West Easton can thank Tatamy Secretary Deanne Werkheiser for notifying our Borough Manager, Joan Heebner, that $21,109 has been sitting unclaimed by West Easton since 2013. It is our share of a $5 million County grant that had been divvied out to municipalities, based on population.
My understanding is that Ms. Werkheiser stumbled upon it late last week when looking through an almost 5 year-old Northampton County Open Space Initiative (NCOS), seeking money that might have been due Tatamy. Deanne and Joan got to know each other when working on the inter-community project of electronics recycling.
The information came just in time. If the grant money wasn’t applied for by September of this year it would have been lost.
I, along with Dan DePaul and Joan Heebner arranged a meeting time for this morning with Mr. Bryan Cope from the Northampton County Open Space Initiative to find out details of what none of us were aware of.
First, Mr. Cope informed us that notification of the award money was made to West Easton when it first became available in 2013. He said it was sent by email and regular mail correspondence. He intends to gather up copies of all correspondence he sent West Easton at the time, since we have no record of it, due to missing emails, computers removed from Borough Hall, and the shredder working overtime following the 2015 election.
While we are pleased that we still can obtain $21,000, it wasn’t all good news.
Time expired on an additional $20,000 in money that could have been obtained. It was $20K that wouldn’t have required any matching funds, if the project was for parks.
If Kelly Gross and Tom Nodoline hadn’t violated the Records Retention Act after the last election, the 2016 Council might have found the NCOS notifications and not lost that $20K.
That being as upsetting as it is, the $21,000 is still a nice windfall for our borough to recover some past expenses.
Mr Cope informed us that this money can be used to pay 50 percent of any improvements or repairs made to the parks since March, 2013 – including any that were done using grants from other sources. That is, if we got a grant from another source for $1000 that required us to match 50 percent, we would have paid $500. That $500 can now be submitted to NCOS that will reimburse the Borough the $500 it spent from its own coffers.
The office staff now has a job ahead of it, as they will be searching for proof of payments on any projects relating to our parks and open spaces over the last 5 years that can be submitted to NCOS.
Money that remains from the $21,000, if any, can be used toward another parks project this year.
UPDATE 5/5/17
Mr. Bryan Cope tracked down the correspondence originally sent to West Easton in 2013.
In this instance, it seems violating the Municipal Records Retention Act wasn’t the reason nobody knew of these grants. The information apparently never made it to Borough Hall, or was shared with anyone by the person who received it.
The contact information given to him in 2013 was Kelly Gross’ home address, as the Borough Hall’s address. Her personal email address, as the Borough Manager’s business contact email.
Joan Heebner provided Mr. Cope the correct information and has also notified other entities in Northampton County to make corrections, should they have anything other than the proper contact information for West Easton business.
Disclaimer: On January 4, 2016, the owner of WestEastonPA.com began serving on the West Easton Council following an election. Postings and all content found on this website are the opinions of Matthew A. Dees and may not necessarily represent the opinion of the governing body for The Borough of West Easton.
