Nov 29, 2018 3 min read

North Franklin supervisors fired the secretary-treasurer and discussed ways to untangle a knot of complicated financial issues during a special meeting on Thursday.

The three elected supervisors – Ron Junko, Silvio Passalacqua and Bob Sabot – made the decision to fire Julieann Dotson, then took another 3-0 vote to hire Dotson’s immediate predecessor, Jacqueline Kotchman, to replace her. Solicitor Gary Sweat said Dotson had been in the position “at least four or five years.”

“After an extensive review of Julieann Dotson’s job performance; the recommendation of Phil Binotto, our labor attorney; and the challenges and issues and financial issues facing the township,” supervisor Bob Sabot said, “I’ll make a motion to terminate” her employment, effective Oct. 26.

Kotchman’s salary is almost $51,000, which Sabot called “basically the same” as Dotson’s. Her starting date was Nov. 19.

Dotson wasn’t at the meeting, and had been suspended pending supervisors’ decision to fire her. She couldn’t immediately be reached afterwards.

Officials aired complicated financial issues involving how to deal with a six-figure bond payment due next month that the township can’t make in full by the due date next month. They also discussed a $20,000 fee that was added to last year’s payment into the police pension fund. Sabot said he’d discovered the additional expense and raised it at a recent meeting.

“You’re seeing what part of the problem was here,” Sabot said Thursday. “Money was coming in, and we were just shuffling things around to pay things.”

Officials intend to obtain a tax anticipation loan to cover expenses as the township waits on property taxes to come in for 2019. They mentioned that plan among measures they said would help the township get on sound financial footing.

“I still believe that come March or April of next year the township will come out of this fine,” Sabot said. “It’s just, we have a period here where we’ve got to catch up.”

Township officials declined to say if those problems were directly linked to Dotson’s firing.

“I don’t think we should comment,” said solicitor Gary Sweat, who advised Sabot on the language to use in making his motion.

Sabot added that he was letting his motion speak for itself.

Officials also discussed how to avoid defaulting on a roughly $168,000 payment to cover principle and interest on a $3 million bond issue the township entered in 2013. The payment is due in mid-December.

Sweat said he’d spoken that morning to attorney Sean Garin of the Pittsburgh firm Dinsmore and Shohl, which was bond counsel for the issue of the municipal securities for paving projects.

“Sean’s been doing this for a number of years, and he said that this is the first time a municipality that he has ever worked with has not been able to make its interest and principal payment,” Sweat said. “So he wasn’t sure of all of the ramifications. He said that this has happened to some school districts that he represented.”

Officials said they planned to make the majority of the payment, even if the township couldn’t make it in full by the due date. Much of that mon $56,000 that’s still left in the bond fund, and officials said they’d pull the rest together from other sources.

“In other words, the more we can pay on it, the better,” Sabot said.

In other business…

Supervisors voted 3-0 to hire resident Erin Dench as director of planning and zoning at a salary of $38,000, effective Dec. 4.