Clearfield County Commissioners assisting county departments amid worker crisis

CLEARFIELD COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) – Clearfield County Commissioners approved bonuses for CYS employees as well as the Domestic Relations office to create intern positions at their most recent salary board meeting.

CYS Administrator Trudy Lumade approached the commissioners asking them to approve sign-on bonuses for new Caseworker positions and retention bonuses for all existing CYS staff. Commissioner approved with a 2-1 vote with Dave Glass and Tim Winters saying yes and John Sobel saying no.

“It’s important to recognize that they’re working hard and they are short-staffed. They’re taking a tremendous caseload,” Glass said. “I think the biggest help we can give them is to get them help and get them more bodies and get this department staffed so they can do the job the way it should be done.”

Currently, CYS has eight caseworkers when they should have 19. They also only have four intake employees and they should have 10.

“We have 60 reports coming in a week and we need to respond to every one of those reports in some way. And at this point in time, we have four intake workers who are investigating all of those reports,” Lumadue said. “We can’t get out there and protect kids if we don’t have the people here to do it.”

The money for the bonuses is coming through a federal program called the Family First Transition Act.

“We recently obtained the approval from the state that we can use this as retention and incentive due to our staffing crisis,” Lumadue said.

The payments for existing staff will be made in two separate months, the fist being in March and the second in June.

The commissioners also approved the creation of three temporary intern positions in the domestic relations department. The request was to create three positions that would pay $12/hour up to 1,000 hours.

“This is an investment for the future, we would get some younger people interested perhaps get some future county employees over time through this,” Commissioner Tim Winters said. “The day of the unpaid internship has come and gone. You have to you have to offer something to get people to give up their time.”

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With CYS and the Domestic Relations office, both battling a worker crisis commissioners believe that every little bit helps. With changes made during the meeting, they hope they can recruit and obtain employees so county residents are taken care of more efficiently.

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