Another State of Emergency

The Luzerne County prison board plans to declare a state of emergency to buy food. It has come to light that the prison has bought more than $856,000 worth of groceries through a no-bid contract since 2006. I was shocked to read that Commonwealth Foods, the company that sold the supplies to the jail, is owned by a friend of Commissioner Greg Skrepenak.

And Perugino’s Market of Kingston also sold the prison more than $535,000 of produce since 2004.

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A county policy calls for sealed bidding of purchases expected to exceed $7,500 annually, and state law requires sealed bidding for purchases that exceed $10,000. The prison board say they need time to implement a system for bidding the items and the inmates still have to eat.

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A few months ago there was another flap over commissary goods being bought from another friend of Skep's. Anybody see a pattern?

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Commissioners Maryanne Petrilla and Stephen Urban have questioned whether that contract was piecemealed – the illegal practice of breaking large contracts into smaller ones to avoid bidding regulations.

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On top of this a company has double billed the county for the 2nd time in 3 years for work done at the prison

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I listened to Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla yesterday on WILK say she wasn't aware of the situation because she's only been in office for 3 months but all the bills had to be approved by the county controller when she held that position.

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In October the prison board declared a "state of emergency" to build a fence and we all know about the Adventures of the well travelled Deputy Warden Sam Hyder.

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In more good news the Secret Service investigation of the debit card abuse has been delayed and authorities are investigating the possible theft of several thousands of dollars from the Luzerne County Treasurer’s office.

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Unbelievable.