(File Photo of the Beaver County Courthouse)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Beaver, PA) Several topics were discussed at the County Courthouse during the Beaver County Commissioners’ work session this morning. The main topic was during the Solicitors’ report when Beaver County Solicitor Garen Fedeles discussed a possible new agreement after a meeting that the Commissioners had yesterday with representatives from various communities that are within the county’s Emergency Services Unit (ESU) and Drug Task Force. They also met up with various police chiefs and solicitors and this agreement between the communities and the county that has been in place since 2017 regarding how officers from the local communities that serve those various task forces are paid. Fedeles confirmed that the Commissioners came out of this meeting “with the hope that we will be able to hope to implement a new agreement between the communities that would keep the Drug Task Force and the ESU members who are from communities who serve on those as employees for their local municipality; in return, the county would give a reimbursement to those municipalities as opposed to those individuals being employees of the county.” Officers of those task forces asked if they could remain employees of their local municipalities because they are county employees. Fedeles confirmed that the reason they asked this is because it helps them with certain fringe benefits that they get when they work for their local communities. Some recent and upcoming events were also brought up during the session. The first was the Pennsylvania First Day of Trout for fishing at Brady’s Run and Brush Creek Parks this Saturday mentioned by Beaver County Recreation and Tourism Director Tony Caltury during the department head report. Commissioner Jack Manning also praised the event that was held yesterday at the county courthouse to introduce the LETI program to the county, which is a program used by Pennsylvania counties to avoid giving criminal charges to individuals who may simply just need help. Manning also talked about the Envirothon event which will be held today at Brady’s Run Park where juniors and seniors in different high schools will be quizzed on different environmental topics to try to make to it the state competitions. That event is run by the Beaver County Conservation District. In other business, it was also addressed during the department head report that if anyone goes into the side doors of the county courthouse to enter or exit, an alarm will ring. If you are either an employee of the county courthouse or not, you must use the front and the back entrances of it to go inside.