Berks County officials on Feb. 14 discussed adopting an emergency declaration to address a countywide shortfall in road salt supply and to allow emergency purchasing that would waive standard procurement requirements and ratify purchase orders issued by the county's director of contracts and procurement.

Kevin Barnhart, chief operations officer, told commissioners that earlier in the week county emergency-management staff and the Center for Excellence of Local Government at Albright College had alerted county officials to an "impending salt supply shortage throughout the county." Barnhart said the county and municipalities share suppliers and that the primary supplier under the purchasing council contract had run out of material. "We did contact 12 salt suppliers and most were out or unavailable," Barnhart said. He reported that at least one supplier has since accepted an order from a municipality for 100 tons.

Barnhart and staff described steps taken to assess municipal stocks: some municipalities had sufficient salt, some were borrowing supplies from neighbors, and some were substituting anti-skid mixes to stretch remaining salt. He said county partners and the Center for Excellence of Local Government had been engaged to coordinate responses. The agenda item language would declare an emergency "with respect to the lack of adequate road salt supply within the county of Berks," waive procurement-law requirements, and ratify purchase orders issued by the director of contracts and procurement.

The meeting transcript records the presentation and staff explanation but does not record a roll-call vote on the emergency declaration during the excerpt.