By Joseph Bell

Record Staff Writer

 Elk County’s commissioners approved two resolutions during a special meeting Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008, at the Courthouse Annex along Center Street.
After approving the proposed 2009 budget, the commissioners shifted their attention to a resolution which would impose a late filing fee for statements required from municipal tax collectors.
“This is something that we can do through the local tax collection law to collect fees for the lateness of our tax collectors,” said June H. Sorg, chairperson of the Elk County Board of Commissioners. “The county will establish a late fee in accordance with Act 25 of the Pennsylvania local tax collection law and the first six days that a statement with reconciled reports is overdue, a late fee of $20 for each day, or part of the day, excluding Saturday, Sunday and holidays will be assessed.”
After the sixth day, the fee declines.
“Part B is a late fee of $10 for each day or each part of the day, excluding Saturday, Sunday and holidays for each day after such sixth day that a statement with reconciled reports is overdue,” Sorg said. “The Board of County Commissioners reserve the right to waive the late fee when the board, in its sole discretion, finds that there is a reasonable cause.”
While the commissioners have not run into problems with tardy municipal tax collectors in the past, Sorg said the commissioners collectively felt the resolution’s adoption was necessary.
“This isn’t something that we’ve had a problem with in the past but we felt it is something that is necessary for the county to adopt at this time,” Sorg said before the board unanimously approved the resolution.
The board also discussed the authorization of county officials to dispose of its surplus personal property by internet auction.
James M. Abbey, currently serving as director of the IT (information technology)/GIS (geospatial information systems) within the county government offices, said that other counties also partake in online auctions.
“I think there are three that are doing this, but I know Adams County and Crawford County are doing it for sure,” Abbey said. “Having this silent online auction allows us to meet all the requirements of the county code as having a sealed bid auction. For example, Adams County will put primarily IT equipment for auction, but they have other things like sheriff’s vehicles and surplus vehicles out on the Web site.”
According to Abbey, the auctions ordinarily last for a 14 day period.
“After 14 days, if they have several things, like several monitors, they’ll lump them together like in a bulk and put them back out for another 14 days or so but it does meet all the requirements for the county code for the disposition of county property,” Abbey said.
Currently, the initial plan is to post a link on the county’s Web site.
“We’ll have a permanent link on our Web site so anyone will be able to go there and any time something goes up, be it one item or several items, we can put those items immediately to bid and then anyone is free to sign up as a registered user on it at no cost,” Abbey said. “The county does not pay anything up front as all the fees would just be after an item is sold. If we list 20 items and nothing is sold, then we don’t have to pay anything. This is Bonus Auctions and I believe they’re based out of Florida and, so far, Adams and Crawford County have both been very happy with this.”
To cite a specific example, according to Abbey, Adams County government officials sold a surplus sheriff’s vehicle which had 200,000 miles on it to a purchaser in Michigan.
“One of the other nice things about this is that anyone in Elk County registers as a user, they can bid not only on our auctions, but any auction that happens to go through Bonus Auctions,” Abbey said. “If I would happen to register, if I would buy something from Adams County, then one percent of my purchase goes to Adams County as a commission, so that would also bring in a little bit of additional revenue to the county in addition to getting rid of our surplus property.”
In the future, Sorg said any surplus property will be identified on the county’s Web site as well as public meetings.