Carbon County has a major issue with its Clerk of Courts office. Although the problem has been quietly festering for a few years, it all came to a spectacular head on July 5 when the county aired its dirty laundry in public for the first time.

Some of you probably haven’t the vaguest idea what the Clerk of Courts does. This is a “row office,” and virtually all counties in Pennsylvania have them. Some of the other offices include treasurer, controller, register of wills, recorder of deeds and prothonotary.

The Clerk of Courts Office encompasses the criminal division of the Court of Common Pleas. The criminal court deals with all criminal cases, the Accelerated Rehabilitation Program and juvenile records. When court is in session, the Clerk of Courts takes all the pertinent files for each defendant to the courtroom and will also swear in witnesses.

The clerk also certifies and prepares bills of costs for the defendants and uses the computerized financial management system to disburse fines, costs and restitutions.

In some of the smaller counties, one person handles the duties of two row offices, such as clerk of courts and prothonotary. As a sixth-class county, Carbon can do this, but tradition has been that each office has its own elected official.

That word “elected” is very important, because it means that the county commissioners have no direct oversight of these offices, and if they try to tell the officeholder what to do, he or she can tell them to go take a hike.

Each row office has a four-year term, with no term limits. It has frequently been a parking lot for political loyalists looking for a soft landing in a cushy job. Maybe the salary isn’t the greatest, but the hours and benefits are excellent.

Equally important: When people win these jobs, they are pretty much positioned for easy re-election for a long time to come so long as the officeholder keeps his or her nose clean. On top of that, the officeholder can hire his or her friends, and, in some cases, relatives. It’s an environment that breeds patronage in the extreme rather than one that fosters a quest for competence.

The Carbon Clerk of Courts for 28 years until his resignation effective May 1 of this year was William McGinley of Jim Thorpe. McGinley was re-elected without opposition last November and was only four months into his new term when he quit.

Upon his leaving, his first deputy would, by state law, assume the acting title until the governor named a replacement, but since the first deputy’s position had been left vacant by McGinley for nearly a year, the acting role went to second deputy Julie D. Harris, who was McGinley’s wife before their divorce.

You don’t have to be a political genius to see how problematic this is. Nepotism is a no-win situation, not only in politics but also in the business world. Even if the officeholder and relative (or former relative) are scrupulous in their ethics, there is going to be the appearance of a conflict of interest, which can be just as damaging as the real thing.

The county commissioners have been getting complaints from employees about the mistreatment they were receiving at the hands of both McGinley and Harris. At the July 5 meeting, Commissioner Thomas Gerhard referred to the existence of a “hostile environment” in the office.

Commissioner William O’Gurek noted that 20 employees have quit since 2013. There are currently five open positions out of a full complement of 11.

Officials have described the backlog in the office as “eye-popping,” so much so that the commissioners authorized the unprecedented hiring of two experienced Lehigh County employees in this line of work to help reduce the mountain of undone tasks and paperwork.

“We don’t really have a good sense of just how bad it is,” said Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein, who said the county estimates that more than $1 million in court-related fees are sitting in paperwork that has yet to be filed.

I am baffled as to why officials have not sounded the warning long before this, especially since the problems have been growing significantly worse over the past few years.

The answer I keep getting is that the officeholder is independent of the commissioners, the judges and other relevant county officers so they have been reluctant to overstep their territory or blab about it publicly, at least until now.

If that is the case, perhaps the state should step in and conduct a full audit of not only the office’s practices but of its finances and the alleged hostile work environment. Obviously, there is something drastically wrong here, and now that the cat is out of the bag, it’s time to get some answers.

Of course, the state is not helping either by dragging its feet on a replacement. The Carbon County Democratic Committee, with the full support of the Republican-controlled board of commissioners, recommended and submitted the name of Francine Heaney of New Columbus to become the next clerk of courts.

Heaney works in the county court administration office and formerly was an employee of the Clerk of Courts office. By law, McGinley, a Democrat, must be replaced by a Democrat. The Clerk of Courts salary is $60,699.

Before Heaney’s name was sent to Gov. Tom Wolf, also a Democrat, the county committee considered 13 applicants, including acting clerk Harris, and interviewed five finalists, but Harris was not among them.

For unexplained reasons, Wolf has not yet submitted Heaney’s nomination to the state Senate, which will not return to session until September. An aide to the governor allegedly said that the name was floated to the Republican Senate leadership, but the aide was told that the leadership does not “have the appetite” to put the nomination on the Senate floor.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com