Centre County commissioners are continuing to hold former Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar's salary until there is a resolution to his seven-month disappearance.

"We will essentially do nothing with his salary until he appears, his body is found or this is somehow resolved," Centre County commissioners' Chairman Chris Exarchos said.

The commissioners made the decision after a consensus was reached among them and state lawyers who were assigned to evaluate the situation.

County Administrative Service Director Tim Boyde said the money has been held since Gricar's disappearance April 15, which is seven months' worth of Gricar's $130,000 annual salary.

Boyde said Gricar's salary and benefits are included in the department's budget.

"[The money is] not really anywhere now; it's just being shown on paper what is owed to [Gricar]," Boyde said. "At the end of the calendar year, the question is, where do we put the money?"

Boyde said the department has talked with the county solicitor and financial advisers about the situation.

"They had some preliminary input ... nothing has been settled, but it's kind of premature at this point," Boyde said.

Boyde said one option is to hold the money in an escrow account, a trust account held in a third party's name. It has not yet been determined if the account would earn interest.

Another option at the end of the year would be to send a letter to Gricar's beneficiaries notifying them that the money is available, Boyde added.

Boyde said that once there is a resolution to the case, it can be determined how much time Gricar would be paid for, and the remainder of the money would revert back to the county.

The Centre County commissioners voted to withhold Gricar's salary in May, a few weeks after his disappearance.

Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, offered the Centre County commissioners assistance in October in the form of state lawyers to help determine a course of action regarding Gricar's salary.

Corman said last month that the state lawyers were attempting to find a precedent that would guide the decision making.

There have been no new developments in the case, Bellefonte Police Department officer Darrel Zaccagni said, and there have been no new reports from the FBI concerning Gricar's hard drive.

The hard drive was found in early October about 10 to 15 feet in from the riverbank of the Susquehanna River.

The hard drive was found about 100 yards from the area where two fishermen discovered his county-issued laptop in July.

The hard drive was transferred to the FBI and is being processed in a California "clean room" by experts attempting to recover data despite the hard drive's condition.

Bellefonte police do not have a timeframe for when the results can be expected.

Bellefonte police said they are hoping to recover data such as e-mail messages, banking information, Internet browser history or possibly some kind of journal.