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Monty Pagenhardt Retires As Garrett County Administrator

OAKLAND, Md. (AP) -- When Monty Pagenhardt says "the good people of Garrett County," that's not just empty rhetoric.

Pagenhardt, who is retiring Friday after 20 years as the county government's administrator, believes nothing points that out better than the response of the high country citizenry upon the death of his developmentally disabled older brother, Steve, who died in 2014 at age 65.

"The viewing was supposed to be from 5 to 8, but there were so many people who were lined up all the way outside that we were there from 4:30 to 10," Pagenhardt said Thursday morning. "That's the way people are up here."

Pagenhardt, a lifelong resident of Garrett County and a graduate of Southern High School, said county government was broke when he took the job, but by living within existing means and taking advantage of state grants and a boost in property tax revenue from home construction around Deep Creek Lake, it has rebounded nicely.

"The county has zero debt," he said. "Taxes were raised in 1997, but not since then."

Not long ago, 15 employees accepted retirement incentives. That saved $1 million, according to Pagenhardt.

Another cost saver without reducing benefits to employees was the joining of forces with Garrett College and the county's Board of Education to purchase health insurance for employees.

"Garrett County government is a good employer," Pagenhardt said. "We have 340 employees and there have been only 10 resignations during my 20 years."

Pagenhardt said he has enjoyed coming to work in downtown Oakland for two decades. "Part of my routine was to work two or three hours every Saturday to prepare for the upcoming week," he said. "I liked to stay ahead of things."

Conversation about weather is common in the highest part of Mountain Maryland where winter comes earlier and stays a little later than in the rest of the state. When Tropical Storm Sandy reached the

Garrett County line in 2012, the toll it took was somewhat unexpected.

"Actually, the county dealt well with the debris and the roads, but it was the power outages that caused the greatest problems," Pagenhardt said.

Dealing with the public is a prominent duty on the job description for a county administrator.

"We have always told people to call us to get the facts or set up an appointment to speak with us. We have been very transparent, but sometimes people don't want the facts to get in the way of their beliefs.

The same person who is the first to call for abrasives on the road where they live is the first to call in spring for us to remove the abrasives," he said.

Pagenhardt has worked with 16 county commissioners.

"During my time, there was never an election year when all three county commissioners were voted back in," he said.

John Braskey, a county commissioner from 1982 to 1997, said Pagenhardt's tenure of 20 years speaks for itself.

"To deal with that many commissioner personalities and the public is difficult," Braskey said. He did a great job."

Following graduation from Bridgewater College, Pagenhardt obtained a Master of Business Administration at Frostburg State University. His wife, Nancy, retired earlier this year as a middle school language arts teacher at Garrett County Public Schools.

"We both decided it was time for a change," he said.

The Pagenhardts have three daughters. Amanda Pagenhardt-Goralski is client relations director for Chao and Associates in Vienna, Virginia. Dr. Justine Pagenhardt is an emergency medicine physician at West Virginia United Health Systems. Meredith Pagenhardt is an elementary school teacher in Grant County, West Virginia.

A hiker and a bicycle rider, Monty Pagenhardt will continue touring the county in which he has spent his life, but more work is on the horizon as well.

In September, he will start to pull together a human resources and employee relations consulting firm.

"Small municipalities and businesses don't understand or want to deal with human resources issues such as the legalities of what can be asked in an interview or how to discharge someone," he said. "We would be available to help with those things."

Kevin Null became the new county administrator on Wednesday.

Story written by Michael A. Sawyers, Cumberland Times-News.

(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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