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MIFFLINTOWN -- During the weekly meeting on Tuesday, the Juniata County Commissioners proclaimed April 9-15 National Public Safety Transportation Week. The board shared appreciation for county emergency 911 telecommunications department staff and director Mike Henry for the department’s attentive and precise work.
"Mike, this job is not an easy job, this is a 24/7, 365 days a year job and you could also be on call," Commissioner Alice Gray said. "You not only have to know what you have to do if you get an emergency call, you need to to exactly where to call, for example if you have a fire, you need to know exactly where it is, if you have a police incident you need to know exactly where, you need to notify all the entities that might be needed to respond, what resource logistics are needed, and know all of the areas that go into attending to an incident. We are honored to have you here with us. It is our honor to give you this proclamation from the county."
"There is a lot of training that goes on beforehand, before you can even dispatch a call," Henry said, thanking the commissioners. "There is a lot of call-taking time you have to complete. You have to know the geography of the county. We have to complete twenty-four hours of training every two years for the state for our job related functions."
Following the commissioner’s proclamation of National Public Safety Telecommunications week, Cindy Williams of Juniata Valley Bank shared important information regarding the Richard J. And Lela A. Nestler Scholarship, which has been awarded since 2008 to two graduating seniors in Juniata County. The scholarship awards the highest SAT score for a graduating senior from Juniata High School and East Juniata High School for one year and then is awarded the following year to the next graduating classes of both respective schools. The scholarship funds school expenses for the first year of college based on the amount available in the fund. The Nestlers’ have Juniata County roots and upon moving away wanted to bestow and gift to the students of the area. The deadline for applying is May 1.
Information is available in the guidance office at both schools, the county website and at the Juniata Valley Bank in the Trust Department.
Following Ms. Williams' presentation, Tom Weldon of Juniata Valley Bank who manages Juniata County employees retirement fund, presented to the commissioners regarding the county’s investment returns.
"The investment strategy that we employ for this particular investment fund is a lattered fund portfolio," said Weldon. "We’re responsible for the fixed income investments portion of the plan, lattered high quality investments, the maturities currently are short to intermediate time frame, to take advantage of higher rates down the road, we hope."
"The treasury curve yield, the Federal Reserve’s highly publicized moves to raise the short term interest rates; the yield curve is inverted, which means we have higher short term rates than long terms rates, and as the Fed has raised the interest rates the last few quarters, the indication very often of an inverted yield curve is a recession. Everyone is watching that. The calendar review for the year 2022, we had additions of 450,000, withdraws of $720,630.00, interest received during that period of over $108,000, we have a small realized gain due to a maturity and the unrealized gain loss in the portfolio was a loss, and that was $273,000.00."