “Having been in your shoes, I believe she’s wrong.”

“If we don’t as a county fight for the commissioners’ right to manage the fiscal affairs of the county, it’s not going to affect just us, it’s going to affect any other county in the state,” he said.

McKernan’s rationale for contacting CCAP is that the final ruling of Lycoming County’s appeal will affect all county commissioner boards. It has been previously stated that about half of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties have the fiscal functions under the responsibility of the commissioners, and the other half have the controller overseeing those functions.

“If we aren’t making an attempt to bring CCAP in to handle some of the costs or to fight the fight on behalf of all the county commissioners in the state, I think we’re missing the boat,” McKernan said.

When questioned, the commissioners’ solicitor, J. David Smith, said that CCAP could join in with the commissioners.

“They could intervene on what’s called the amicus brief, where basically they would weigh in with their legal arguments, which would be similar to ours,” commissioner Rick Mirabito said.

“It would show the court that there is another entity that is also concerned about this,” Mirabito said.

McKernan was serving as a commissioner in 2019 when Rogers said that the functions in question should be moved to her office because of a change in the county code.

“You were one of the two commissioners that agreed to give control back to the controller’s office; what has changed your view now?” commissioner Scott Metzger asked McKernan.

“I think at the time, when she came with her counsel coming out of Pittsburgh, at that time it made sense,” McKernan said.

Metzger asked him what had changed his perspective now.

“I thought it was wrong at the time — we let it happen,” McKernan said. “To tell you the truth, I think what I saw the involvement of the controller at that time was absentee management, and it just seemed like everything got messed up.”

“It was like, OK, yeah, that was a bad idea, and I don’t know if it’s gotten any better, but you know it didn’t work. It was working fine the way we had it set up,” he said.

McKernan reiterated his plea to the commissioners to contact CCAP for help.

“Get an opinion from the CCAP Council because they certainly know what all the other counties in the state are doing. If that ruling stands against us, it’s not going to affect just Lycoming County, it’ll affect anybody else that operates like us,” McKernan said.

Mirabito has stressed before that the commissioners’ dispute with Rogers is not personal.

“This is about the office of the commissioners and the office of the controller,” he said. “We need to get a final decision from an appellate court after examining the law and interpreting the statute. If the Appellate Court tells us that it’s supposed to be this way, that’s the way it is.”

“That is what our court system is for. That’s the responsibility we have for future generations of commissioners and controllers,” Mirabito said.

Although Metzger had issued a statement last week that he was not in favor of moving forward with the appeal, and commissioner Tony Mussare had said that he wanted to try to work out a solution rather than seek legal action, the commissioners are proceeding with the appeal.

Speaking after the meeting, Mirabito indicated that talks with Rogers had yielded no solution.

“We had a meeting with her to try to resolve it, but basically she wanted us just to implement the decision that the trial judge had made,” Mirabito said.

“We offered her a proposal that was a compromise which would allow her to have control of the general ledger, and we would do accounts payable and accounts receivable,” he said.

“We made that offer because the statute references the general ledger, but she rejected that,” Mirabito said. “We made a bona fide effort to try to resolve it — quite frankly, our lawyer did and got no response. We then asked for a meeting with her, and we presented it in the meeting to her, and she rejected it.”

The commissioners have until Feb. 24 to file their appeal.