New computer software to identify Luzerne County properties and additions not on the tax rolls should be operational by July, said county Manager C. David Pedri.
“This is a major initiative,” Pedri recently told county council members, promising to issue monthly reports listing properties that have been picked up.
The software has been discussed for years, but county officials said it’s now financially feasible because other government funding covered a required aerial flyover that would have cost the county an estimated $100,000.
The East Central Task Force, which focuses on hazard planning and response, spent $404,160 in Department of Homeland Security grant funding to hire Rochester-based Pictometry International Corp. to complete aerial imagery of Luzerne and six other counties in its coverage area last spring.
The task force funded a similar flyover performed by Pictometry in 2013. Pictometry workers photographed each of the more than 165,000 Luzerne County properties from multiple angles, county officials said.
Piggybacking onto the task force contract, the county’s mapping/GIS department acquired a $45,000 Pictometry program to digitize outlines of all structures in the county, while the budget/finance division purchased an approximately $50,000 program using this imagery to flag new construction since the 2009 countywide reassessment, including garages, additions and in-ground swimming pools.
County officials have predicted revenue generated from the taxation of missed properties eventually will cover the cost of the software.
Record storage building
Among other issues highlighted in his monthly report for April, Pedri said an occupancy permit has been issued for the new record storage building in Hanover Township.
The county purchased the former U.S. mail carrier facility at 85 Young St. for $750,000 in early 2016 because its leased space in the Thomas C. Thomas building on Union Street in Wilkes-Barre was deemed insufficient for record storage.
A portion of the new building also will house the county coroner’s office, which is currently in the county’s Penn Place building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, and a new morgue. The coroner’s office started the move to Hanover Township last week.
Pedri plans to move county records into the building by August, following the completion of flooring and lighting work. Departments are identifying documents that must be kept, and segregated sections will be created for confidential records, such as those involving juveniles and criminal investigations.
Inmate counts decreasing
The county prison population also was updated in the new report, indicating the average daily inmate count at the Water Street facility in Wilkes-Barre was 493.
After years at or above its 505-inmate capacity, the population started to decline. Officials largely credit the work of a prison population task force committee created in September to target overcrowding.
County Councilman Stephen A. Urban pointed out 94 inmates were lodged in the prison last month for failing to appear for court proceedings. Urban said he thought the administration had targeted that problem.
Pedri said missed hearings are decreasing due to a new automated notification system in the public defender’s office that informs defendants of court hearings through text messages, email and phone calls.
However, Pedri said the prison population task force still must address a problem of missed hearings involving defendants who have no legal representation.
“We have to find a way to get them representation by an attorney quicker,” Pedri said. “It’s going to continue to be a work in progress.”
