December 20, 2009

$200,000 set aside for technology costs in Montco

By: MARGARET GIBBONS The Intelligencer

Two Montgomery County row officers have loosened the purse strings on their technology funds to help with the county's overall bottom line.

Prothonotary Marc Levy and Clerk of Courts Ann Thornburg Weiss have stepped up with almost $200,000 to pay next year's maintenance costs for computer software programs for documents and workflow management systems used by their offices as well as other county departments including the register of wills and domestic relations offices.

Normally, the county has to foot the bill for these costs, taking the money from the general fund.

However, citing the county's need to stretch tax dollars because of the current economy, Levy and Thornburg this year dipped into their own technology funds to cover the costs.

The technology funds over which these independently elected officials have exclusive control are generated by fees charged by the office.

Levy, who also chipped in last year, will pay about $130,000 of the contract costs while Weiss will pick up the remaining approximate $60,000 on the $189,963 tab.

"We are in difficult times and the taxpayers are looking to us to work together," according to Levy who, like Weiss, is a Democrat.

The pair earlier this month was targeted by Republican Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr. when he released his proposals on how the county could balance its budget.

In one of the proposals, Castor said the commissioners should demand that the pair return about $700,000 in technology funds that were dumped into the county's general fund coffers by their two GOP predecessors just prior to leaving office in 2007. In the alternative, Castor said, the commissioners should reduce the budgets of those two departments by a combined $700,000.

When Levy and Weiss found that their automation cupboards were bare, they asked the commissioners to return the money.

With a potential legal battle looming and agreeing with Levy and Weiss that the prior officeholders were being vindictive because of the unprecedented Democratic victories for those two row offices, Democratic Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel III and Republican Commissioner Chairman James R. Matthews voted to return the funds.

Castor was opposed to the return of the funds then and now, claiming it was a mistake and "foolish" of the commissioners since the prior officeholders had every legal right to give the money to the county.

Both Weiss and Levy said they have no intentions of returning the $700,000 nor did Castor's proposal to reduce their budgets receive support from his fellow commissioners.

Weiss and Levy said their decision to help with the software maintenance costs had nothing to do with Castor's proposed initiative.

Margaret Gibbons can be reached at 610-279-6153 or mgibbons@phillyBurbs.com.

December 20, 2009