Carbon County is looking to fill vacancies in various county departments.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 15 open positions on the county website. Those included assistant director of elections, director of information technology and an IT specialist; and purchasing manager, to name a few.

Some positions were vacated by upcoming retirements, while others were resignations due to the salary study.

Mark Sverchek, county controller, who is not running for reelection, said Monday that while he was supportive of the salary study being completed and feels it was a good starting point, more work is needed to set salaries to properly compensate employees for the work they do.

“Unfortunately, and I kind of opine about this is that the result of the study may have an indirect negative effect on more senior, tenured people,” he said. “And as we have seen, there has been a few that have left or are going to leave the county, whether it be early retirement or just resigning after many, many years of county service. I’m very concerned about that because I’ll call that a brain drain. Those men and women are a wealth of knowledge for the county that we’re losing.

“It’s going to be hard to replace that knowledge base.”

Earlier this month, Lisa Dart, director of elections, resigned her position as a result of the study, noting that she felt like a number and not a valued employee anymore.

Her position was posted after her resignation, showing the starting salary range between $23.64 and $34.24 per hour. On. Jan. 3, the salary board had set Dart’s hourly wage at $24.23 per hour, a 1.5% increase from 2022.

The position has since been taken down, but no official announcement on the new director has been made to date.

Likewise, the purchasing manager position hourly salary was set at $17.22 for 2023 based on the new wage scale. This was a 1.5% increase over the 2022 wage.

At the time, Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein made a motion to increase the position wage to $20.94 per hour, but the motion failed.

He then noted that this department was one of the lowest paid in the county for what is required in the job.

Last Thursday, Rhonda S. Wenrich of Lehighton, who has served as the purchasing manager for several years, resigned, effective Feb. 17.

Wenrich was not available for comment at this time.

Under the job description for her position, the salary range is $16.80 to $20.47 per hour, dependent on education, work experience, skill and ability.

On the other end of the spectrum, the county is also losing experience in its IT department as the director, Jerome Scarpati, is set to retire.

He said that while he chose to retire this year, it was not due to the salary study.

For a complete list of employment openings at Carbon County, visit www.carboncountypa.gov and click on “How do I.”

Carbon County has had much turnover over the last year with officials saying the wages were too low to compete with surrounding counties.

It has been working on new wage scales since it hired Evergreen Carbon County hired Evergreen in July 2021 at a cost of $48,000. The goal of the study was to look at the positions of the approximate 400 employees and determine a proper compensation scale across all departments for the same type of positions.

On Dec. 8, the commissioners adopted new salary scales for nonunion supervisory and nonsupervisory county personnel and authorized the forwarding of these scales to county row officers.

Following the vote, each row officer and the courts were given packets containing the complement of the new pay scales, as well as descriptions on where it is believed the employee now will be set at.

On Jan. 3, row officers, the president judge and the salary board squared off in a two-day meeting over positions and what department heads should be the proper compensation for various employees.

Just over two dozen positions were approved at rates higher than the wage scale and earlier this month, a motion shot down moving funds to cover the additional wage expenses. Because of this, the rates fell back to either the approved 2023 scale or, in the court’s case, the 2022 rates.

“I will make comments after some salaries are officially approved at a public meeting, if the rates are set higher,” Nothstein said Tuesday.

The Carbon County Salary Board meets again on Thursday.