County deals with staff retention problems at correctional facility, com center

LOCK HAVEN, PA – It turns out that local restaurants are not the only employers with staffing problems. The Clinton County Commissioners, at their Thursday meeting, approved temporary pay increases for correctional officers at the county correctional facility and dispatchers, dispatcher trainees and shift supervisors at the Department of Emergency Services.

The problem, the commissioners said, is retaining employees in those departments. Commissioner Jeff Snyder said there are 58 correctional officers when the county prison is fully staffed; he said that number recently has been in the low 40s to around 45. He said Warden Angela Hoover proposed the pay increase. Snyder noted Clinton County is not alone in prison staffing issues. Hopefully, he said, the pay hike will assist in retaining the present staff and recruiting some new officers. Board chairman Miles Kessinger said AFSCME Council 86, the officers’ union, approved a memorandum of understanding on the hike just prior to the Thursday county approval.

The commissioners called the prison increases “temporary retention incentives.” Correctional officers will receive a $1.50 an hour pay hike beginning with the first day of the next pay period, the increase for six pay periods. The officers will also receive a $100 bonus plus eight vacation hours for finding a new officer to be employed for at least 90 days.

Snyder said the com center is also having “numbers problems.” The county salary board approved a similar “temporary increase” of $1.50 an hour, effective June 27 and good for the next six pay periods. No additional incentives were listed for the com center employees.