Carbon County officials said Thursday they are confident in the newly appointed clerk of courts, and again aired their frustrations with how the office had been handled over the past few years, saying delays cost more than $100,000.

Francine Heaney of Nesquehoning will be sworn in as the clerk of courts over the next few days. She will be filling the vacancy created by the retirement of longtime clerk of courts William McGinley, who retired on May 1.

Second deputy Julie Harris has been serving as the acting clerk of courts.

“It’s certainly a long-awaited appointment,” Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said. “It’s long overdue.

“We’re hoping that when Fran comes in she can get the office reorganized and move along and get everyone cross-trained. … We still have some bumps in the road as far as catching up.

“We wish Fran the best. I know she is going to do a good job.”

Commissioners William O’Gurek and Thomas J. Gerhard echoed Nothstein’s thoughts.

“She’s a quality individual,” O’Gurek said. “I believe at the end of the day as people watch what is going to take place in that office, I think all the people involved in that decision (to name Heaney to the position) will be able to sit back and say ‘we got it right.’ ”

Gerhard pointed out that Heaney had several years of experience in the clerk of courts office and knows many of the daily operations already.

He added that the appointment was supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

“This board is confident Fran will do a great job,” Gerhard said. “We’ll get things straightened out and put this all behind us.”

Nothstein then again brought up his frustrations over the backlog in the clerk of courts office and how it is affecting numerous departments, as well as the county’s upcoming budget.

He said that there is over $100,000 in revenue that didn’t come in because the office never filed the paperwork with collections after sentencings.

“For that work to be backed up like that, it is now showing up in our budget,” O’Gurek said. “We talked to Jeff Weiss, who is our consultant, and there is over $100,000 less in revenue because the revenue wasn’t keeping pace with what was anticipated because people’s costs, fines and restitutions weren’t filed, weren’t processed and so there were no payments coming in.

“At the end of the day we have less money coming into our bureau of collections … all that trickles down into a problem for us when trying to balance a budget.

“When you have less money and when it gets into six figures like that it is even worse,” he added.

“We don’t know the total amount yet and that’s just the one account he came across within the last couple of days,” Nothstein said. “That’s $100,000 so far this year that we’re down over last year just in that one revenue line item, so there are others out there not as great probably, but it adds up.”

“It is money we may never get,” O’Gurek said.

“This is the problem sometimes,” Nothstein added. “It only takes one bad elected official to really mess things up. There has to be more accountability on behalf of the elected officials.”

Nothstein stressed that neither the commissioners nor the county judges had jurisdiction over the clerk of courts office and how it was being operated.

“We got blamed for a lot of the issues there … but the problem is they run their office,” Nothstein said.

“We have absolutely no control over what they say and do. They have no one to answer to other than the voters and unfortunately, circumstances in this case didn’t come out until after the election last year and the person got re-elected to another four years and here we sit with a huge problem.”

The commissioners said the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office’s investigation into the clerk of courts office, which began in July, is still ongoing at this time, but added that things will be moving forward now with more permanency.