Latest news with #Ketcham
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Housing Authority faces uncertain staffing, finance questions
A Meadville Housing Authority meeting this week highlighted a staff running at approximately 50 percent capacity and financial disarray beginning to set in four weeks after board members placed the agency's executive director on temporary paid leave. While significant progress is continuing on a multimillion-dollar renovation of Holland Towers, the Wednesday board meeting left it unclear whether approximately $167,000 in upcoming bills for the project would be paid in a timely fashion. 'There are going to be consequences coming from the inability to do anything in terms of the renovation project, so you need to be aware that's coming,' acting Executive Director Jon Ketcham told board members during the meeting. The board's decision to place Vanessa Rockovich, Ketcham's predecessor in the executive director position, on leave left him without access to the capital accounts being used to fund the renovation and spreadsheets tracking the spending, he told board members. Looking to papers arranged on the table in front of him, Ketcham added, 'I do have the change orders here. I have the pay requests here, but I'm not signing them.' Ketcham said he couldn't be sure which accounts to draw funds from without access to the accounts. When board member Marcia Yohe asked later in the meeting if the authority has the money to pay the bills, he said he didn't know. 'I haven't seen the spreadsheet,' he said. 'I can't answer that.' Bills for the project were paid appropriately in early April, Ketcham noted, but 'some of the amounts — the documentation I needed and requested from Vanessa on April 16th, there were some variances, there were some things that were missing and I couldn't account for the full amount that was drawn down or the allocation of it and I've never been given that. 'She has told me that that is not available to me,' Ketcham said regarding an extensive spreadsheet Rockovich maintained tracking the federal grant funding for the Holland Towers project and how it was being spent. 'I was told that I would not understand it.' Ketcham told board members that he also couldn't access other authority spreadsheets, including one for figuring Section 8 payments. 'She has password-protected all those, locking me out,' he said. Still unable to access the files Thursday, Ketcham told The Meadville Tribune that the authority's lawyer would attempt to work out a resolution with Rockovich's lawyer. At the Wednesday board meeting, Christopher Ferry, the authority's attorney, acknowledged the urgency of the situation but also sought to add additional context to Ketcham's report on the difficulties encountered with the capital funds that are being used to pay for the $6.2 million renovation project at Holland Towers. 'I would want to make it clear, nobody's making any allegations here. We don't know enough to be able to say somebody's intentionally doing this or that,' Ferry said. 'There may be innocuous explanations for why he doesn't have access to it right now, so we want to sort that out initially before we make any allegations about anything.' Contacted by phone Thursday, Rockovich did not respond directly to Ketcham's comments. Instead, she expressed concern that commenting on the meeting could add to what she described as 'a lot of misconception.' Rockovich then said she has been in frequent communication with Ferry since being placed on leave. 'I have had numerous conversations with the solicitor on several matters and have asked him to make Jon aware that I was very willing to help with things,' she said, 'and I have never received a request.' Ultimately, board members did not vote on whether to approve the two pay requests related to the Holland Towers renovation during their two-hour meeting. When Ketcham asked board members what to do about them, board member Cena Kneubehl requested the board move to executive session to discuss 'a personnel matter.' Executive sessions allow public agencies to discuss in private certain specific topics outlined by Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act. As the approximately 10 audience members departed and the board prepared to move to executive session, Ketcham was asked what the lack of resolution means with regard to the renovation of Holland Towers. 'I don't know,' he said. Board Chair Joe Tompkins was more optimistic immediately following the meeting. 'I'm confident Chris and Jon will get it resolved,' he said. 'Still running severely understaffed' When discussion at the Wednesday meeting turned to staffing at the agency that operates nearly 350 units of low-income housing and manages more than 180 units of Section 8 housing, Ketcham first looked back to September. At that point, the authority had a full complement of employees with 10 administrative staff members and eight maintenance workers. Today, the staff is down to six administrative and four maintenance employees and some existing employees might be considering leaving, Ketcham told the board. The losses to the maintenance staff included an employee who was licensed as a pesticide applicator. Ketcham said a remaining staff member would test for his license in mid-June. There is some cause for optimism on the staffing front: Two former members of the authority's administrative staff, both of whom retired last fall, were hired on a per diem basis after the board held another special meeting earlier this month. A new Section 8 coordinator is expected to start next week, filling a vacancy of approximately six months, and Ketcham has plans to meet with a potential addition to the maintenance staff. 'But,' he added, 'we are still running severely understaffed right now.' The three most recent appointees to the five-member board, who in recent months have pushed for action on a variety of longstanding issues facing the authority, continued their efforts to develop a formal housekeeping policy and pest management plan as well as to address a backlog of Section 8 applications that has topped 800. Ketcham presented draft versions of the housekeeping policy and the pest management plan, both of which were added to the authority's website, on Thursday for a 30-day period of public comment. Progress on the pest management policy in particular brought a positive reaction from Tompkins. The board was directed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds and oversees the authority, to develop the policy in August 2023. 'I'm delighted we have a plan in front of us,' said Tompkins, who joined the board in November. 'As long as I've been on the board, we've consistently been told that it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, but it never came.' News on the actual pest treatment front at first appeared positive as well, but Assistant Maintenance Inspector Kyle Lynch was quick to temper the optimism. Lynch reported that nine units at Holland Towers were currently being treated for pests, two for bedbugs and seven for cockroaches. For a building that has struggled to bring down active infestations, particularly bedbugs, for more than three years, the figures at first seemed a significant step forward. But Lynch said recently completed quarterly inspections were likely to reveal additional infestations. 'There will be more, I'm sure,' Lynch said of bedbug problems. 'I don't think it's going to skyrocket more than the roaches, though.' Ketcham similarly tempered optimism regarding staff efforts to address the Section 8 waitlist, which includes years of applicants who have likely moved on to other options. 'Right now we are running literally at half staff. If we could get back up to a full complement or even three-quarters of a full complement, it would be easier to consider,' he said. 'Right now, I think everybody is overwhelmed.'
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Mrs. Miranda Ketcham is our Educator of the Week!
KING, N.C. (WGHP) — FOX8 honors Miranda Ketcham of King Elementary School. Congrats, Mrs. Ketcham! If you know of an educator who is worthy of this nomination please fill out the nomination form here. Educator of the Week is sponsored by the North Carolina Education Lottery. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
