Join your EMC colleagues from around the state and hear informative presentations from local and state emergency management personnel at this highly-interactive meeting, as well as hear the latest news and information from PEMA and TEMA. Additional presentations will address in-depth and practical ways to ensure the development and maintenance of an effective and efficient emergency operation program, and will highlight township exercise practices.

This course will provide necessary information for effective decision making at the local level. Townships and fire service organizations serve diverse communities across Pennsylvania and have struggled with decreasing volunteers and increased costs. This training seminar will use lecture, small group discussions and facilitated brainstorming to identify solutions to sustain or improve fire service in your community.

Virtually all municipal governments must interact with volunteer fire companies, yet too many times, volunteer fire companies communicate with municipalities only at budget time or when a crisis occurs. Positive relationships between municipal officials and volunteer fire company leaders are essential to providing the best possible service to your community. This webinar will identify why unclear expectations between public officials and volunteer fire companies can lead to problems. Solutions to those problems may be easier than expected. As they say, it’s all about relationships.

In this webinar, Pennsylvania One Call will review new technology that enables users to add and/or import existing utility-related projects, find opportunities with others who want to coordinate, share project documents and communications with designated contacts, and notify facility owners and other contacts at any stage of a project. This includes individuals who are involved in the planning and execution of large construction projects, project owners, designers, excavators, facility owners and locators. This is an excellent opportunity for municipalities and others to better track utility-related projects.

This webinar will help township officials and employees understand when it is best to engage a structural engineer, both in emergency situations and when addressing more routine code violations. The webinar will also help officials and employees understand the code violation process starting with the initial notice of violation, moving through structural inspections, and ending with, in some instances, demotion.

In this webinar, Gery Nietupski, an attorney who has navigated through numerous disputes between supervisors and elected auditors, will review all relevant provisions of the Second Class Township Code pertaining to elected auditors, discuss court decisions setting forth the legal authority (or lack thereof) that elected auditors have regarding numerous important issues, including setting wages and benefits of working supervisors and imposing surcharges against supervisors, and offer best practices for how to address other common interactions between supervisors and auditors, including requests for information and copies of township financial records.

This three-day event was created just for you — newly elected (or veteran) supervisors, other newly elected officials, and new secretaries/managers. Learn the everyday tasks to running a municipality, explore the tools and resources available to help you do your job successfully, and experience real-life scenarios through discussion with experienced PSATS members.

This webinar is targeted to policy makers, both elected and appointed, who serve in Pennsylvania townships. The purpose is to inform and educate these policy makers on public safety broadband communications and applications that are being enabled by the National Public Safety Broadband Network, commonly known as FirstNet. Topics that are covered include a brief introduction to FirstNet, Uses and Applications, Planning and Adoption of FirstNet services, and Statewide Communications Interoperability.

In the last year, several Pennsylvania municipalities were victims of ransomware. The City of Allentown and the court systems of Philadelphia and Luzerne Counties were shut down by these attacks. This webinar will explore how townships can avoid being the next victim by implementing data security policies and training programs to educate employees about ransomware and other emerging cyber threats.

In today’s litigious environment, coupled with the media’s insatiable appetite for police misconduct, this course is a must for township officials and police command staff. The instructor, an experienced police civil rights litigator and labor attorney, will address common issues that give rise to civil rights lawsuits against police officers and township officials. Participants will gain practical guidance on the interplay between and among the governing body, manager and police chief and how to conduct a meaningful assessment of department management to ensure compliance with federal and state law.

This webinar will show examples of web-based maps and applications that align with local government planning needs, data resources freely available to local governments and introduce tools for mobile field data collection.

The next step for many MS4 communities is to implement Pollutant Control Measures for their discharges to surface waters impaired by acid mine drainage, pathogens, and priority organic compounds (i.e. PCBs). This first phase of these requirements is to map storm sewer sheds associated with these discharges, due with Annual MS4 Status Reports on September 30, 2019. This webinar will help prepare you for this new requirement and plan for what is to come.

Private water wells and springs are vital to Pennsylvania’s rural water infrastructure, which provides drinking water to approximately 3 million residents and farms. Because Pennsylvania lacks state regulations covering private water supplies, their proper management becomes the voluntary responsibility of homeowners who often lack a proper understanding of how they should be managed. In this webinar, Peter Wulfhorst with Penn State Extension will review results obtained from over 30 years of research and outreach, help municipal officials understand how they can help ensure the viability of private drinking water supplies, and provide available resources for municipalities and homeowners.

The Pennsylvania State Archives announced earlier this year that municipalities are now able to keep permanent records exclusively in electronic form (no paper or microfilm copy required!). But this policy change does have several requirements, most notably that permanent electronic records must be kept in PDF/A format. What does this mean for your municipality and its record keeping responsibilities? Join archivist Tyler Stump and learn about the new policy and how electronic recordkeeping requirements are changing. Stump will also be discussing electronic records best practices that can help your township effectively and efficiently store its electronic records.

There are numerous reasons that a property owner does not pay municipal charges. Sometimes, the reason is because a property owner has made a conscious and unilateral decision to delay payment. This payment behavior is unlikely to change without the creation of incentives for payment. Through the use of both positive and negative incentives, Townships can encourage property owners to not only pay their delinquent real estate tax and municipal fee bills, but to pay their future obligations on time. This webinar will discuss billing and collection strategies that Townships can employ to enhance the collection of delinquent accounts and create incentives to increase their current collection rates going forward.

Municipalities across Pennsylvania have been inundated with record-setting rainfall and flooding. To help townships prepare and respond, the presenters in this webinar will discuss affordable options, such as localized warning systems, and the challenges that can arise when stream work is not properly designed and permitted. Participants will also learn more about the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s booklet, Guidelines for Maintaining Streams in Your Community.

Does your township have shopping areas and office parks with underutilized parking areas? In Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County, drone flights over parking lots show many shopping areas and office parks are underparked, even during peak hours. While parking minimums have been standard practice in the planning world for decades, little research has been used to calculate the number of spaces actually needed per land use. This webinar will provide a review of parking requirements in general, the drone imagery collection process used by Susquehanna Township, examples of trends and changes in parking requirements, and suggestions for potential updates to your parking ordinances.

Not sure whether your municipality is complying with its’ purchasing obligations or just looking for ways to be more efficient when purchasing? In this webinar, Jason Snyder will discuss the requirements that municipalities must satisfy when bidding public contracts to procure materials, equipment, and services. Mr. Snyder will also review limitations on purchases, quotes, and bids, as well as current exemptions from municipal bidding, (including DGS/COSTARS piggyback contracts). He will also discuss prevailing wage advertising and bonding requirements. The webinar will include an electronic download of the Pennsylvania Purchasing Handbook.

This webinar will address the growth of short-term rentals in communities nationwide. Claudia Shank of McNees Wallace & Nurick will explain how municipalities can regulate short-term rentals and lessons learned from recent Pennsylvania court cases.

Conservatorship (Act 135) is a powerful blight remediation tool that gives municipalities and other interested parties the right to seek temporary possession of blighted, abandoned properties for the purpose of making repairs, and bringing them up to code or demolishing them. Using case studies from rural and urban areas, in this webinar, Winnie Branton will provide step-by-step guidance on how to build you case from property identification and due diligence to final plan cost recovery.

Because part-time police officers may not be entitled to the same rights as those who work full-time, what should your municipality know when it comes to hiring, disciplining or terminating part-time officers to protect against potential liability? In this webinar, Sheryl Brown of Siana Bellwoar will discuss current management issues, practical tips when dealing with everyday management of a police department with part-time officers, and the current state of the law impacting part-time officers.