The Monroe County Prison Board spent a good part of their meeting last week trying to come up with a solution on how to encourage more applicants to respond to the help wanted ads for prison guards. They even have an ad on one of the electronic billboards on Route 611 North in order to get the word out.

Applicants sign up to take the test and then don’t show up, according to Deborah Thompson, the human resources assistant.

Just recently they had 170 potential applicants apply to take the test but only 12 applicants showed up.

“I reached out to eight participants to interview and four followed through out of the five that were selected. The five all passed their agility test this morning,” she said.

Monroe County Sheriff Ken Morris brought up the subject on how many hours is spent on background checks.

“When you get 170 applicants apply to take the test and you have to run background checks it seems there is a lot of wasted time if out of those 170 background checks you did, only 12 applicants took the test,” he said.

Morris suggested, “What if you charged a fee to sign up to take the test, then maybe only the ones who are serious about the taking the test would sign up.”

“Yes it is $130 for the physical by itself, and that’s not including the cost of the background clearances for the Pennsylvania State Police,” Thompson said.

“I am saying you will actually get more serious applicants to show up to take tests rather than 150 applications that you have to go through,” the sheriff said.

The conversation turned to how difficult it is to even get anyone to apply for the job, and charging a fee could discourage applicants.

“Ken’s idea, even if there was a $25 charge, enough that put a little skin in the game and we say when you show up to be tested, that charge gets wiped off? I don’t know. I mean, it’s maybe we were just fighting the lack of personnel looking for jobs,” said Commissioner John Moyer, chairman of the board.

Warden Garry Haidle said one of the problems is applicants can make more money in a correctional facility in New York state.

“We’re competing with Northampton County as well, their CEO, job postings, which is very close in proximity to us. So I don’t know if these people are getting other jobs or they’re just not showing up,” Thompson said.

No decision was made on lack applicants, but the Warden said he would reach out to other correctional facilities and ask how they fare with testing and hiring.

Inmates

For the month of June the correctional facility was at 396, but the warden said it goes back and forth between 395 and 401.

Some prisoners are expected to be transferred to state facilities this month.

Oil tank

Deputy Warden of Operations Phil Diliberto said the underground oil tank was leaking. A company will look at the tank and advise if it could be fixed.

If it cannot be fixed, a motion was made to purchase a new aboveground tank.

The underground will not be dug up, but a mitigation company would be hired to use the proper mitigation strategies to keep the underground oil tank from polluting the ground.