Schuylkill County Children and Youth Services Agency workers on Wednesday implored commissioners to move forward with negotiating a new contract.

The county has been negotiating a contract with the employees’ union, SEIU Local 668.

The previous four-year contract, which covered some 67 employees, expired on Dec. 31.

Under that pact, salaries ranged from $12.67 an hour for a clerk 2 position to $21.20 for a caseworker 3.

That’s just not enough, those who spoke at the commissioners’ meeting said.

The agency is short staffed and underpaid, making it even harder to do their heart-wrenching work, they said.

Caseworker Gregory T. Koperna said that for nine years he worked as a child abuse investigator.

“In that time, I dealt with sexual, physical, and mental abuses. I’ve seen a lot of things. A lot of them I can’t unsee.

“But the one thing I never thought I’d see is the state the agency is currently in. We are down 20-plus workers. We cannot deal with what we have. We’ve worked through COVID. We never stopped. We put masks on, we continued to go into homes,” he said.

“I’ve dealt with and been part of autopsies. I’ve held dead children. I’ve done things that I think most people in this room would not recover from as an employee of this county,” Koperna said. “I’m here today to ask the commissioners to please come back to the negotiating table with a contract respectful of the workers’ experience. Help us get a contract together that will attain and maintain a working staff.”

His colleague, Harold Alexander, said that “we decided to come today to just ask if we can have a conversation. We’ve been operating in good faith, I feel, in terms of trying to get to some kind of resolution with our contract.”

There are employees who may be considering whether to stay with the agency, he said.

Alexander said fast food and warehouse workers earn more than agency employees.

He said commissioners have visited the agency’s offices and have told workers how “important our position is.”

Alexander said that workers began negotiating a new contract five months in advance of the end of the current pact.

Candy Flickinger has been a clerk typist for the agency for more than 20 years. She keeps track of children in foster care, adoptions, and prints photos of child abuse victims.

”That cannot be unseen,” she said.

After 20 years, she makes $18.50 an hour.

“I can barely survive on my income,” Flickinger said.

“Work with our negotiating team, Get this contract wrapped up. Help us. We need more people, we need more help,” she said.

In September, agency executive director Lisa M. Stevens said 28 employees had left the agency since January 2022. The year before, 31 staff members left.

The pandemic nudged many into leaving. Caseworkers are required to respond in person to abuse allegations, meaning workers had to visit homes regardless of whether people ill with the highly contagious virus were there.

Also, more lucrative, less stressful jobs became available, luring many away.

In September, county officials offered agency workers retention bonuses as an incentive to stay.

All full-time employees will receive the quarterly bonuses, to be paid from the surplus left in the agency’s budget from positions that have been vacated.

For employees there under one year from the month the payment is issued, will get $500; under five years from the month the payment is issued, but at least one year with the agency, will get $750; under 10 years from the month the payment is issued, but at least five years with the agency, will get $1,125. Those with a minimum of 10 years or more will get $1,500.