County requested auditor general look into CYS
BROOKVILLE — It was the Jefferson County Commission that requested an investigation by the Pennsylvania auditor general into a contractor that had been running Children and Youth Services due to dissatisfaction with the company’s performance, the commissioners reported at Tuesday’s meeting.
Jefferson County took action to end its contract with Service Access Management in January 2021, and asked Auditor General Timothy L. DeFoor to review what had happened.
That review, which
DeFoor’s office released last week, found, among other issues, that a potential conflict of interest and gaps in service had resulted after the county hired a contractor in March 2018 to administer most of CYS due to staffing shortages. This was mainly the result of the CYS director being moved onto the contractor’s payroll, leaving the county without any formal supervision of its own. The situation was rectified by July 8 of that same year, after the potential conflict of interest was identified.
Scott North, Jefferson County commissioner, who was not on the board at that time, said that every county has issues running its CYS department.
“The AG last week came out with a report that said the county took the right action in ending that contract with SAM,” North said, adding that the AG’s Office was also asked to look into the entire service period of the contract. That review is not yet complete, and the county is awaiting the result.
North said the substance of the report was that there were concerns on the part of the county a year ago on how that department was being run by the contractor.
“The AG said the contractor wasn’t performing to the necessary expectation,” North said. “CYS since then has been back completely under Jefferson County’s control, and that is where we are as of today.”
North said the county has entered into a contract that will help provide the staff to meet the need for services, but for the moment, hiring continues to present a challenge.
“I don’t want to speak about things that I don’t have direct knowledge of, but two, three years ago, whenever that contract was entered into, the intent was to try and alleviate the issue that the overall goals weren’t met, and the county stepped
back from that contract and brought CYS back in-house, which is how it functions today,” he said. “The same issues continue that we don’t have as many workers as we need.”
Commission chair Herb Bullers, who along with Jeff Pisarcik was a county commissioner during the timeframe the auditor general’s office reviewed, largely agreed with North’s characterization of events.
“We’re not the only county that has issues with our CYS,” Pisarcik said. “It’s not our employees; it’s not being able to get employees, because there’s a certain criteria that they have to meet in order to be hired and education. They need to be qualified through civil service just to put an application in, and it’s the same problem throughout the whole state.”
“We’ve had good cooperation with the Department of Human Services; they’ve been in here frequently assisting us and providing some guidance and direction to make sure that we’re speaking directly to those concerns, especially in the care for children,” North said, adding that the children are the ones who are most vulnerable and the county isn’t permitting any lapses in the quality of CYS.
“We’ve been working very hard with DHS, assisting them in pursuing things properly, since it’s been in-house, and there are some things that Commissioner Pisarcik is working on to try and improve the internal operations,” he added.
North said it would be premature to get into the details because they require contract adjustments and some waivers.
North said that DHS is providing some detailed insight and coaching case workers on how to handle different cases.
“DHS is a constant presence here, and they’re very helpful and professional, looking for ways to help us accomplish what that task is,” North said.
In other business, the commission approved:
• Invoices in the amount of $399,43 for the period of Feb. 9 through Feb. 22.
• The actual gross payroll in the amount of $266,458.21 for payment for the period of Jan. 30 through Feb. 12.