A plan to hire a former Schuylkill County Solicitor as a Law Clerk to a Common Pleas Judge was withdrawn in the last week.
It was anticipated that the Schuylkill County Salary Board would vote Wednesday night to either approve or reject a salary request of $63,241 for former Solicitor Glenn Roth to an open Law Clerk position.
Schuylkill County Commissioners Chairman Larry Padora said Wednesday that the personnel action was “withdrawn” since last week’s work session meeting.
Roth was named as a defendant in the Jane Doe lawsuit filed in federal court against former Commissioner George Halcovage and several other County government officials.
In that lawsuit, Jane Doe employees claimed their complaints of Halcovage’s alleged inappropriate workplace conduct were told to Roth and he did nothing in response. Additionally, one Jane Doe plaintiff claimed that Roth once said he was going to “punch her in the face” referring to a woman in the County Mapping department.
The Court Administration department opted to hire Roth to a Law Clerk position but it was on the Salary Board – which is made up of the Commissioner, Controller Sharyn Yackenchick, and a particular department head (in this case, President Judge Jacqueline Russell) – to approve the requested pay rate.
Roth had been employed as Assistant Counsel with PennDOT up until last month, according to his LinkedIn profile.
But, on Tuesday, when the public meeting agenda was released ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Roth’s name and salary request were noticeably missing from the standard Personnel Action Report (PAR).
Approving Roth’s requested salary would have required three votes of the five on the Salary Board.
During last week’s meeting, Court Administrator Mark Barket inquired about the need for a closed-door executive session to discuss Roth’s salary and hiring. Apparently, he and the courts had been told there would be an executive session to discuss the matter.
After learning there would be no executive session last week, Russell expressed her displeasure with being called to the Commissioners meeting just to find out there’d be no discussion on Roth’s salary request.
Padora and Russell then had a public back-and-forth regarding who is and isn’t respecting their branch of County government.
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- Schuylkill Commissioner, President Judge Have Tense Exchange Over Potential Hire of Former Solicitor
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