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PLAINS TWP. — With two members absent at the start of the meeting, the Joint Operating Committee that runs the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center voted 9-0 Monday night to hire JOC Chairman John Mahle’s daughter-in-law as administrative secretary/practical nursing department at a starting salary of $42,000.

The JOC is made of representatives from the school boards of five member districts. Mahle is the president of the Hanover Area School Board. He abstained from the vote for Melissa Mahle, and explained the relationship afterwards, adding that she has worked at Benco Dental for at least two decades.

The practical nursing items were near the end of the agenda, but solicitor Jack Dean announced at the start that it would be brought up first so that the two representatives from the Pittston Area School Board, Bruce Knick and Martin Quinn, could vote before leaving early. Dean said both men had something they had to do with their home district.

Knick and Quinn left immediately after voting on the three items under the practical nursing part of the agenda. The other two items were approving spending $54,421 with Assessment Technologies Institute, LLC, which provides testing at various levels for the nursing program, which is run in a separate section of the CTC building. The other item vote was to pay for the annual accreditation fee for the nursing program at a cost of $2,875.

The meeting was short. The board agreed to renew membership for the International Association of Electrical Inspectors at $120 for the year, renew membership dues in the Pennsylvania FFA Association for the Horticulture Program at a cost of $540, and renew consulting actuary services with Conrad Siegel at a cost of $5,000.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish