By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item
SUNBURY -- Eleven months after he quit amid controversy as executive director of the state tax and equalization board, Greg Schoffler has found a job as a fiscal officer with Northumberland County.
Schoffler, of Kulpmont, was hired Tuesday to serve with the county's Emergency Management Services. The recently vacated position pays $30,059 a year.
Commissioners Rick Shoch, Vinny Clausi and Stephen Brody approved Schoffler's hiring and said he deserves a chance to prove himself.
Schoffler did not return a call Friday.
Bridy said his close friend, STEB Chairman James Zurick, of Shamokin, would not comment when he asked about Schoffler's work performance at the STEB -- which included a suspension for undisclosed reasons in 2010 -- but said that didn't raise a red flag.
"I depend on the department heads and (Human Resources Director) Joe Picarelli's recommendations," Bridy said, adding that Schoffler is presently on a probationary period with the county. "If he works out, he'll stay."
Schoffler left his last job with the STEB, which paid $62,000, in February 2011 after three years when the agency came under fire for miscalculating property tax values in school districts across the state. That caused school boards to improperly raise taxes in 70 municipalities based on those assessments.
The problem first arose in White Deer Township, Union County, where officials using the STEB's calculations inflated property assessments by $32 million and nearly caused Milton School District to raise taxes by 19 percent in 2010.
Schoffler and Zurick later attended a school board meeting to apologize.
At the time of his resignation, Schoffler, who blamed the miscalculations on a computer glitch, was under investigation by the governor-appointed STEB board for failing to report the errors when he became aware of them.
Right after his departure, Auditor General Jack Wagner released a 39-page report in which several key problems were found with STEB -- which has a $1 million budget and 18 employees.
STEB board member Dan Guydish said nearly all the problems raised in the report have been addressed, and that the agency is in the process of implementing a new computer program and operations manual.
Clausi said the fiscal officer position needed to be filled and Schoffler is qualified, though he wasn't aware of his connection to the STEB fiasco until recently.
"Everybody deserves a chance," he said.
Shoch said he would have given Schoffler's involvement with the STEB blunders more weight had he been aware of it when Clausi called him late last year and mentioned he was being considered for the job of fiscal officer.
"I thought it was just a courtesy call before I took office and that the (prior administration) had already hired him," Shoch said.
After speaking to two people who knew Schoffler when he was employed as Northumberland County's planning director and grants manager between November 1990 and January 2004 and gave him good reviews, Shoch said, he had no reason to object.
"I had heard about the problems at the STEB, but I just didn't connect Greg to it," he said. "Had I been aware of it during the vetting process and before he was hired, it may have carried some weight."
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