Schuylkill County Controller Christy Joy has completed an audit of the Prothonotary’s Office, and after paper records were reconciled the office has a $2,000 overage.

Joy explained Monday that the audit covered the period from January through March 2019, focusing on the master escrow account.

The master escrow account is where money in dispute — such as wage garnishments, tenant/landlord disputes, money disputed in court cases — are held in escrow. Although the $2,000 extra sounds good, it means that someone or several people have not received money due to them.

Will the money be put into the county’s general fund?

“No, for now it will be put into a bank account and just left there for a period of time — eventually could go into the general fund,” Joy said.

“(Acting Prothonotary) Al Gricoski has worked diligently to process the paper records and we (the Controller’s Office) have given him the tools and plan for success — he has done a good job.”

The Schuylkill County Commissioners appointed Gricoski to be first deputy in January, and in late March appointed him as acting prothonotary, when then-Prothonotary David Dutcavich retired.

Earlier in April, Joy said that Dutcavich had not been responding “in a timely manner” to routine requests before he retired, and that the office had “deficiencies in record keeping.” Gricoski has straightened out all the issues and is starting “with a clean slate,” Joy said.

“He (Gricoski) has cooperated with us fully and done a lot of hard work; whatever we asked him to do, he did,” Joy said.

No candidate filed to run against Joy in the upcoming primary election; six candidates filed to run for prothonotary.

One, Republican Jerry Labooty, had his bid rejected after another Republican candidate Dan Daub, successfully filed a challenge to the validity of his petitions, causing him to fall short of the required 250 names. Daub heads the county’s Republican Party.

Other Republican candidates include Gricoski, Larry Padora and Bridget McGowan Miller. There is one candidate on the Democrat side, Mark Atkinson.