Controller calls for county cell phone rules

Luzerne County Controller Walter Griffith said he must start requiring roughly 200 employees with county cell phones to delineate which calls are personal and which are county-related.

The law requires that personal calls on government phones be reported as income on W-2 forms, Griffith said.

Such reporting would be unnecessary if commissioners passed a policy banning all personal calls on county phones, but it’s unclear if commissioners will take that action.

Griffith’s deputy, Frank Pinnacoli, recently sent commissioners an e-mail informing them that the Internal Revenue Service has designated cell phones as a type of property that lends itself “easily to personal use.”

To exclude cell phones from an employee’s taxable income, commissioners must institute a policy stating that the phones are for business use only and routinely audit billings to confirm that personal calls were not made, Pinnacoli wrote.

“The IRS wants their money, and if we’re not putting proper wages down they don’t like that. That’s why they mandate that if we give an employee a benefit, we must document it,” Griffith said.

Griffith said he is also examining the same reporting requirement for employees who take home county vehicles. County minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban has also raised that issue.

Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla said employees must comply if the personal call delineation is required by law.

Urban said the county has a policy for land-line phones and should craft one for cell phones. He said he has no problem banning personal calls on county phones.

Urban, who does not have a county cell phone, said he supports Griffith’s plans to perform periodic audits. He said he does not know if anyone excessively uses a county phone for personal business.

“I see a lot of employees with two phones – the county phone and their own,” he said.

Commissioner Thomas Cooney said he is still getting a handle on county cell phone usage but noted that the cost has gone down.

The county spent $154,175 on cell phones in 2007, compared to $113,975 in 2008 and $59,000 in 2009. Monthly access charges typically range from $29.99 to $49.99, according to county records.

Griffith also wants commissioners to publicly discuss and vote on which employees receive county phones, but none of the commissioners is embracing that concept.

“Some decisions have to be left up to the directors of the departments who are responsible for their budgets,” Petrilla said. “The commissioners have no way of knowing the job duties in every single department to be able to determine who needs or doesn’t need a cell phone.”

She added that employees who have county cell phones are required to be available at all hours to “address county matters.”

Griffith has also requested an accounting of all phones that are not assigned to specific employees on cell phone bills. About 80 percent of the phone lines have been documented to date, he said. Some phones are used as needed by multiple employees within a department, he said.

Jennifer Learn-Andes, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7333.

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Luzerne County Government

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