LEGAL DEPARTMENT

The Mercer County Board of Social Services Legal Department consists of six part-time attorneys, two paralegal specialists and three clerical personnel.
All attorneys have specific assignments within each department of the agency. The breakdown of the attorneys and their responsibilities is as follows:

Chief Counsel, Joshua Markowtiz, is Board Counsel and is responsible for all legal actions brought by and against the agency, advice to the Board, attendance at Board meeting and directly deals with legal issues and problems for the Director, Deputy Director, Personnel Officer, Fiscal Officer, and Chief of Administrative Services. Additionally, he is responsible for all the civil collections for both fraud and/or administrative errors involving TANF/GA overpayments, Food Stamp overpayments, Medicaid overpayments, civil rights actions and EEOC Complaints. Also responsible for Funeral payments, Social Security recoveries and PA10D repayments.
The attorneys are responsible for various other duties. They represent the agency on all Office of Administrative Law hearings including homeless and emergency housing, as well as assisting with Public Employee Relations Committee (PERC) hearings.
They also appear before a Family Court hearing officer as well as all chancery and matrimonial matters that are generated through the Child Support and Paternity Department.
They are also assigned to the defense of the agency in lawsuits which are not referred to the County Counsel’s office, and represent the agency on major discipline matters. Additional duties include responsibility for all Social Services contract reviews.
They are also assigned additional duties that include representation of Child Support and Paternity activities, such as paternity trials and bankruptcy hearings.

2004 Year in Review

Reviewed 33 contracts for the Administration and Social Services Department.
Filed 309 paternity complaints and 759 paternity and non-support orders.
Participated in 2,504 child support related hearings before hearing officers.
Participated in 170 non-public welfare cases.
Responsible for 301 cases in the Office of the Administrative Law, where 26 hearings were held.
Responsible for 403 Funerals.
Recoveries on 44 Social Security Cases and 19 PA10D repayments of assistance.
Filed 848 Summons and Complaints for collections; obtained 683 judgments; filed 372 wage executions; participated in 21 trials; participated in 72 Motion/Hearings.
Increased collection on judgments. Amount collected on judgments total
$671,191.43. Voluntary payments totaled $ 299,021.60, and monies collected through wage executions totaled $ 352,840.14.

Challenges and Goals for 2005

The goals of the Legal Department for the fiscal year ending on December 31, 2005, are to increase revenue through child support recoveries, civil collection recoveries and recoveries through the Confession of Judgment program with the Prosecutor’s office. It is the hope of the Legal Department, with the assistance of other units within the Mercer County Board of Social Services, to identify and execute on defendants against whom Mercer County Board of Social Services has judgments, which have had little or no recovery of monies owed.

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