Pact signed by official disputed

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.comLuzerne County Reporter

A document scanning contract with a New York company is in limbo because it was signed by Luzerne County Recorder of Deeds James “Red” O’Brien without the approval of county commissioners, officials said.

County Solicitor Vito DeLuca has repeatedly stressed since the start of 2009 that commissioners are the sole contracting agents by law. County Controller Walter Griffith said O’Brien entered into the contract with Liverpool, N.Y.-based Info Quick Solutions Inc. in June 2010.

Griffith has stopped payment on several contracts that that weren’t approved by commissioners.

Most, if not all, of those past payments were ultimately issued and reluctantly approved by commissioners after the parties who were owed money threatened litigation.

Griffith recently halted an $11,591 payment to Info Quick Solutions after he requested a copy of the contract from O’Brien and discovered that it had not been approved by commissioners.

O’Brien asked commissioners to OK the agreement, but they voted Wednesday to table a decision pending DeLuca’s review. DeLuca told commissioners the contract is unacceptable as written because it doesn’t specify that the commissioners must approve future renewals permitted in the contract.

Developments with the company in New York may also impact the commissioners’ decision. New York area news reports say the FBI is investigating Info Quick Solutions and the Oswego County Clerk’s Office over alleged improprieties involving its contract there.

The Oswego County Ethics Board found a deputy county clerk guilty of working for Info Quick while employed by the county office that had a government contract with the company, the reports said. Info Quick had also verified that other county clerk employees had also worked for the company in the past while its contract was in effect.

O’Brien could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday on the issues involving the Luzerne County contract. The scanning work was to be funded by a special county record improvement fund.

Griffith said he believes the county should reject the contract but pay Info Quick for work that has been completed to date. Griffith said he wouldn’t expect the company to know that commissioners must approve county contracts.

The controller said he also will advise commissioners to file a claim against an errors-and-omissions bond posted on elected county officials, including O’Brien, to recoup the money paid to Info Quick.

Griffith said his office had cleared a roughly $13,000 payment to Info Quick before the contract had been received by his office, and it was too late to stop the payment by the time the approval problem was discovered.