LCTA board will no longer receive life insurance benefit

Mar. 30—The Luzerne County Transportation Authority board of directors will no longer receive a life insurance benefit that became controversial earlier this year.

Board members voted last week to no longer accept the benefit, effective immediately, board Chairman Charles Sciandra said.

County Councilman Walter Griffith criticized the life insurance benefit after he discovered it while reviewing the authority's financial records. Griffith said the benefit violated a county charter provision that prohibits members of county authorities, boards or commissions from receiving compensation of any kind.

In January, authority finance director Randy Lisman said current LCTA board members received a $45,000 term life policy, while retired board members received a $10,000 term life policy.

The overall annual cost to LCTA was slightly less than $3,500, Lisman wrote in an email to county officials.

The life insurance benefit for LCTA board members dates from at least 20 years ago, before any current board member was appointed and long before the county charter took effect in 2012, Sciandra said.

Authority solicitor Joseph Blasozek researched the issue and determined the board had not done anything improper by continuing the benefit, Sciandra said.

Nevertheless, board members decided to terminate the benefit "from an ethical standpoint," to eliminate even the appearance of impropriety, he said.

"No one got on the board to get life insurance," Sciandra said.

Questions remain as to whether 10 or 11 former LCTA board members will continue to receive the life insurance benefit.

Blasozek is researching that issue and the board might vote on it at its next meeting on April 27, Sciandra said.

Sciandra compared the decades-old life insurance benefit to "a 400-pound gorilla that got fat over many years."

"You don't lose 400 pounds overnight," he said.

Also, board members of other transportation agencies throughout the state receive a life insurance benefit, Sciandra said.

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