Lebanon County Commissioners conducted their organizational meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 2, to make committee appointments and set their 2024 public meeting schedule.
The commissioners unanimously voted to reappoint Commissioner Robert Phillips to serve as chair and commissioners Mike Kuhn and Jo Ellen Litz to serve as vice chair and secretary, respectively. Also appointed to the Board of County Commissioners were Jamie Wolgemuth as administrator and Matthew Bugli as county solicitor, the latter of whom was hired in a full-time capacity at the end of 2023 to replace part-time solicitor Dave Warner, who was elected as a Magisterial District Judge for Palmyra in the 2023 general election.
Commissioners also set their 2024 public meeting schedule as the first and third Thursdays of each month with a special meeting on Thursday, Dec. 26, for the purpose of adopting the 2025 general fund budget. All regularly scheduled meetings begin at 9:30 a.m. in Room 207 of the county municipal building at 400 S. 8th St., Lebanon.
Commissioners also made appointments to the salary, assessment and election boards. All but three of the appointments for these various boards were made unanimously.
Following the third and final vote to appoint county administrator Jamie Wolgemuth, county solicitor Matt Bugli and chief county assessor Daniel Seaman to serve on the assessment board as part of their job duties at no additional compensation, Phillips asked assessment board chairman Litz if she was casting a yes vote for these appointments since he didn’t hear her reply.
Litz replied that she only had to vote as chairman if there was a tie.
“I just want to be sure that we don’t have an issue of split votes since the one might come up,” said Phillips in response to Litz. “I wasn’t hearing an ‘aye’.”
Before the assessment board adjourned, Wolgemuth asked Litz for a clarification for the sake of clarity in the minutes concerning her actual vote for those three appointments.
“Well, I vote on ties … but, otherwise, it’s assumed it’s a yes,” said Litz to Wolgemuth’s question. “I don’t think I technically voted on them, I was holding my vote if there was a….”
Wolgemuth noted that’s never been done before to which Litz agreed, “that’s true.” She then pivoted to solicitor Bugli for his recommendation on how to have her non-vote represented in the minutes, adding she would honor whatever he said.
A potential reason Wolgemuth asked for a clarification was to ensure the record was accurate following a correction of the minutes by Litz at the Dec. 21 meeting for a vote cast by the commissioners at their Dec. 7 meeting.
At the late-December meeting, Litz said her no vote to hire seven new county employees was made a yes vote incorrectly in the Dec. 7 minutes and she asked them to be amended. Bugli was one of the seven individuals she voted against hiring at the Dec. 7 meeting.
LebTown asked Litz if her no vote for the seven hires on Dec. 7 was in opposition to the hiring of Bugli and she said that he was one of several individuals she opposed hiring.
On Tuesday, Bugli, who was on the first day of his new job as county solicitor, recommended that Litz’s non-replies at the organization meeting be recorded as abstaining for the purposes of keeping the meeting minutes clean. Litz then agreed that the record should show that the vote was 2-0 for those appointments and her abstaining.
To further complicate matters, when Litz read the individual motions for those three appointments to the assessment board, she named Wolgemuth and Seaman but said “a solicitor” when seeking an appointment to the board for that position.
When Kuhn made a motion for the appointment, he appointed Bugli specifically by name, with Phillips seconding the motion.
LebTown asked Litz after the meeting why she didn’t name Bugli when his name was listed on the list of recommended appointees as shared with the media prior to the meeting. She said she did not provide a name in case someone wanted to appoint someone else instead.
On a separate item during the assessment board meeting, commissioners voted 2-1 to authorize the county to pay all necessary expenses incurred by the Board of Assessment Revision of Taxes from appropriations for necessary and legal expenses. Litz was the lone no vote against payment authorization.
During discussion prior to that vote, Phillips mentioned that there was funding approved in the 2024 budget to explore creating an independent assessment board so that the same individuals who are setting tax millage rates are not also deciding assessment appeals.
“We are doing the assessment hearings and we’re also setting the millage and, to me, there should be some separation there,” said Phillips. “That’s why I’m looking at an independent panel to do the assessment hearings and we can do the tax issue.”
Litz said she believes those two roles can co-exist.
“I am against that move because I believe we are elected to do this job and the only reason I could see to change it is if you don’t want to follow the law that I was chair,” said Litz, who is guaranteed by law to serve as chair as the longest serving county commissioner. “It is the only thing I really chair. We all had to take certification courses and get certified to do this and I feel we should continue.”
After the 2-1 vote, Wolgemuth asked for clarity for the minutes for whether she opposed the concept of having an independent assessment panel or if she was opposed to the motion. Litz replied she opposed the full motion because she did not agree with the discussion, adding Phillips said his comments were part of the motion.
Prior to the assessment board adjourning, Phillips asked that the minutes clearly show that what he said about an independent panel was part of discussion and not a motion to amend the motion to authorize the payment of expenses as originally presented.
The assessment board’s hearing dates schedule was amended to change meetings to the first Thursday of each month with September and October only being held on an as-needed basis.
Other board appointments are listed below.
Assessment Board
- Chair – Jo Ellen Litz
- Vice Chair – Bob Phillips
- Secretary – Mike Kuhn
- Administrator – Jamie Wolgemuth
- Solicitor – Matthew Bugli
- Chief County Assessor – Daniel Seaman
Elections Board
- Chair – Mike Kuhn
- Vice Chair – Bob Philips
- Secretary – Jo Ellen Litz
- Chief Clerk – Sean Drasher
- Solicitor – Matthew Bugli
Salary Board
- Chair – Robert Phillips
- Vice Chair – Mike Kuhn
- Secretary – Jo Ellen Litz
- Solicitor – Matthew Bugli
Committee Appointments
Bob Phillips – Community Action Partnership, Commission on Drug & Alcohol Abuse, Department of Emergency Services, Expo Center, Penn State Cooperative Extension, Information Technology Services, City and Lebanon and Area Agency on Aging.
Mike Kuhn – Lebanon Valley Destination Marketing Organization, United Way, Economic Development Corp, Lebanon Transit, Mental Health/Intellectual Disabilities/Early Intervention, Renova Center, Children & Youth, Governor Dick, Elections, and Planning
Jo Ellen Litz – Assessment, Conservation District, Geographical Information Systems, Commission for Women, Veterans Affairs, South Central Investment Board, Building & Grounds, Chamber of Commerce, and Housing & Redevelopment Authority.
Concerning the salary board, commissioners voted to set salaries for all employees in the controller, courts, district attorney, prothonotary/clerk of courts, recorder of deeds, register of wills/orphans court, sheriff and treasurer’s departments and offices, effective Jan. 2.
In other county business, the commissioners voted to approve all 2023 minutes for the salary board, board of assessment, elections/voter registration and county board and accept a plethora of various banks as depository for county programs and state and federally funded initiatives for money that comes to Lebanon County.
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