00:00 - This program has been paid for by the sponsor and does not reflect

00:03 - the views of PCN.

00:12 - Hi, I'm Lisa Schaefer,

00:13 - executive director for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

00:17 - Welcome to County Connections Show Spotlighting County's Involvement

00:20 - in Everyday Lives.

00:22 - On today's show, we're going to be talking about two of county's top legislative

00:25 - priorities for 2020 4911 funding and vote by mail reforms.

00:30 - Joining me in the studio today is Butler County Commissioner Kevin Musil.

00:34 - Start a conversation about the county role in 911.

00:37 - Welcome, Kevin.

00:38 - Thank you, Lisa. Glad to be here.

00:40 - So, Kevin, you know, people don't really think about 911

00:43 - unless they have a need to call it on an emergency situation.

00:47 - So as a refresher, can you explain why?

00:49 - Why are we here talking about counties and 911?

00:52 - What's what's the. Role?

00:53 - Well, 911 is ran by counties, each county commissioners are responsible

00:57 - for the 911 services.

00:59 - Interesting fact, in 1985, less than 50% of Americans had access to 911.

01:04 - And so we've come a long way to this point.

01:07 - And actually, in Pennsylvania, the first time when one center was built

01:10 - in Butler County, which is where I'm from, so we found it very useful.

01:14 - But it's a critical service.

01:15 - Obviously, as folks know, when you call, you want somebody to A pick up and B,

01:19 - you want the service to be coming,

01:21 - whether it be an ambulance service, police service or fire service.

01:24 - And along with some other mental health issues and things that people call for.

01:28 - We want to have that access to that 911 service.

01:31 - And, you know,

01:32 - we have a lot of other one one services, but this is really the backbone.

01:35 - This is the number one call number that people want to have availability to.

01:40 - So I can imagine that some people picture when they call 911

01:43 - answers the dispatch system, you know, oh, here's your call.

01:47 - I'm going to route it over here. Sure.

01:48 - But it's a lot more complicated than that, isn't it?

01:50 - It absolutely is.

01:51 - We have switching systems.

01:53 - We're sharing with other counties.

01:54 - We have next generation 911 services, which basically people

01:59 - can text to their 911 service to get help.

02:02 - We also have a photo option that they can take, a photo

02:06 - which imagine as a firefighter, if you're going on scene and you actually have a

02:10 - scene or video or a photo of that scene before you get there,

02:13 - you can sort of preplan that the information in a picture

02:17 - you couldn't say in a thousand words

02:18 - over the radio, which you wouldn't want to do anyway.

02:20 - But it saves a lot of time

02:22 - and gives a better refresher for the folks that are responding.

02:26 - I'm guessing with the next generation, all the technology, I'm guessing,

02:29 - number one, services have changed over time.

02:31 - Well, sure.

02:32 - We actually do have one of the oldest

02:34 - batch routing records still sitting as a museum piece.

02:38 - And I was talking to somebody that actually ran that as a dispatcher.

02:40 - But, you know, when we move into the next generation, I'm one one.

02:43 - We we're talking about technology

02:45 - that has grown so that you think about your phone, right?

02:48 - You went from your dial

02:49 - phone, the punch phone to cellular phone, which back in the day was flip.

02:53 - And I'm sorry if you still have one of those.

02:54 - But we're now at smartphones with some of the smartest technology is in our hand.

02:58 - It's the same with the 911 system.

03:00 - The systems that they're using, CAD systems, the radio systems,

03:04 - the frequencies are all I mean, they're beyond what we could have ever imagined.

03:09 - And trying to keep up to that in that technology is very intensive.

03:13 - So with all of that, I'm guessing it's pretty easy to be a nine on one dispatcher

03:16 - then, isn't it?

03:17 - It's one of the toughest jobs out there, I would tell you.

03:19 - And I say that

03:21 - the training and the way they respond to a call actually sets the call up.

03:25 - And I by that I mean when a91 dispatcher radios out

03:29 - and calls out to a police fire, EMS, their tone of their voice

03:33 - kind of sets the scale for the hyper ness of the responder.

