In a split vote Wednesday, Schuylkill County commissioners authorized the transfer of $64,000 from the county’s contingency fund to begin the process of notifying the 9,146 people whose private information may have been compromised in database searches.

Commissioners contend that Tax Claim Director Angela Toomey and Assistant Director Denise McGinley-Gerchak allegedly used the county’s LexisNexis, sophisticated search software, to look up personal information on about 300 people.

The software accesses such data as Social Security numbers, driver’s license records, and legal and financial information. LexisNexis automatically includes information on the search subjects’ family members and neighbors, which is why the 300 searches may have compromised 9,146 people.

Commissioners’ Chairman Barron L. Hetherington and Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. voted yes; Commissioner Gary J. Hess voted no.

Hess referred to the reasons he gave on March 9 when he also voted against hiring Experian for a total of $277,894 to notify the 9,146 people whose information may have been compromised in the searches, provide them with one to two years’ of credit monitoring, and set up a call center.

Then, Hess said he voted against hiring Experian because he felt the investigation that concluded the women had made the unauthorized searches had not been thorough enough, and that Toomey and McGinley-Gerchak had not been interviewed or given an opportunity to defend themselves.

A related move to fire Toomey and McGinley-Gerchak on March 9 failed after Hess voted no, Hetherington voted in favor, and Halcovage abstained due to a “pecuniary conflict of interest.”

At that March 9 meeting, Hess linked the women to a federal lawsuit filed in March 2021 by four unnamed women, all county employees, accusing Halcovage of years of sexual harassment. The women are referred to in the lawsuit as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4.