Probation Office Move to Temple Court Building on Hold

BELLEFONTE — Some of the future occupants of the Temple Court building will be waiting a little longer to settle into their new offices.

The Centre County Probation and Parole department had been slated to move from the first and second floors of the recently renovated building on South Allegheny Street. But Centre County Administrator Margaret Gray said several concerns have been identified that have raised the need for a consultant.

‘Concerns about their extensive filing system, the movement of clients and the recently identified need for additional room to accommodate new drug court personnel prompted a request from President Judge [Thomas] Kistler asking for a space utilization study to evaluate the most efficient use and assignment of the available space,’ Gray said at the Aug. 1 Board of Commissioners meeting

Gray said the study would be a comprehensive evaluation of space in the Courthouse, the Courthouse Annex and the Temple Court building, where renovations were completed this spring.

The third and fourth floors, belonging to the district attorney’s office, are still on schedule to be occupied by the end of January. The first DA to take residence in the new building will be Bernie Cantorna, who in May won the Democratic and Republican primaries in his challenge to current DA Stacy Parks Miller.

Commissioner Michael Pipe said the furniture has already been ordered and will arrive in coming months, and the plan is to have the office move-in ready by the end of January.

An engineering consultant had previously been engaged to address the issue of storing the probation department’s massive filing logs in the building, and while that issue was addressed, handling the addition of drug court personnel and the movement of clients still need to be dealt with.

Pipe noted that the county bought and began renovations on the Temple Court building before the drug court, which is expected to begin in early 2018, had even been proposed.

Architectural firm Weber Murphy Fox will present a proposal at the commissioners’ Aug. 15 meeting. If approved the study would take place over an eight to 10 week period and would result in recommendations for how to best allocated space in the courthouse and annex as well as Temple Court.

‘The expertise and guidance from experts will be invaluable to the county in making properly guided decisions about the optimal use of available space both in the short and long term,’ Gray said. 

In other business, the commissioners declared the month of August as Child Support Enforcement Awareness Month in Centre County, which has one of the highest rates of child support payments in the state.

Ann Marie Oldani, director of the county’s domestic relations office, said 89 percent of the office’s clients in Centre County pay their child support on time as of June, putting them third in the state. She said the state is ranked top in the nation for ensuring child support is paid.

To celebrate the declaration, Oldani said the domestic relations office will have a free picnic on the lawn of the Willowbank building from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8.