03:37 - So, you know, they're trained on keeping it level calm, responsive

03:41 - to not only the first responder, but also to the person that's calling.

03:45 - Try to keep them calm.

03:46 - Make sure you're giving them clear, concise directions.

03:49 - The training that we have to give them on how to respond for a medical call,

03:52 - how to respond for whatever case may be happening.

03:56 - It's all pre-scripted,

03:57 - but they have to be able to communicate that very clearly and very quickly.

04:02 - So all this is the technology, the staff.

04:04 - It's obviously going to take a quite an investment in resources.

04:07 - Sure.

04:08 - So we're looking at, you know, investment of and

04:11 - this is all being paid through a phone service on your phone bills.

04:14 - And whether it be your technology or device, whatever connects to nine one.

04:17 - One is how it's paid for.

04:18 - Currently in Pennsylvania,

04:19 - all states are a little bit different, but that's how Pennsylvanians work.

04:22 - And it was a dollar 65, and it just recently went up to a dollar 95.

04:27 - And with that increase, it's helped tremendously.

04:30 - And we're very grateful that it's gone up.

04:31 - But the the real part of that is this is a technology and service

04:35 - that should be really handled by the state and no one is being

04:39 - ran by the county.

04:41 - But the county right now, the only avenue that we have to help supplement

04:44 - the costs of that is property tax.

04:46 - And so whatever is paid for, that service of the phone

04:49 - service gets picked up by the property owners of our counties.

04:52 - And so right now we're looking at 25 to 30% of that coverage, even with

04:56 - this increase is being handled by the property owners of our counties.

05:00 - And that puts a burden on everybody.

05:02 - And so, you know, when we talk about seniors, we talk about veterans

05:05 - or spouses of veterans that are struggling to pay their taxes on their property.

05:08 - This is another one of those avenues

05:10 - that they are picking up, the pieces that are left behind,

05:13 - that aren't state funded, that really should be.

05:15 - So you

05:16 - mentioned the surcharge that funds the now one system was a dollar 65 per month

05:20 - on these on these phone bills will be going up to 95.

05:24 - But you're saying that that still leaves a pretty significant burden

05:27 - on our county property tax payers.

05:29 - So what what's necessary to properly fund the system?

05:32 - Well, I think that the we've asked the legislature to take a look at this,

05:36 - really look at the formulary, how it gets dispersed around the counties

05:40 - and also looking at

05:42 - if we just changed the formula and didn't change the funding,

05:45 - you would have winners and losers or you would have counties that win,

05:48 - you would have counties that lost

05:49 - funding and, you know, that's that's really burdensome

05:52 - because now they're going to put that on their taxpayers.

05:53 - So this increase should be continually going up.

05:57 - But we have, as you said, the 911 dispatchers, we still have to pay them.

06:02 - We still have to continue their benefits and so on.

06:04 - But we're also buying into new technology.

06:06 - We've tried to find as many efficiencies as we can.

06:09 - I know in region 13, which is where I'm from and in the Southwest,

06:13 - we've bought into radio systems, shared radio system, shared switching systems.

06:18 - There's a lot of technology that goes in.

06:20 - In fact, Westmoreland

06:21 - County holds the switching system and Butler County is many miles away.

06:24 - But that service we share, the maintenance agreements, the technology agreements,

06:28 - all of those things, it saves a lot of money to do it that way.

06:31 - And we're trying to find new avenues to make it even more efficient every day.

06:36 - But the reality is there's still a cost to keeping up with that technology

06:40 - and of course, staffing.

06:41 - You want somebody to answer that phone when you call.

06:44 - And we know that if it's not funded properly, you are going to have wait times

06:48 - regardless of what your call is.

06:49 - We won't know what it is, but you may have a wait time.

06:51 - It'll say, you know, wait until somebody picks up or whatever.

06:54 - That's that's a dangerous type of a situation we don't want to get there.

06:58 - So with the increase to a dollar 95,

07:00 - when that's going to be in place for two years,

07:02 - that's the timeframe the General Assembly and the governor set up.

