Carbon County officials continue to look for employees for several departments, adding parking lot attendants to the growing list of vacancies.

On Thursday, Commissioner Chris Lukasevich pointed out an item on the personnel report showing that three part-time parking attendants either resigned or were let go.

He said that the county is seeking people who have the right disposition and can handle the pressures of that job.

“It’s not an easy job but it is a critically important job to the county to tourism,” Lukasevich said, adding that parking revenue supports the county parks and parking lots.

Currently, the county has three active parking attendants and three additional ones they bring in when needed.

Hazards to the job

Scott Pompa, who has been a part-time parking attendant for the last year, said that while it sounds like an easy job, it is far from it because parking attendants get the brunt from frustrated visitors, who aren’t happy already due to parking situations and then don’t understand the kiosking system.

Pompa said that he had worked 28 years in adult and juvenile corrections, but has taken “more crap” from visitors trying to park than in his 28 years in the corrections field.

Sheriff Anthony Harvilla echoed Pompa’s thoughts, saying that when deputy sheriffs are stationed in the parking lot during events like the Fall Foliage Festival, visitors can still get unruly over parking with deputies in full uniform.

Not just since the kiosks

When asked if this problem has gotten worse since the kiosks were installed, the board said that it has been like this for a while.

Lukasevich said that the county is working with Jim Thorpe and the kiosk company to try to ensure some issues that have come up are addressed and mitigated.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said he understands why people are quitting because visitors don’t show respect to the parking attendants.

“We get it here in the office (too),” he said. “When they get a ticket for not paying attention to signs. We can only put so many signs out. … It’s really getting ridiculous that our employees, that a lot of the offices are putting up. There’s no respect at all.”

County Treasurer Ron Sheehan said that he remembers people being frustrated for years, not because of their parking spot, but because of traffic patterns and trying to get into town and then they would take out their frustrations on the first person they would see.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that one good thing about the kiosks now is that it has alleviated the traffic backups that had been occurring in the borough as people waited to enter the county parking lot.

Other departments

Nothstein also added to last week’s conversations about the need for more employees in certain departments.

“We are really plagued by space needs and personnel,” he said, highlighting the prison, which has three inmates currently hospitalized. This means that three corrections officers must be stationed outside the inmates’ hospital rooms round-the-clock instead of in the prison.

“We are bare minimum staffing in the prison,” Nothstein said, adding that this problem is not only in Carbon County.

Other departments that are currently suffering as a result of staffing issues are Children and Youth and the Sheriff’s departments due to people leaving, or caseloads increasing and no applicants being approved by the state for the positions.

“We don’t have a choice in hiring (for Children and Youth). … We are mandated,” Nothstein said, adding that the county is facing hiring an additional nine Children and Youth employees next year to keep up with the caseloads and mandates.

This, he said, also provides a trickle-down effect into other offices because so many other departments are affected by mandates and staffing.