Chester County candidate sees $500,000 in missed revenue

A routine Chester County commissioners' meeting turned prickly Wednesday when the two Republican commissioners were accused of forfeiting at least $500,000 in county revenue during the last decade.

The cause was a loophole in ChescoPin, an electronic subscription database the county operates, said Russ Phifer, a London Grove Township Democrat running for recorder of deeds.

Phifer said he was questioning the wisdom of providing some users free access to a paid service as a county taxpayer, not as a candidate.

Republican Commissioners Terence Farrell and Ryan Costello scoffed at that notion, insisting Phifer's motive was political. Costello went a step further, chastening Democratic Commissioner Kathi Cozzone for not giving the board advance notice of Phifer's claims.

When emotions cooled, Costello and Farrell, who each served previously as recorder of deeds, said they were not aware that the recorder of deeds' website provides log-in information so users can access the entire system.

"If there is a glitch in the system, a back door, we need to investigate it," Farrell said.

ChescoPin, an online venue for accessing county data ranging from civil suits to marriage licenses to tax assessments, is available for a $50 up-front fee, then $10 a month for up to 100 searches and 10 cents for each additional transaction.

Phifer said his research showed that more than 3.5 million unpaid searches had been made since 2001 through the recorder of deeds' password and user name, which Farrell set up.

Farrell said his intent was to give residents access to Uniform Parcel Identifier numbers so they could check real estate records. Phifer said the account had been used for many other purposes.

In addition, he pointed out that the real estate information was already available free at a separate county website, one that also stirred controversy when Farrell established it in 2003.

The commissioners at the time complained that Farrell was providing free information that the county was providing by subscription through ChescoPin.

Farrell argued that providing the information reduced the strain on his office staff. Plus, he said, residents had already paid for such information through taxes and fees and should not be charged again. So both websites have continued.

Echoing the sentiments of the commissioners in 2004, Cozzone cited a fairness issue, pointing out that some residents should not receive free data that others have to pay for.

Phifer said he uncovered the inequity when he was doing research on the office he wants to run, and he questioned how the problem went undetected for so long. He said the sliding-fee schedule of ChescoPin made it difficult to calculate an exact revenue loss, but he called $500,000 a "conservative estimate."

According to county records, the county has had more than 700 ChescoPin subscribers for the last five years, collecting fees that averaged about $150,000 a year.