07:05 - So over that two year period.

07:07 - What's your message to to lawmakers,

07:09 - the administration, about what needs to happen going forward?

07:13 - Well, I definitely want to say thank you for for listening to this point.

07:17 - I know Governor SHAPIRO put up a dollar 97 was his request.

07:21 - I know the legislature see this as an increase, but

07:25 - it's going to go up either way.

07:26 - It's either going to go up

07:26 - in the fee to technology, the services, the phone services,

07:30 - or it's going to go up in your property taxes.

07:32 - And and literally, this is a service that is only on demand by 911

07:36 - by any device.

07:37 - So it makes sense that it's coming out of that fee.

07:40 - They're going to have to take a look at what it

07:42 - what it truly costs to run this operationally.

07:45 - If they can find efficiencies.

07:46 - We're all on board. We're we're in.

07:49 - But the issue is that there's going to be an increase.

07:51 - Just like everything else.

07:53 - I haven't seen something that hasn't gone up in cost, including personnel,

07:56 - especially in our our current state of hiring and finding

08:00 - qualified people to fill these roles.

08:02 - These are critical roles, and they're very stress jobs, high stress jobs.

08:07 - So, you know, it's not like I can just pick somebody up

08:09 - and shove them in a seat and have them go with this.

08:12 - We're talking about calm

08:13 - voices and technology and being able to run that technology.

08:17 - And so there takes a good bit of training to get there.

08:19 - So we're going to need some help to keep this going.

08:22 - It's not it cannot continually fall on the county taxpayers.

08:26 - And you mentioned keeping up with technology.

08:28 - You know, just look at how much things have changed since, you know,

08:31 - you said that that old system that you used to have. Yes.

08:34 - What happens when there are new technologies

08:36 - that might offer additional ways to to to access 911?

08:40 - Well, we won't be able to implement them, unfortunately.

08:42 - And so, you know, the technology will get away from us.

08:45 - And at that point, we will be falling behind.

08:47 - And so our service, our response times, everything, everything will struggle

08:51 - after that point.

08:52 - Not only that, if we can't afford to put people in those seats,

08:55 - you will have a wait time and again, I can't stress enough that's probably

08:59 - my biggest fear, is that we're not going to

09:00 - we're already having difficulty finding these folks in this personnel.

09:04 - So if we're already struggling even at the at the level that we are,

09:08 - we're either going to pay

09:09 - personnel are going to pay for the for the systems to continually run.

09:12 - And I don't want to be put in a place where I have to make that decision.

09:15 - I don't think any county commissioner wants to be in that place

09:18 - to make a decision of whether or not we're going to pay people

09:20 - or keep our technology where it needs to be current.

09:23 - And if we're put in that position, we will be going back

09:26 - to the legislature and making them make them aware that this is happening.

09:30 - We're being pinched or we're going to have to raise the taxes

09:33 - on the property owner again and they're not going to be very,

09:37 - very receptive to that, unfortunately.

09:40 - You know, as we conclude our discussion, are there other improvements

09:43 - that I want system that you'd like to see in addition to more funding in the state?

09:46 - Well, sure.

09:47 - I think that working together with across county lines,

09:51 - banding together and finding a radio frequency that works across areas,

09:55 - you know, those technologies are sharing towers, mobile towers.

09:59 - We work with the state to get access to the state towers

10:02 - because every time we build a tower costs millions of dollars.

10:05 - But if we can find ways that we can save money, I'm all in.

10:09 - I think any county commissioner would.

10:11 - And so I think that if we move forward with this conversation

10:15 - and I'm looking forward in the next two years.

10:17 - But please, I'm asking, please don't wait until the 300 or 600 day

10:22 - and try to figure this out at the last minute.

10:24 - We need to be working on it today.

10:26 - And if you want to study, let's do the study now during this time.

10:29 - But we have to make some really critical decisions moving forward.

10:34 - So 911 is a service that,

10:35 - you know, people don't really think about unless they really need it.

10:37 - But when they really need it, they want it to be there 100%.

10:41 - 100%.

