Perry County planning staff used the October meeting to review progress on the county hazard mitigation planning process and to flag a possible next step on stormwater planning under Act 167.

Speaker 2 (planning staff) said the county completed five work group sessions for the management plan and had more than half of municipal resolutions returned for the hazard mitigation plan. He told commissioners there may be leftover consultant funds that could be reallocated to prepare a pre-disaster recovery plan for the county’s emergency operations center. "There's I think there's, like, some monies left over in our contract that our consultant... could potentially work with the scope to help create a predisaster, recovery plan," staff said.

Staff also reported takeaways from the Pennsylvania Planning Association conference, including sessions on data centers, broadband mapping and stormwater topics. Of particular local consequence, staff said DEP has a program that can cover up to 75% of Phase 1 scoping costs for an Act 167 stormwater plan. He recommended the county consider preparing a scope in-house and then apply for DEP scoping funds: "DEP does have some monies for right now, I guess, if the county were to apply to cover 75% of the cost of doing, like, your scoping... for doing the phase 1." Commissioners discussed whether a countywide Act 167 approach makes sense for a largely rural county and whether the county should provide an architecture for municipalities to adopt tailored models.

Speakers stressed that in rural areas the costs and modeling required to run a full countywide Act 167 may be significant. A commissioner noted that many counties and municipalities that appear to have plans on a state map are out of compliance because their plans are older than five years. Staff suggested a phased approach: complete a Phase 1 scoping exercise using DEP funds and follow with targeted Phase 2 work in higher-priority watersheds.

Commissioners raised maintenance and culvert-sizing concerns as an immediate priority and debated how to balance borough-level versus county-level approaches. Staff suggested the act 167 work could be used to identify priority watersheds and to provide mapping and coefficients municipalities can apply locally.

The commission instructed staff to explore a DEP-supported Phase 1 scope and to discuss whether leftover hazard-mitigation consultant funds could be reassigned to a pre-disaster recovery plan. No formal vote was recorded on committing funds during the meeting; staff will return with further details and cost estimates.