Trending
LOCK HAVEN -- The Clinton County Board of Commissioners will consider a resolution which could assist in the county's ability to receive broadband funds.
During its work session Monday, the board heard from county Engineer/Planner Steve Gibson about the resolution to support a county-wide Broadband Ready Communities program.
"BEAD -- which is the Broadband Equity and Deployment program -- is the federal program to provide internet to all. Pennsylvania's share is $1.16 billion," Gibson explained.
Gibson said, in order for the county to improve its chances of receiving a share of the $1.16 billion municipalities need to "essentially make it easy for broadband companies to come in and do work on the right-of-ways."
"This just streamlines permitting and things like that," he continued.
The resolution, which will be up for consideration at the board's voting session Thursday morning, would show support to the county's 29 municipalities in their efforts to pass ordinance to make them broadband ready communities.
"This will put our county higher up on the funding list, because we'll be ready when the program actually starts," Gibson said.
Commissioner Angela Harding asked Gibson if the county's planning department will reach out to the municipalities.
"We'll reach out to all 29 municipalities. If we need to go to a meeting and talk to them about what they need to do to be ready for broadband deployment we will," he said.
Also in other planning/engineering related items -- Gibson said the board will also consider an agreement between the county and Flemington Borough to provide engineering and planning services.
"Municipal planning code allows the planning department to provide engineering or planning services," he said.
The services would be to assist through the construction and PennVEST reimbursement for a sewer project at a cost of $9,500.
The board will also consider multiple Children and Youth Services contracts Thursday, according to CYS Assistant Director Tristan Rock.
"This is the start of our annual renewal. Children and Youth operates on the fiscal year so we always renew our contracts in June... before the start of the new fiscal on July 1," she said.
Rock touched on the contract for consideration regarding attorney services.
"It's a list of all the attorneys we utilize for parents, truancy cases, children attorneys... any clients our agency works with," she said.
According to Rock, the contract includes a rate increase of $10, which was requested by President Judge Craig Miller.
"We abide by the recommendation that he makes. So they are going from $90 to $100 an hour," she said.
Rock noted the contracts are reimbursed through Children and Youth.
"Depending on the type of hearing and type of case they are appointed to preside over it's roughly 80 to 95 percent reimbursement depending on the circumstances," she said.
Children and Youth is expected to receive a $50,000 grant from the Human Services Development Fund, which is breaks up between local service providers and organizations.
"It's 100 percent reimbursed by the state so there's no county backing. It's broken up between the Ross Library, Clinton County Community Connections, Confer Home Health and two different infant development programs," she said.
The final contract for consideration is with Joinder Clinical Information System. Rock said this would be the final contract with the company after the department switched its information system to Child Accounting and Profile System (CAPS).
"This should be the last agreement we need to put in place for this," she said. "It's just to get the last invoice through what should be all resolved by the end of this fiscal year."
Rock said the transition from JCIS to CAPS has been relatively smooth.
"We are fully integrated now, everything has been converted," she said. "(CAPS) provides a help desk which is available to use through phone or email during normal business hours. They've been very responsive and helpful."
Also on Thursday's agenda will be three items related to the county's IT Department.
IT Director Ernie Jackson said the board will consider two contract renewals with Microfocus.
"One is a license renewal for one year which is $28,153.15 for 350 users licenses of our group-wide email system," he said.
The second is to retain email archive systems for $9,190.88 for another year.
The final item for consideration will be renewal with IBM Spectrum to retain its back ups at a cost of $13,887.20.
"These are all annual renewals. We have budgeted and they've been year after year," he said.
The board will hold its voting session at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 16 in the second floor meeting room of the Clinton County Government Building, 2 Piper Way, Lock Haven. The meeting is also live streamed on the county's Facebook page.