10:41 - It takes it feels like it takes hours for someone to answer the phone.

10:44 - It takes another hour for someone to show up.

10:46 - The reality is it's a good service if there's a reason why it's nine one

10:50 - and when you're panicked and you're stressed out, that's why they made it.

10:53 - Three numbers, right? 911.

10:55 - And so, you know, we want to keep that going

10:58 - for the next generation to make sure that they have services like this as well.

11:02 - But we can't guarantee it without the contribution of the state.

11:05 - And we're we keep coming back to that level.

11:07 - Commissioner, thank you so much for taking the time

11:09 - with us today to talk to our residents about the importance of nine on one,

11:12 - the critical role that counties play, and the need for those additional resources.

11:16 - It's my. Pleasure.

11:18 - When we come back, we'll be talking with Union County

11:20 - Commissioner Jeff Lieber, chair of the Caps Election Reform

11:23 - Committee, about counties priorities related to vote by mail reform.

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11:59 - Welcome back to County Connections.

12:00 - I'm here with Union County Commissioner Jeff Reber,

12:03 - who also serves as chair of our Elections Reform Committee.

12:06 - Here, talk about counties 2024, priority on vote by mail reform.

12:10 - Welcome, Jeff.

12:11 - Thank you, Lisa. It's great to be here.

12:13 - So we're talking about elections and of course, being a

12:15 - presidential election year.

12:16 - That's very top of mind for for everyone.

12:19 - What's the county role in administering elections?

12:22 - Well, the county is ultimately responsible for the elections administration.

12:25 - Actually, we do everything from mail in balloting to in-person.

12:28 - We you know, we bring in the volunteers, we count the votes, we report the votes,

12:33 - we take care of registrations and candidate information in and everything.

12:38 - The county is the election authority within the county.

12:42 - Sounds like that's not

12:43 - just a twice a day, twice a year responsibility.

12:46 - So it's not just primary Election Day in general.

12:48 - Election Day.

12:49 - A little bit more than that.

12:50 - There's a lot more than that

12:51 - because we have a lot of planning to do prior to each of those election

12:54 - periods, as well as a lot of reporting and verification to do afterwards.

12:58 - And there's just a heck of a lot of communication, a lot of training.

13:01 - You know, there's new things happening in the election world almost every day.

13:05 - And so in a week, we have a full time staff of my county, of three people

13:08 - who have to keep up to date on everything.

13:11 - And it's unfortunately not just two days worth of work.

13:14 - And, you know, a couple of years ago, a walk out at 77

13:18 - Pennsylvania expanded to implement mail in voting for all Pennsylvanians,

13:22 - which I'm guessing probably

13:23 - added to the workloads of of our counties and administering elections.

13:27 - So can you tell us a little bit about about that

13:29 - and what we've learned over the last four years since that law was implemented?

13:32 - Okay.

13:32 - Well, actually, 77, yeah, it increased the workload a little bit, so to speak.

13:37 - And what it unfortunately did was

13:41 - not exactly they didn't exactly work with the counties up front.

13:45 - So there are some unintended consequences that may have happened with the law

13:50 - in the implementation of Act 77, because our current election laws

13:53 - aren't exactly set up in order to, you know,

13:56 - in order to enact what 77 wants to do in a timely manner.

14:00 - And so therefore, you know, at the county, it's increased

14:04 - our workload, it's increased our financial investment.

14:07 - And it has, you know, caused in some counties,

14:12 - not all counties, but in some counties, it has caused a a delay

14:16 - in the reporting of results for each election.

14:20 - And that's not something anybody really wants.

14:23 - You know, Pennsylvanians are used to having the results of an election night.

14:26 - As we know the past few years.

14:28 - That's not always been the case.

14:30 - And so that's an area we had to cap in,

14:33 - not only my own county, but every county commissioner

14:36 - I talked to across the state wants to get back to.

14:39 - So you mentioned some you know, I'm sure counties are doing the best

14:42 - they can to deliver elections with with the law that they have.

14:45 - But what kind of changes could could make things better

14:49 - for counties to make to do their job. Well really do.

