LANCASTER TWP — Keeping up with increasing development and expansion was the topic of discussion among supervisors, residents and a firm hired to reexamine the workflow and policies of the township during a special meeting of the board of supervisors Wednesday night.

Strategic Solutions said its evaluation of township operations show Lancaster has “not kept pace with township growth” and made recommendations for a plethora of potential changes to bolster the operational framework and “bring stability to the township.”

More than 40 people attended the meeting.

Observations were made in three areas: public works, police and administration.

The process of budgeting and feasibility, along with decisions on what exactly will be done, will begin later in August.

“We're not reinventing the wheel for Lancaster Township,” interim township manager John Trant said. “There are a lot of tools that municipalities use across the commonwealth to do exactly what we're putting in place now to help the township grow.”

The board approved the advertisement of a job opening for township manager, with an annual salary of $55,000 to $75,000. Trant hopes to post the opening by next week and to bring someone in as soon as possible.The new township manager would fill the vacancy left by Danielle Rich, who was hired in December 2020 and resigned in March 2021 over what an open-records request revealed were disagreements with at least one supervisor over the decision to leave roles unfilled in the office.“Our goal is to bring someone in sooner rather than later. With a smaller operation, we'll need that new person to help us with rebuilding,” Trant said. “Ideally, we'll have someone in here by the beginning of August.”

Jason Dailey, of Dailey Operation Consulting, presented supervisors with a list of recommendations for public works improvements, including an increase in training for parks maintenance and inspections, developing formal plans for mowing and evaluating storage needs.He recommended that the existing public works facility be replaced because it is too small and poses a potential fire risk. He cited other incidents of public works facilities burning down because of equipment malfunctions.“There are a lot of flammable objects,” Dailey said. “When that sort of thing happens, it's catastrophic for the community.”He also recommended formalizing the snow and ice control plan as well as the work order plan.Dailey acknowledged that in smaller communities such as Lancaster, it's common for residents to communicate directly with Public Works by phone if they have issues, but that formalizing the process would help make both residents and the department accountable and can even be automated to some extent in the future.

Chief Bob Johnson, the former chief of police of Johnstown and director of threat preparedness with Gittings Protective Security in Ebensburg, found a number of issues at Lancaster Township Police Department.Evidence and property management, building space and personnel all had problems. Johnson was not present at the meeting, but the team presented his observations and pointed out that many of the issues stemmed from a need to expand the department.“The space is not big enough: We probably need a space equivalent to the size of the current township building,” Trant said.Johnson's evaluation found that current staffing is a problem as well — with four full-time officers and six part-time officers, overtime shifts often are filled and part-time schedules can be hard to manage. Calls for service have increased during the past five years by 110%, and Johnson's evaluation recommended considering adding another full-time officer.The report recommended that an evidence-receiving process be implemented immediately and that continued evidence-storage practices without such a process could invite theft.

Strategic Solutions project manager Chelsea Puff took a look at the activity levels of the administrative offices, and found that on a given day, the office has about 10 to 15 visitors, fields more than 20 calls and receives more than 10 voice messages.She recommended formalizing application tracking procedures, which would enable township staff to coordinate better, keep the planning commission and board of supervisors informed, and help to keep applicants informed of the status of their permit applications.“Some people feel that they can come into the office first thing in the morning and drop off their permits,” Puff said. “We can't just stamp it and give you the permit right there; it does go through a process.”On the financial end, the firm recommended that the township move bookkeeping out of the front office and work with an external bookkeeper to make the process less complicated.