An effort to reduce the cost of the county's Weights and Measures program and generate new fees to help cover the costs of an inspector's duties got sidetracked last month when county officials found out state law wouldn't allow them to charge one of the fees on the new fee schedule.
It's called a "witnessing fee." It is charged when an inspector works at a facility with a third-party to certify the scales of a company that uses large equipment. The third-party calibrates the large scale when the county doesn't have its own equipment to calibrate large scales. The inspector must witness the work and place the seal on the equipment once it is certified as accurate.
Under Article 16 of the Ag and Markets Law, the county can charge this fee but another section says they can only charge a witnessing fee if it owns the calibration equipment.
Genesee County does not own this equipment and works with a company from Rochester to perform the inspections.
The County Legislature approved a plan at the beginning of the year to eliminate Weights and Measures as its own county department with its sole employee, the director of weights and measures. The division is now part of the County Health Department, under Director Paul Pettit, and the county's weight and measures "director" is a director in title only. He is the inspector.
In January, the county hired an inspector and teamed him with a trainer from weights and measures. At his first large job, a firm in Genesee County that asked not to be identified, the inspector informed the owner he was going to charge the witnessing fee. The new inspector was told by both a rep from the Rochester firm and the owner of the local company that the fee wasn't legal.
That evening, the new inspector told his local supervisor that he couldn't charge the fee. The following day, a Friday, there was a snowstorm and the inspector says he was told he could stay home with his kids.
On Monday, the inspector was dismissed from his job. He said he believes it was because he refused to charge the witnessing fee. He said the official reason was he was given was an "attendance problem" but he doesn't believe he had an attendance problem.
Pettit said he can't discuss personnel issues.
He did acknowledge that it was through the inspection at the local company that the county was made aware of the contradiction in state law over the witnessing fee.
Pettit said the county has not charged the fee nor has it collected the fee. The dismissed inspector said he handed a bill with the witnessing fee to the local business owner. The owner said he refused the bill.
Pettit said the county and its attorneys are working with state officials to try and resolve the issue over witnessing fees, which a spokesperson for Ag and Markets confirmed, but Pettit thinks it will take a change in the state regulations in order for Genesee County (and Orleans County) to be able to charge a witnessing fee without owning its own equipment.
"This witnessing fee allows us to recoup some of the time spent out on the site by our director," Pettit said. "He might be out there two, four, six hours, depending on the intricacies of the test. If we're not able to collect the fee, the full cost of that test is being borne by the taxpayer."