14:51 - And they weren't even cost measures, which is kind of nice for a change.

14:55 - But two of the things you see kept, of course,

14:57 - is pushing and trying to promote with the legislature

15:01 - and the governor is pre canvasing reform and election.

15:06 - Mail in ballot reform moving back the date

15:10 - for applying for a mail in ballot to 15 days prior to the election.

15:14 - Those two reforms, if we could get those through, would do

15:17 - tremendous wonders for county administration of the election.

15:21 - So pre canvasing might be a term that that some of our viewers have heard about.

15:25 - But you know, what does that really mean.

15:28 - From the concept of the election process?

15:31 - When we're talking about pre canvasing,

15:33 - we're talking about taking all the mail in ballots.

15:36 - And I don't know if you know how the mail in balloting process works,

15:39 - but when we do that, that mail in ballot is sent within a secrecy envelope.

15:43 - The secrecy envelope is then put into a return envelope.

15:47 - Right. So these two envelopes we have to open.

15:49 - And in order to maintain anonymity of the vote,

15:52 - there is a process we do where we first take all the.

15:56 - All those outer envelopes. Yeah. Thank you.

15:58 - Yeah, yeah. All the mail in envelopes.

16:00 - And, you know,

16:01 - we open those, but all the secrecy envelopes in their respective precinct

16:06 - and then we go through and do the whole process again with the secrecy envelope

16:09 - and then open up the actual ballot with that where it needs to go.

16:12 - And with the pre canvasing, it's those two steps plus we if we could

16:17 - then take those ballots, scan them.

16:20 - We don't count them yet.

16:21 - Right. We're only talking about scanning them.

16:22 - So they are prepared on Election Day to be counted by the computer.

16:27 - We can we could save so much work on Election Day

16:32 - that we would see the returns.

16:34 - We'd see the election returns be much,

16:37 - you know, in line with what people always wanted.

16:40 - Right.

16:40 - We'd be able to maybe see most counties have their election returns

16:44 - completely done by Election Day night.

16:47 - So when can counties do this pre canvasing process now?

16:50 - Right now we're not allowed to start till 7 p.m.

16:52 - on Election Day.

16:53 - That's just what the election code says. Right.

16:55 - So what we're asking for is that if we can pre canvass, you know,

17:00 - three days, five days, seven days ahead of time, even the larger counties

17:05 - could then, you know, probably most likely get all their mail in ballots counted,

17:09 - ready to go.

17:10 - So all we have to do at the county level is to work on the in-person election

17:15 - at that time.

17:16 - And one of the other problems with can canvasing during the actual

17:22 - Election Day is that takes resources away from supporting the in-person election.

17:26 - So if there is issues or problems, you know, we have to bring in more people

17:30 - to help manage the process, to help

17:32 - make sure that we get it done in the most timely manner possible.

17:35 - So you also mentioned that one other way we could help improve

17:38 - the process is to move the mail in application deadlines.

17:42 - Right now, it's seven days prior to an election.

17:45 - Why is that a challenge?

17:46 - Well, that's a challenge

17:47 - mostly for the voter as much as it is for anybody,

17:50 - because if you think about the postal system, the way that works, you know,

17:54 - if in seven days you request a ballot from my county, we send it to you.

17:59 - You have to fill it out, send it back.

18:02 - It could be more than seven days.

18:03 - And if your ballot is returned after 8 p.m.

18:07 - on Election Day, I hate to say it, but it's legally it does not count.

18:11 - Right.

18:12 - You may have put it in the mail in the right amount of time,

18:14 - but what matters is when did we receive it?

18:18 - So you mentioned counties are looking for

18:20 - move that deadline back to 15 days prior to an election,

18:23 - which is actually consistent with the voter registration.

18:26 - Absolutely. Absolutely.

18:27 - Which would make everything a little easier to to remember for everyone.

18:30 - That would be great.

18:30 - But, you know, in 15 days, a voter would have confidence

18:34 - that if they ask for a mail in ballot, we could get it to them,

18:38 - they could fill it out, they could get it back.

