Court Opinion

ID: 9634782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:23:48.982346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:59.191733
License: Public Domain

PELLEGRINI, Judge,
Dissenting.
Because I believe elected row officers are vested with discretion on how their offices are to function, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority’s decision that the Luzerne County Commissioners (County Commissioners) had the authority to refuse Carolee Medico’s (Pro-thonotary) request for funding because they did not agree with her choice of a computer program which she felt was best for the operation of her office. The electors of Luzerne County elected her to make that decision, not the County Commissioners.1
42 Pa.C.S. § 2734(a) specifies:
*173There shall be an office of the prothono-tary in each county of this Commonwealth, which shall be supervised by the prothonotary of the county who shall, either personally, by deputy or by other duly authorized employees or agents of the office, exercise the powers, and perform the duties by law vested in and imposed upon the prothonotary or the office of the prothonotary.
42 Pa.C.S. § 2734(b) further provides: The office of the prothonotary shall be provided with all necessary accommodations, goods and services pursuant to section 3722 (relating to general facilities and services furnished by county). (Emphasis added.)
In this case, the Prothonotary filed with the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County (trial court) a request for mandamus and injunctive relief from the County Commissioners contending that she was not provided with all necessary accommodations, goods and services and requesting adequate funding for her office so she could purchase a computer system of her choice for automated record keeping. Not contending that she did not need a' computer system, the County Commissioners instead defended the denial of the funding request because, according to the testimony of the County’s Director of Data Processing, the Prothonotary’s proposed computer system was contrary to the County’s information technology strategy and was not the most efficient or cost-effective system given the County’s overall information technology plan. Relying on that testimony and apparently holding that the County Commissioners can withhold funding if they disagree with the Prothonotary’s choice of computer system, the trial court and the majority conclude that she was provided with all the goods and services that she needed.
I dissent because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the County Commissioners have the authority to determine what is necessary for the Protho-notary to run her office as she sees fit, especially when it involves the docketing system which is the core function a protho-notary performs. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 2737(3) and (4). If the program the County’s Director of Data Processing wants to purchase does not work or is inefficient, he does not have to answer to the voters; the Prothonotary does. Because docketing and record keeping are the core functions that a prothonotary performs, a prothono-tary has sole discretion under 42 Pa.C.S. § 2734(a) to determine what kind of system should be utilized to carry out the functions of her office. Because the County Commissioners did not fund that request only because they wanted another system chosen and not for any monetary reason, they did not provide her with adequate resources for not allowing her to carry out the duties for which she was elected. Accordingly, for these reasons, I dissent.
Judge FRIEDMAN joins in this dissent.

. I agree with that portion of the majority's decision rejecting the Prothonotary's argument regarding the County Commissioners’ denial of her request for funding for additional storage space. The record not only supports that she was provided with adequate space, including space at the Thomas C. Thomas Building, which had enough space to store files for an additional five years, but that she had been provided with annual increases *173to her overall budget in 1998 and 1999, and in 2000, funds were only allocated based on necessity, and many offices, including the Prothonotaiy’s, received no capital budget.