Commissioners Defend Schuylkill Children & Youth Director

Schuylkill County Commissioners spent a large portion of their meeting last week defending the County’s Children & Youth Executive Director in the face of ongoing criticism of her alleged 2019 payroll fraud scheme.

For months, two persistent critics of the Commissioners – Jeff Dunkel and Melinda Deibert – have called for Children & Youth Executive Director Lisa Stevens to be brought up on criminal charges when details of her alleged payroll fraud scheme were made public last year. (FOR MORE: Schuylkill County Children & Youth Controversy Was Swept Under The Rug)

In sworn depositions that are part of the ongoing lawsuit between several Jane Doe plaintiffs and former Commissioner George Halcovage and other County officials, we learned the details of the alleged scheme and how the County reacted.

Those depositions revealed that Stevens, at some point prior to mid-2020 because Halcovage was still Commissioners Chairman, had employees log hours on their time sheets that she, a salaried employee, worked. The employees would then allegedly pay Stevens from their paychecks to settle up on the time she worked under their name.

Dunkel and Deibert say that’s a criminal offense and Stevens should be fired, even five years or so after it allegedly happened.

The depositions revealed that Stevens, at the time the scheme was uncovered, was suspended from her job for two weeks. She’s since returned to work and remains Executive Director at Children & Youth.

Based on testimony in those depositions, Stevens getting fired was the stance County Administrator Gary Bender suggested but he said that the Commissioners never added Stevens’ termination to their meeting agendas.

These criticisms of Stevens and how the County has handled this situation have gone on for months. Dunkel and Deibert say they pressed Schuylkill County District Attorney Mike O’Pake to investigate if this alleged scheme rises to the level of criminal charges.

While the County Commissioners have remained relatively silent in the face of these criticisms, they finally broke on Wednesday.

Commissioners Chairman Larry Padora said the matter was handed over to O’Pake, who then turned it over to Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry for further investigation. 

“Until we get their report back, I don’t know what else to do,” Padora said Wednesday as questions from Dunkel and Deibert continued. 

Padora added that once the Attorney General’s report is returned to the County, it’ll be reviewed to see if any more response is necessary. 

Later, Padora responded to the accusations that the County wasn’t acting swiftly enough in its response and that there’s no “magic wand” that allows the Commissioners to circumvent the investigation process.

Commissioner Gary Hess, the only one who was serving in that role at the time Stevens allegedly executed this time card scheme, came to the defense of not only the Children & Youth Executive Director but also the County’s response to the allegation.

Hess said the matter was investigated by the Human Resources office as well as the Schuylkill County Solicitor’s office. 

“It was handled. There was an investigation done,” Hess said. 

The Commissioner responded to criticism that the Courthouse didn’t make this alleged transgression public by saying, “There’s a lot of things that go on … someone makes a mistake and it doesn’t go out in the public.”

He also said that the County did do its own investigation into the matter.

Then, Hess took a moment to defend Stevens.

He said, “I’m going to stand up for her (Stevens’) work ethic.”

Hess said the Children & Youth department is constantly getting calls of troubled family situations. 

“That job is not the easiest,” Hess said.

He added that every time he calls Children & Youth, he gets Stevens on the phone.

Padora backed Hess’ sentiments by saying that in his short time in office, Stevens has “been doing her job and so has everybody else down there.”

Of course, no one has really questioned Stevens’ work ethic. In fact, if the allegations of the payroll fraud scheme are true, this means she likely would have been working extra hours but the employees of the department were logging that time for her.

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