Local attorney urges Luzerne County Council to redo American Rescue applicant screening

Wilkes-Barre Attorney Al Flora sent Luzerne County Council members an email Monday calling for a redo of the federal American Rescue Plan awards process.

Flora has been monitoring council’s actions related to the pending award of $60 million in funding to outside entities because a local nonprofit he had assisted did not make the original list of 75 top-scoring applications released by the county. The project would have provided summer recreational activities for approximately 300 children in seven municipalities in the southwestern part of the county, he has said.

An award determination is on hold, largely because council members said they never received an option to score five applications through an online evaluation portal set up by the county’s American Rescue consultant.

Council members were asked to complete their scoring of the five by Feb. 24 so they can receive an updated list of those recommended for the $60 million in awards before their next public work session on Feb. 28, officials said.

Flora told council Monday he watched last week’s council work session and learned that council members recused themselves from scoring particular applications if they concluded they had a conflict of interest.

”Unfortunately, this approach does not resolve the conflict because the council member can still score the applications of entities that are competing with the entity in which that council member has an interest. As such, a conflicted council member can manipulate the scoring of competing entities to benefit the entity in which he or she has an interest,” Flora wrote.

He argued recusal should require council members to withdraw completely from scoring any applications, at least those in the pool in which the conflict arises.

”Because this was not done, there is a significant flaw in the scoring which may violate federal guidelines dealing with conflicts of interest,” Flora wrote.

Flora said his second area of concern relates to the current scoring of the five missed applications after the county publicly disclosed the 75 top-scoring entities.

Council had agreed to individually score all applications without knowing how council colleagues were scoring each one or the resulting average score, the attorney said, noting council members were not at fault for the missed five.

“Now that the scores have been released, scoring these five additional applications will violate the very process which council established and applied to all other entities,” he wrote. “The result is that council members, knowing the scores of the 75 entities, can now manipulate scores for these five entities to the disadvantage of the other 75 entities as well as the entities that did not score in the top 75.”

Flora told council members he strongly urges them to reconsider the scoring process, reject all applications and “start the process anew with transparent guidelines on defining conflicts of interest and the public disclosure of conflicts.”

“Only then can council minimize bias and create an award system that is transparent and trustworthy, which I believe is the goal of every council member,” Flora wrote.

Several council members declined to expressly respond to Flora’s communication, although some have said they want to find a way to proceed with awards based on council’s evaluations. The subject is expected to be discussed during the Feb. 28 work session.

Instead of relying on a council or administrative committee recommendation, the 11 council members screened the applications themselves so they would all have an opportunity to participate.

The county’s American Rescue consultant — Columbia, Maryland-based Booth Management Consulting — set up the online portal for council members to individually review and score the 139 outside applications based on uniform factors, such as a project’s impact on county priorities, community outcomes, racial equity and inclusion and a review of the overall project budget.