Schuylkill County Controller Christy Joy’s audit of the prothonotary’s office is taking longer than it should.

Joy is charged with supervision of all the county’s fiscal affairs, which includes audit the county row offices and district justices.

“The deputy (David Dutcavich, who retired March 29) was not responding in a timely manner to routine requests,” Joy said. “It’s become obvious that there were deficiencies in record keeping.”

Before retiring, Dutcavich did provide the correct records for two accounts and “did a good job” with that, Joy said. First Deputy Albert Gricoski was appointed to serve as acting prothonotary, and since then has been “working very hard to process the paper records and input that data into the computer system,” Joy said.

“He is fully cooperating and working with MIS (Management Information System),” Joy said. “It’s his responsibility now and he has risen to the occasion.”

Ashley Graver, an employee of the controller’s office, is leading the investigation and brings to her work “a healthy dose of professional skepticism,” Joy said.

He added that it’s too soon to know whether the accounts will balance, show a shortfall or show an excess. The audit is focused on the Master Escrow Account, which is where monies in dispute — such as wage garnishments, tenant/landlord disputes, monies disputed in court cases — are held, he said.

“If there is extra money it goes to the general fund, and it means somebody was shortchanged,” Joy said.

“If there’s a shortfall and it’s small, the general fund can cover it with the approval of the commissioners — if it’s large, we go see the District Attorney.”

Joy said a resolution should be reached by the end of April.

No candidate filed to run against Joy in the upcoming primary election; six candidates filed to run for prothonotary.

One, Republican Jerry Labooty, had his bid rejected after another Republican candidate, Dan Daub, successfully filed a challenge to the validity of his petitions, causing him to fall short of the required 250 names. Daub heads the county’s Republican Party.

Other Republican candidates include Gricoski, Larry Padora and Bridget McGowan Miller. There is one candidate on the Democrat side, Mark Atkinson.

“I want to assure the voters that the controller is independently elected, and we want to look at all the money — it is not the row offices money, it is county money,” Joy said. “This isn’t a Democrat/Republican thing; this is a team thing.”

Steps Joy has taken

When Joy first took office in 2012, he attended the State Association for Controllers meeting.

“I was asking a lot of questions,” he said. “But now I’ve gone from being the one with all the questions to the one that’s teaching best practices.”

He said that one of the changes he initiated was related to the use of credit cards.

“There were significant amounts of credit cards, cards for gas, Lowe’s cards, cards for businesses — it was a nightmare,” Joy said. “Now there’s one county credit account, and everything comes through the controller’s office.”

The new cards came with a warning.

“If anything bad happens, we want the card and we want the money,” Joy said. “And it might cost you your job — that’s what we told people.”

Christy also encouraged all row office heads to use the same bank, which is M&T. Deposits from the row offices go to the treasurer’s office, where the amounts are checked; employees from the sheriff’s office make the deposit.

Joy said that Treasurer Linda Marchalk was able to negotiate a good interest rate, which applies to all accounts.

“ Marchalk) makes sure we’re getting every dollar,” Joy said. “Even if it’s just $75, she’s making the call.”

“(The controller’s office) used to have to track down information from a lot of other places,” Joy said. “Now everything goes through the county ledger. And if we need a copy of something, we get it immediately from M&T.”

Joy said that the commissioners’ use of zero-based budgeting with line-item accountability sets the basis for the system.

“We’ve really tightened up all the controls that we can,” he said. “I commend all for making this happen.”