DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette The Executive Plaza sits at 330 Pine St., Williamsport.

With their focus on saving taxpayers money, the Lycoming County commissioners approved several agenda items that should streamline how county government functions moving forward.

“I felt there was a theme in today’s meeting of cost savings,” said first-year Commissioner Marc Sortman.

In addition to actions taken on the county’s Health Care Center and a phone service upgrade,

Sortman also pointed to a decision made by the former board of commissioners, which included current Commissioner Scott Metzger, to sell the Executive Plaza office building, facilitating the move to Third Street Plaza to centralize all county offices in one place.

That board was also instrumental in the Joinder Board’s move to Third Street Plaza, which saved money on rent at the board’s former home, the Sharwell Building.

“The other thing, not only do those things save us money as taxpayers and save us money as the county administration, it also brought us all closer together in one building, making the efficiencies of that one building and that’s what we have to look at as we move forward. The efficiencies at the computer…the efficiencies of our technology is what’s going to make the difference as well. That allows us to evaluate each department, the duties of those departments and how do we streamline, how do we make things more efficiently,” Sortman said.

“As we move forward — and you know our goal: bottom line is to save the taxpayers money that’s what everybody’s doing across the country right now whether you’re in private business or public sector and I appreciate all of our staff that’s that’s willing to look at it for this move forward,” he added.

One action, taken by the Salary Board during the meeting, has the potential to save $30,000 to $60,000 in salary plus benefits, by restructuring the Human Resources Department.

This includes eliminating the human resources business partner position, which had a pay range of $57,310 to $85,176. Instead, the senior benefit specialist will move from pay grade 8 with a salary range of $39,994 to $58,909 to a pay grade 9, with a salary from $43,660 to $64,506 or an hourly rate of $26.44.

Other changes in Human Resources approved were changing the pay grade for the senior human resources generalist, setting the rate at $21.42 per hour; and adding a clerk IV at pay grade 5, or $15.75 to $18.43 per hour.

“I don’t always want to be the one sounding like all we’re doing is cutting cost, cutting cost, cutting cost,” Sortman said. “We are making investments back not only in the employees, but in the buildings … That, in the long term, is going to be better for the taxpayers.”

In all, the commissioners voted to eliminate a full-time and two part-time positions in their move to streamline the county’s workforce, according to Metzger.

An agreement between the county and the Joinder Board will allow employees of the Joinder to use the Partnership Health Center Lycoming County with the move to Third Street Plaza.

For the first year, the cost to the Joinder will be $0. The next three years, they will pay one-third of their percentage of the operational costs. In year three, the cost will be two-thirds and, in year four, 100%.

Other approved agenda items that will result in long term savings were: changing the county broker of record to First National Insurance Agency, which could save around $50,000 per year in broker services for county employees’ insurance, according to Matthew McDermott, the county’s director of administration; and saving on phone service by bundling with a Windstream agreement in the amount of $1,900 per month for three years.

Under personnel, the commissioners approved the following full-time replacements at the rates of pay listed were: Quentin Furguson, resident supervisor I, union, at the Pre-Release Center, $18.64 per hour; and Adam Malek and Michael Fitzwater, telecommunicator I trainees at the 911 center, $18.72 per hour.

Two employees in the Planning Department were moved into new full-time positions within the department. They are Maleick Fleming, who will now be communication and economic development planner, $47,488 per year; and Kelsey Green, hazard reduction planner, $51,814 per year.

Other actions taken by the commissioners included: approving two Memorandum of Understanding agreements with West Branch Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission — one for juvenile probation clients and one for adult DUI and/or drug offenders; and agreement with Monitronics International Inc. in the amount of $251,564 to replace the fire alarm system at TSP; an agreement with Vassallo Engineering and Surveying Inc., in the amount of $32,500 for a site plan for the Jersey Shore Magisterial District Judge’s office; and the reline/rebuild of a bailer at Resource Management Service for $115,232.

The next meeting will be the last one at their board room at Executive Plaza, 330 Pine St. It will be at 10 a.m. June 27. Their first meeting next month, July 11, will be in their new office space at the Third Street Plaza, 33 W. Third St., and will be followed by an open house and ribbon cutting.