Luzerne County Government

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter
Jennifer Learn-Andes on Facebook   |   @TLJenLearnAndes on Twitter

Luzerne County Controller Walter Griffith sat in the familiar audience section before Monday’s county Salary Board meeting.

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Walter Griffith is sworn in as Luzerne County controller at the county courthouse. Looking on is Griffith’s wife, Mary Jo.

Pete g. wilcox/the times leader

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“I guess I should sit up there,” he said jokingly before taking his seat with other board members at the head of the commissioners meeting room.

After years of railing against waste and incompetence from the audience, Griffith now has a vote to make decisions in county government.

The salary board meeting was a brief reorganization session, with members agreeing to meet on Jan. 20 to reauthorize a departmental list of county jobs and salaries.

Griffith immediately headed to his office in the Penn Place building, accompanied by family members who had gathered in the courthouse rotunda earlier to watch him take the oath of office.

He said his new office already is filling up with the many records he’s gathered as a taxpayer watchdog.

Completing overdue audits is his most pressing concern.

“By the end of January, I’ll have a list of audits that have to be done and have them assigned to people for completion,” he said.

Griffith said he learned in his first day on the job that some controller’s office employees are weighed down with tasks that are not their responsibility.

For example, managers rely on the office to consult with the budget office when there’s not enough money in a particular account to fund a payment request.

“If money is not there, it’s not our job to go and find out where money should be switched to cover it. We don’t have the staff to do that,” Griffith said.

He plans to send a memo to department heads informing them that payment requests will be sent back to their offices if they haven’t identified accounts with sufficient funds.

With unnecessary work eliminated, controller’s office employees will have more time to complete audits and examine payment requests to make sure they are properly authorized and backed up with receipts and other documentation, he said.

Griffith held off on paying three bills Monday because he wants to make sure they are authorized by a valid contract. If there are contracts, they were not filed in his office as required by law, he said.

“I have to look at everything with such scrutiny,” Griffith said. “We’re in a new day.”

The county had been without an elected controller since Maryanne Petrilla became a county commissioner in January 2008. Griffith, a Republican, beat Democrat Bob Morgan and Independent Wil Toole in the November election.