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County office continues to work for local veterans

Director gives report to commissioners

LEWISTOWN — Mifflin County Veterans Affairs Director James Conway gave a report to the Mifflin County Commissioners during their regular Thursday meeting comparing where the office is today with its status three years ago.

Conway outlined how his office has worked to acquire grant money to provide retroactive payments to local veterans in addition to keeping up with increasing demand.

Conway said the office has been able to provide retroactive payments from 2018-2019 in the amount of $157,599 , from 2019-2020 in the amount of $201,379.63 and from July 2020 to March 2021 in the amount of $869,644.93.

“These retroactive payments are payments that these veterans were entitled to but they had never received or were never applied for for those veterans,” Conway explained.

He said that from March until now, his office still has another 26 outstanding claims not reflected in the numbers he presented Thursday, which he estimated will put the total since last July in excess of $1 million.

“The compensation direct payments are up $509,000 compared to what it was over three years ago, which was zero,” he said. “For pensions, those are nearly three times what it was for that. The only thing that’s down right now is service-connected disabilities and the DIC (dependency indemnity claims) service connected disabilities are low right now because of COVID — the office is closing — so they aren’t putting them out as quick, so that’s a little bit off.

“I’m expecting that to go up by at least another probably $200,000 to $300,000 because they’re actually starting to get back and they’re actually starting to come in with that 26 still being outstanding. That’s really affecting those numbers quite a bit as far as accuracy.”

Conway also said many veterans’ death certificates are listing COVID as a cause of death, which is not being considered a service-connected disability, affecting their families’ ability to file DICs, but that his office is working to help with that as well.

In other business, Mifflin County Tax Claim Bureau Director Rebecca Ganoe explained the new process for bidders to register for tax claim sales in Pennsylvania.

Ganoe said Act 33 takes effect in August, which requires tax claim offices to pre-register bidders for distressed property sales. She said packets will be available in the tax claim office, which includes an affidavit that the bidder must have notarized stating they do not have any delinquent real estate taxes anywhere in Pennsylvania, no delinquent municipal utlity bills more than one year outstanding, that they are not acting as an agent for a person who has been barred from participating in tax sales, that they have not had any citations for uncorrected housing code violations within the past three years or that they failed to maintain any property owned by them that resulted in a threat to health or safety of people.

She said once the information is verified, the bidder will be permitted to participate in the sale.

Ganoe said registration for the Sept. 13 sale in Mifflin County is open Aug. 2 through 27 and that a registration fee is likely, but warned no registrations will be accepted after Aug. 27 for the September sale, and the past practice of registering on-site the day of the sale is now no longer permitted, which she said should make the process run more smoothly.

Also on Thursday, the commissioners:

¯Voted to approve the minutes from the July 15 meeting;

¯Voted to pay the county’s bills;

¯Voted to accept the treasurer’s report;

¯Approved a request for exoneration of 2021 county portion per capita taxes: Granville Township Tax Collector Billi Weaver – 82 and Juniata Terrace Borough Tax Collector Billi Weaver — 7;

¯Approved a payment to SEDA-COG for administration of the CHIRP program: invoice No. 4 in the amount of $680 and supplemental invoice in the amount of $3,200;

¯Approved the subrecipient agreement with Juniata Terrace Borough for a CDBG Stormwater Project along Terrace Boulevard in amount of $426,825 with CDBG funds covering $369,240 and the borough covering the remainder;

¯Approved the hiring of April Vodopija for part-time corrections officer effective July 27;

¯Approved the appointment of Micaiah Hendrickes for an unpaid intern in the probation office effective July 19;

¯Approved the promotion of Dillon Harlon from Caseworker I to Caseworker II in the Children and Youth Department effective Aug. 2;

¯Voted to rescind the hiring of Ashlee Lesher for part-time corrections officer effective July 26.

Commissioner Robert Postal was absent from the meeting.

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