kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG As the COVID-19 vaccination process continues to develop, arrangements are being made to again offer COVID-19 testing in February at the Blair County Convention Center.
AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, the state Department of Health contractor that set up a COVID-19 drive-thru testing clinic at the convention center in November, will return to the center from Feb. 5-9 for more testing, county Director of Public Safety Mark Taylor said Tuesday when addressing commissioners.
More information about the first-come, first-serve testing opportunity will be released as it becomes available, Taylor said.
The state, in response to recent increases in COVID-19 cases, set up drive-thru clinics in Clarion, Bradford and Pike counties.
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG Blair County commissioners are considering a follow-up contract with East Coast Risk Management, the company that took much longer than anticipated to finish a salary study with recommendations not yet addressed.
“This is for work going forward,” Human Resources Director Katherine Swigart told commissioners Tuesday when she presented four job-related tasks that East Coast could handle.
Those tasks include updating the study’s pay scale report, at a cost of $140 per hour, reviewing and/or creating a job description, establishing a task-based value of each job title and assigning jobs to pay grades. For a task fitting into one of those three descriptions estimated at about 15 annually the county will pay $450 each under the proposal.
pray@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG Blair County President Judge Elizabeth Doyle has canceled criminal court jury selections for January and February because of the recent increase in the COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.
“I just don’t think it’s safe,” the judge stated in an interview late Tuesday morning, following a meeting of the Blair County commissioners in which one of the items presented for discussion was an agreement with Fullington Trailways LLC to transport prospective jurors to and from the Antique Depot in Duncansville to the courthouse for jury selections in 2021.
Commissioners Bruce Erb, Laura Burke and Amy Webster are scheduled to approve the agreement during a meeting this afternoon.
â- Administration, $78,303.
â- Broadband deployment, $197,076.
â- Payments to small businesses, $2,766,613.
â- Assistance to Blair County municipalities, including the purchase of personal protective equipment, $2,238,874.
â- Nonprofit assistance programs for tax-exempt entities, $511,529.
The Blair County commissioners on Wednesday approved their final report on the expenditure of more than $11 million of federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
Commissioners Chairman Bruce Erb said after the meeting the money was “huge, huge” for many small businesses and nonprofit agencies.
The commissioners Erb, Amy Webster and Laura Burke were on a 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline to submit the final CARES Act report to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG Blair County commissioners voted 2-to-1 Tuesday to adopt a proposed $57.48 million budget that imposes a fraction of a mill increase in 2021’s real estate taxes.
While commissioners Bruce Erb and Laura Burke voted in favor, Commissioner Amy Webster voted against the budget.
“I cannot support the general fund budget and accompanying spending plan,” Webster said. “As we just reviewed, it’s funded by a tax increase and a deficit spending plan.”
The 2021 tax increase from 4.074 mills to 4.097 mills reflects an increase in debt payments and the reinstatement of the recreational tax levy to offset the loss of tax revenue linked to the coronavirus pandemic.