County’s HR boss resigns effective Dec. 4

Doug Richards has resigned from his $71,000 job as Luzerne County human resources director, effective Dec. 4. Richards has been in the job for more than four years.

Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla said Richards contacted her Monday night and indicated he was pursuing a consulting opportunity in the private sector.

Richards had failed to respond to requests from a reporter Monday about the county’s hiring of a New York City consulting company that three sources say is being investigated by a federal grand jury.

The company – Continental Consultants Group Inc. – was hired without bids or public approval in April 2007 by the county’s Workforce Investment Development Agency to oversee temporary staff hired for a post-flood cleanup program.

County senior staffers – without public Board of Commissioners approval – then used that contract to pay county retirees who continued to work as consultants, even though that work had nothing to do with the flood cleanup program, records show.

County Workforce Investment Development Agency Director Richard Ammon, who signed the April 2007 contract, appeared before a federal grand jury in Scranton a week ago to present information about the contract and answer questions, three sources say.

Ammon declined to discuss the topic of his grand jury testimony but said the decision to hire Continental came from the county Human Resources Department.

Confronted as he headed into contract negotiations Tuesday, Richards said he knew nothing about the grand jury investigation and was surprised to read about it in the newspaper.

Richards said he did not select Continental, but he would not say who did or discuss the circumstances on how the company ended up working in Luzerne County.

Richards said he was not commenting further because of the investigation. He said he consulted attorneys for direction on Monday night.

When the issue was raised in a 2008 news article, Richards said he and other senior staffers decided to switch the county retiree consultants from OneSource Staffing Solutions in Wilkes-Barre to Continental for “convenience” because the company had agreed to oversee temporary help hired for the flood cleanup.

Richards said OneSource was not interested in working on the flood program because of the liability and workers’ compensation. However, a OneSource representative said at the time that the company was not made aware of the opportunity to work on the flood program.

The only company by that name listed in the New York state corporations bureau does not identify the owners. A Hauppauge, N.Y., law firm – Miller, Apfel & Curran PLLC – is listed as the mailing address, but a representative of the firm said it has no affiliation with the company. The company is not at the 250 W. 49th Street, Suite 703, address listed on the county contract, according to a representative of GSS Security Services Inc., which is listed at the same address. The GSS employee said her company has no connection to Continental and that Continental moved out of a nearby suite.

Messages left with the company’s answering service Monday and Tuesday were not returned. An answering service operator said Tuesday that the company is located at 265 Sunrise Highway in Rockville Centre, N.Y. A representative of Eldan Properties, the building owner, said there is no tenant under that company name, though some use the address as a post office box because a postal center is located in the building. A postal service employee said there is no Continental Consultants renting a postal address. She said she has been receiving mail for that company but had to return it to the senders.

It’s unclear what Continental was paid for the county contracts because its fee was included in with the payments to retirees and flood workers.

According to the contract, which is only two pages, Continental clerical personnel would be paid 1.19 percent of the employee’s hourly rate, and field personnel would be paid at 1.33 percent.

The company was paid to process payroll, provide workers’ compensation coverage and withhold and file all payroll taxes on behalf of the employees.

Richards, of Wilkes-Barre, was hired in April 2005 to fill the human resources job, which had been vacant since Kimberli Weiland left in June 2004.

Weiland was fired after a Times Leader investigation revealed she had been disbarred for altering her law school transcripts, was wanted in Indiana on a shoplifting charge and faced charges in Ohio after allegedly obstructing a police investigation.