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Schuylkill County, Pa., Mental Health Agency Seeks Financial-Planning Help

Posted on: Thursday, 21 July 2005, 15:01 CDT

Jul. 21--The administrator of Schuylkill County's Mental Health-Mental Retardation agency has asked the county commissioners to hire a Harrisburg area firm for $13,500 to help plan its financial policies and procedures.

The commissioners expect to consider Administrator Daniel McGrory's request at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

The firm, Stanalonis and Associates, would establish fiscal and accounting policies and procedures for both the MH-MR and county Drug and Alcohol agencies, McGrory told the commissioners Wednesday.

In addition, Stanalonis and Associates would help "define and implement administrative and fiscal oversight and monitoring criteria" to evaluate the performance of the company that now handles the agencies' programs, McGrory said.

That company, Service Access Management Inc. of Reading, is a year into a three-year contract to operate the programs.

When the contract expires, the county will have to measure how well the company did. Officials will look at how well -- and how cost-efficiently -- it provided services, how it met goals and other criteria.

The commissioners also expect to approve the $2.9 million annual operating budget for the programs. The amount will be offset by an anticipated $645,750 in revenue, county Administrator William J. Reppy said.

The MH-MR agency recently hired a fiscal manager, John Reid, and plans to hire a financial officer who would supervise Reid.

That person would oversee financial operations for MH-MR and the Drug and Alcohol agency, a total $25 million operation, Reppy said.

Reppy said the firm's principal, Paul Stanalonis, has experience on both the business and the provider side.

"Based on the history at MH-MR, we feel that as we develop a new financial department there that we have to have a very solid foundation with checks and balances -- in particular because we're using an outside company," Reppy said.

"So we have to make sure we have somebody down there who has a good, solid base and solid knowledge to perform the audits and the checks that are required by contract to make sure we don't get into the same position we were in before."

The county is trying to extricate itself from that position.

It outsourced its MH-MR program last year after an audit by the firm of Parente Randolph of Hazleton revealed the program had amassed more than $9 million in budget overruns since 2000, spending more than $21 million in fiscal 2003 without keeping formal records.

Parente Randolph's report said MH-MR kept no formal records as it spent its $18.1 million budget for fiscal 2003, then continued spending as it racked up an overrun of $3.2 million.

The county has also outsourced Drug and Alcohol programs to Service Access.

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Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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