18:40 - And within that 15 days feel very confident

18:42 - that their ballot would be returned in a timely manner

18:44 - so that their vote would it would indeed count.

18:46 - And that's important to making sure that everybody

18:49 - if we're saying this is our promise with this deadline, that with that

18:52 - we can help you make sure your vote is counted, that we can make that happen.

18:55 - Absolutely.

18:56 - Because otherwise you are disenfranchizing people

18:58 - whose ballots were returned after, you know, after the Election Day.

19:03 - Are there any other asks the counties have when it comes to looking at

19:06 - how do you deal with those challenges you've seen from from mail in ballots?

19:10 - Well, really, it would be tremendous if we could get

19:14 - some clarity on things such as, you know, dates

19:19 - and dated ballots, misstated ballots.

19:22 - Those are in the court system right now, you know, signatures.

19:25 - How are they going to work?

19:26 - Just there's just a lot of those

19:29 - little things that our election laws don't account

19:32 - for that we have unfortunately had to take to the judiciary system.

19:37 - And so we relied on, you know, judges to make decisions on various

19:43 - election items with regarding mail in ballots.

19:47 - Some of those decisions have occurred very close to Election Day,

19:50 - which unfortunately makes us perhaps change

19:54 - course of what we thought we were going to do.

19:55 - That's happened more than one occasion. You know, the Department of State will make

19:59 - their decisions on certain days.

20:01 - And so

20:02 - none of that really adds a lot of clarity and a lot of comfort to the voters.

20:06 - So all we're looking for at the county is make it

20:11 - take all the subjectivity out of it that we can.

20:13 - Right?

20:14 - Get all the I's dotted, t's crossed and allow us the time

20:19 - to process the ballots in the manner so that when it comes on election night,

20:23 - we can return the results in a timely manner.

20:26 - And everybody can we can agree that, you know what,

20:29 - we had a safe, we had a secure, we had an accurate election.

20:31 - That's really what all of us want.

20:34 - You know, I think that's a great point because you've talked about the challenges

20:37 - and some of the ways that we could improve on the current law that we have.

20:40 - But counties really do a tremendous job administering elections

20:44 - within the parameters that that we have.

20:46 - So if we get into a presidential election year here, obviously the

20:49 - the safety, the security, the accuracy of our elections on everyone's mind,

20:53 - what would you tell our viewers about the work the counties do

20:55 - and what they should think of elections and election results?

20:59 - Well, I think if you have any questions, calling our county elections director,

21:03 - our elections director is more than happy to talk to anybody who calls in.

21:05 - Don't listen to the third party media.

21:08 - Don't don't listen to that.

21:09 - And don't look at all the mail that you get said about different things

21:12 - you want to know and answer. Go to the source.

21:14 - Okay, come to the county.

21:15 - That's what I want because all the counties trust us.

21:18 - We want we want accurate results.

21:20 - We want fast results.

21:22 - But we're not going to sacrifice accuracy for fast.

21:26 - You know, you just can't do that.

21:28 - So, you know, speeds important, but accuracy is much more important.

21:32 - But seriously, if you have any questions at all,

21:34 - I encourage anybody to reach out to your county elections directors

21:38 - and ask the questions, you know, get the answers directly from the people.

21:42 - Don't necessarily listen to the the third party pundits.

21:47 - Well, Commissioner, thank you so much for your time here today.

21:49 - We are certainly looking forward

21:50 - to another good year with our with our elections and the work

21:53 - the counties do with our commissioners and our election staff.

21:57 - So thank you very much. Thank you. Lisa.

22:00 - For some concluding remarks.

22:01 - We'll be joined by Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera.

22:04 - Katz, current president.

22:07 - Enjoying our programing,

22:08 - please consider a tax deductible donation to support our mission today.

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22:19 - P.S. N is everything.

22:21 - Pennsylvania Welcome back to County Connections.

22:24 - I'm here with Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera,

22:27 - serving the C Capps current president.

22:29 - Welcome, Michael.

22:30 - Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here.

22:32 - So in this episode, we've been talking about some very different Services

22:36 - County's role in nine on one county's role in elections.

