Luzerne County Council will soon take over manager selection decision

Now that Luzerne County’s manager search committee is closing in on recommending finalists for the top manager position, it will soon be time for county council to get involved.

Council has not yet publicly discussed how it plans to proceed with its own interviews and evaluation after the search committee wraps up its home rule charter requirement to recommend the applicants it believes are the most qualified.

In the last manager search in 2016, the citizen search committee emailed the resumes and applications of its three chosen finalists to county council members on April 15.

It took nearly a month, until May 10, for seven of the 11 council members to provide the votes required to hire C. David Pedri for the position.

The committee’s finalist list was in alphabetical order with no ranking to prevent bias in council’s own independent review and avoid potential liability if council did not select the committee’s top choice.

Council members said they spent hours grilling the finalists and completing other vetting. Council also uniformly rated the finalists using protocol deployed when Robert Lawton was hired as the first manager shortly after the home rule government’s January 2012 implementation. Lawton had resigned the end of 2015.

Finalists were asked the same questions during council’s interviews to be fair, council members said at the time.

Background checks, personality assessments and other screening of the finalists completed by the search committee also were made available for all council members to review.

The search committee had recommended three finalists to council in 2016 — Pedri, of Butler Township; Jeffrey D. Beck, of Mountain Top; and David W. Johnston, of Washington.

However, Johnston withdrew, informing the county he was pursuing other opportunities, according to published reports at the time.

Johnston’s withdrawal prompted a council debate about how to proceed. At the request of then-council Chairman Linda McClosky Houck, the search committee forwarded the resumes of two more applicants tied at its fourth highest ranking. However, council did not end up interviewing those two.

A compensation package also had to be drafted before council voted.

When hiring Pedri at $120,000, council also approved an employment agreement granting him 2% raises in 2017 and 2018.

The newspaper printed the names of the finalists after they were presented to council, with the information obtained from a source who argued the public has a right to the information when applicants were formally under council consideration.

The county is not yet at that stage in this search. As previously reported, the committee has selected five applicants who will be asked to participate in a second interview and undergo background tests and an outside personality assessment.

It remains to be seen if the committee recommends all five to council. The committee plans to recommend at least three.

The committee had set an early April target to present its recommendations to council, but Committee Chairman Chris Hackett said Tuesday it may be sooner.

“We are now working on an accelerated time frame while balancing that with doing a thorough job,” Hackett said.

The committee plans to complete its second round of interviews in person, although it will need council to earmark additional funds for the travel. Hackett said he will appear before council at its work session Feb. 8 to request an additional $10,000 allocation, including $6,000 to cover expenses for applicants to travel here for interviews. Council could then decide whether to grant the request at its subsequent voting meeting Feb. 22.

County Councilman Gregory Wolovich Jr. told the committee he believes remote interviews should suffice for the committee to determine which applicants should be recommended because council will want to perform in-person interviews.

Councilman Tim McGinley voiced a similar opinion Tuesday, saying he would be hesitant to earmark funds for travel when technology is available for the committee to conduct remote interviews. While emphasizing he is happy to hear Hackett’s presentation, McGinley said he would want to meet candidates in person after council has time to perform its own review of the committee’s recommendations.

Council did not incur travel expenses for its interviews in 2016 because Johnston was the only out-of-area applicant, and he withdrew before being interviewed.

A salary also must be set by council for the new manager.

A council majority had voted in November to state a compensation of up to $185,000 in advertisements for the manager position, which is around the maximum allowable under the charter based on the district attorney’s compensation. The charter says the manager must make at least 55% of the DA’s compensation.

Pedri had been receiving an annual compensation of $137,333 when he resigned last July to accept other employment.