A motion by Deputy Controller Nicki Gottschall to reverse a plan by the county to create a pretrial services division of the Adult Probation Office (APO) failed when it did not get a second in order to bring it up for a vote by the full Lycoming County Salary Board. Other members of the board are county Commissioners Scott Metzger, Marc Sortman and Mark Mussina.

The commissioners had approved transitioning employees currently in the prison bail release program to the county’s courts at their May 21 meeting.

Prior to requesting a motion for reversal, Gottschall read a statement outlining why the request was being made.

“I need to stress how concerned I am with this action, going back to the Nov. 21 vote. The way it was presented to the salary board and in the court’s public comments at that meeting, the delineation between probation and bail is being removed by these titles. Salary board has been told one structure would be in place prior to the first vote, however it has been made clear that it is not the structure that will be in place come January,” Gottschall said.

“Many discussions have been had that bail is a pretrial situation and having a court and probation supervise these employees and clients is counterintuitive,” she continued.

“Rushing to put county dollars and employees under the courts in a structure that is not following the basis is not good for our employees, the budget, the bail clientele, for our citizens and neighborhoods. Why are we choosing a path of least resistance that will give up revenue, expense control and autonomy of employees when all the promises are already being broken or changed before the date of the Nov. 21 calendar board meeting?” Gottschall asked.

When asked by Court Administrator Adrianne Stahl where the statement was coming from, Gottschall replied, Krista Rogers, County Controller and Gottschall’s superior. Rogers was not present at the meeting.

Adam Welteroth, a bail officer, spoke on behalf of his fellow officers.

“I wanted to clear the air because from my understanding there’s a lot of different narratives that have been pushed around and I think it’s important that the line officers are here to give you our input,” Welteroth said.

That input is in favor of the move by the commissioners to create the pretrial division under the courts.

“We agree with what is the action on the table today with moving to the courts and the level of the structure that’s put in place,” Welteroth said.

“We also agree with the titles and part of the reason for that is because the courts have been very forthcoming to actually explain to us the reasons why,” he said.

On the agenda for the salary board at the this week’s commissioners’ meeting was the approval of retitling the position of bail release office to pretrial probation office and retitling the bail release program manager to pretrial probation office supervisor, both moves that Welteroth said were unanimously supported by the people in his office.

The only request that Welteroth made was that the changes take place immediately.

“Unanimously, everyone in the office would like for you to approve these items and make them effective today,” Welteroth said.

“The reasoning for that is because we need to retool and we need to get back to doing the full functions of our jobs right now. The more we put our foot halfway in the door without going through that doorway is a detriment to the officers, but also to the public safety of the community,” Welteroth said.

Although that sentiment was echoed by Stahl, following an executive session, the commissioners voted to stay with the January date for the changes. They encouraged the departments involved to begin working on the transition.

The court administrator reasoned that tabling a decision on the effective date would “give more opportunity for the controller to derail this plan.”

Stahl noted that the controller’s husband, Harry Rogers, is the supervisor of the Supervised Bail Division.

“That’s a side concern that I didn’t intend to bring up until you asked me to approach the podium,” Stahl said.

Speaking during the time that the commissioners were in executive session, Welteroth indicated that he was surprised by the Controller’s request to reverse the action.

The transition of the employees to a pretrial department places them under the authority of the judicial system, particularly President Judge Nancy L. Butts and Judge Ryan C. Gardner. When the move was approved by the commissioners, Butts had issued a statement explaining the reasoning behind the move.

“This will enable me, as the president judge, to utilize my authority under the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure to use all of the members of the existing bail agency to establish a program with a goal toward improving pre-trial outcomes, to gather data from those cases, to determine if what we’re doing is improving those outcomes and what are those outcomes? Reducing recidivism and increasing pre-trial attendance in court,” Butts had said.

“What this change does not do is dictate a certain type of bail or eliminate the use of monetary bail. This change does not lead to nor does it create a cashless bail system. Each judge is free to set the bail they think is appropriate by being provided with more information about the individuals appearing before them,” she had continued.

“In summary, making this change will allow the courts to implement processes to ensure that the judges making bail decisions, which are Common Pleas and MDJs (Magisterial District Justice), have as much relevant information as possible about the defendants before setting bail. And this change will allow the courts to ensure that defendants who are released on bail are appropriately supervised by the bail agency,” Butts had previously stated.