By Marcia Moore
SUNBURY — After spending $50,000 in legal fees, Northumberland County avoided spending thousands more Monday by settling a budget disagreement with the courts.
The commissioners held a press conference Monday afternoon to announce the settlement with President Judge Robert B. Sacavage by providing him about $100,000 more this year to operate the courts system, including three courtrooms, the probation department and domestic relations, in exchange for him dropping a lawsuit seeking more funding.
After more than a month-long standoff, Sacavage and Majority Commissioner Vinny Clausi, both Democrats, ended the dispute on a conciliatory tone and a handshake.
“There’s a tendency for all parties to dig in their heels,” Sacavage said, adding that he reached out to the commissioners in an attempt to save taxpayer money. “It was in everybody’s best interest ... to go back to some normalcy. We have to be conscious of spending.”
The county agreed to provide $2.83 million of the court’s total $6.3 million budget for 2010, or $100,000 more than it initially agreed to provide.
Clausi said he hoped the compromise would allow the two sides to get back to work.
“I’m hoping the relationship can mend,” Minority Commissioner Kurt Masser said.
At that point, the commissioners and Sacavage stood and shook hands, putting an end to a dispute that had landed them in court.
In a rarely used mandamus action, which could have reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court if it hadn’t been settled, Sacavage tried to compel the commissioners to sufficiently fund the courts by filing the lawsuit in late December.
Although Sacavage had complained that his budget was being slashed nearly $600,000, he said the settlement they reached was sufficient to operate the courts.
Only board Chairman Frank Sawicki was willing to work out a compromise, while Clausi and Masser refused to allocate more money to the courts.
Last Tuesday, Sawicki made an open plea at a public meeting to resolve the matter.
Two days later, Sacavage reached out to Clausi by sending Adult Probation Chief John Wondoloski and Court Administrator Brandy Yasenchak to meet with him.
“Vinny wasn’t speaking with me, so what was I supposed to do?” Sacavage asked of his non-appearance at the negotiations.
The judge said he was kept apprised of the discussion and agreed to the resolution that put an end to the lawsuit.
The disagreement still cost the county plenty. Last Tuesday, the commissioners paid a legal bill of $33,000, and Sacavage said as of Friday, his attorney fees totaled $18,300. All of the legal fees will be paid with county tax dollars.
“This settlement is not a license for the court to spend by adding programs or personnel,” the judge said.
With the lawsuit out of the way, Sacavage said he’s hopeful it will “free us up to get back to the business” of the county.
That business includes a plan to expand the house-arrest program, which will help alleviate crowding in the county jail.
Now that the lawsuit has been withdrawn, Chief Clerk Kymberley Best said the county may rescind its request to ask the three county judges to recuse themselves from hearing a defamation suit against the commissioners from two former sheriff deputies.
County solicitors filed the motion last week, citing a conflict due to Sacavage’s mandamus action against the county.