22:39 - And I'm sure that's not all that counties do so for most people.

22:42 - Don't, Leslie, have a reason to interact with county government?

22:45 - They probably aren't aware of everything counties do.

22:47 - So help us understand how do counties play a role in our lives?

22:51 - And that certainly

22:53 - there's a lot of things that county does in a lot of varied things as well.

22:56 - We spoke a little bit in the show about 911 and we spoke about elections as well.

23:01 - One of the other important services that counties provide is Human Services.

23:06 - So we deal with children

23:08 - through the Children and Youth Services Department.

23:11 - We look out for the welfare of the children and the youth in the county.

23:15 - Another thing we work with under Human Services also is for the aging.

23:20 - We have the area agents agencies

23:22 - on aging which deal with the aging population in our county,

23:26 - making sure they're not being abused, making sure that they have the resources

23:29 - that they need to be able to live healthy and productive lives.

23:34 - We also work with people with mental health and developmental

23:37 - disabilities, so counties look out for those that are most in need

23:43 - and that's something that's very important that that counties do,

23:46 - because we need to make sure

23:47 - that we're looking out for those people who can't look out for themselves.

23:51 - That's another area of county government.

23:54 - One of the other things that we work on as well are county parks and Recreation.

24:00 - Different counties have different park systems.

24:02 - There may be 1 to 3 different parks trail systems,

24:06 - so that outdoor recreation for our residents is also very important.

24:11 - Counties handle that as well.

24:13 - Another important role of county government is community

24:17 - and economic development.

24:18 - And this will look different

24:19 - for the different counties depending on where they're at.

24:22 - But right now in Berks County, two things that we're working on with

24:25 - economic and community development is regional passenger rail

24:30 - to Berks County and also the growth of a regional airport as well.

24:34 - So that is a is something that's very important to our county.

24:38 - And another area that we work for that counties do as well

24:41 - is property assessment.

24:43 - Not everyone likes that, but counties do set the assessed value

24:47 - of properties and the property tax base as well.

24:51 - And that's something

24:52 - although we don't necessarily like it because no one likes property taxes,

24:56 - but it's something that's necessary to be able to carry out county government

25:00 - and to provide the services that we provide.

25:02 - So there's a wide range of things that we do at the county.

25:06 - One other thing we do is also run county jails.

25:08 - So I'm sure we've only just hit the tip of the iceberg.

25:11 - But, you know, you're serving as president of this association for counties.

25:16 - How how how does that work?

25:17 - What is the association do to help support counties?

25:20 - So one thing is seek help advocates

25:23 - for one voice, a unified voice for counties.

25:27 - And that's extremely important because when we go to the

25:31 - General Assembly or to the governor, if I go as one commissioner

25:35 - or I take a colleague with me and we go as two commissioners,

25:39 - and we say, well, this is what's important for my county or four counties.

25:43 - You're going to say, Yeah, but you're one commissioner or you're two commissioners.

25:47 - But when S.E.

25:48 - Cupp goes and says, we're talking on behalf of 67 counties

25:52 - and these are priorities, it makes it more impactful.

25:55 - And it has it makes us have a bigger voice because we're working together.

25:59 - And the important thing to understand also is that S.E.

26:02 - Cupp is nonpartisan.

26:04 - So we're not representing one party or another party.

26:06 - We're representing counties and the needs of counties.

26:10 - The other thing that's important for S.E.

26:11 - Cupp is that she provides leadership

26:13 - and support for excellence in county government.

26:17 - You provide training for newly elected officials.

26:20 - There's conferences where we have different

26:22 - speakers come in to provide information and resources for counties

26:25 - to be able to do our job well as county commissioners.

26:29 - Well, it sounds like it's a big job to be president.

26:31 - And we're glad to have your leadership here for 2024.

26:33 - Commissioner, glad to be here.

26:36 - Thank you for joining us.

26:37 - For county connections

26:39 - brought to you by the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

26:42 - For more information on county government and county government priorities,

26:46 - please visit us online at W.

26:48 - WW counties that work for.

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