A Carbon County official voiced his concern about a long-standing practice when an employee leaves county service.

On Thursday, Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko spoke about the process of resetting the pay scale on a position after an employee leaves that position. The practice includes the salary board resetting the position salary back to step A on the pay scale.

The example that brought the discussion was a secretary I position in one of the four district magistrate’s offices after an employee left. The position was at a grade 5, step B, which is $16.85 per hour; however the action resets it back to a grade 5, step A, or $16.44 per hour.

“I get very concerned that Carbon County has become a training area for a lot of people who move on,” Sofranko said after the motion was made. “We then constantly drop back like this and it has an effect.”

He said he looked at salaries across the county and how staying at a higher step would affect the operations.

“It’s something I do think the salary board and the commissioners’ office needs to sit down and do some real research into so that we’re not constantly losing employees over 30 or 40 cents (per hour) because we’re spending a lot of time training them,” Sofranko said before voting in favor of the motion but adding that the board needs to “continue to dig into that.”

The motion passed 4-0 with Commissioner Rocky Ahner absent.

In other salary board business, the county approved an action that will provide $2,500 bonuses to 10 domestic relations employees who qualify based on federal funding guidelines.

President Judge Roger Nanovic explained that this is an agreement between the county and court of common pleas to allow the courts to provide these bonus incentives as long as the department meets the five federal performance measures as outlined in the cooperative agreement.

The qualifying employees must have worked in the department for the last year and still be under county employment.

The funds for these bonuses come from the federal IV-D fund.

Sofranko said that this is based on guidelines set forth by the federal government based on money provided to the department.

“Don’t think that the county is giving $2,500 bonuses out because as much as I’m sure every county employee would love to hear that, that is not happening,” he said.

Nanovic added that the IV-D contract has different standards and requirements, and that part of that contract is for incentive amounts that are to be allocated as the courts and commissioners agree.

As of Thursday, there is $282,342 in that account to be used for incentive purposes.

The motion passed 4-0 with Ahner absent.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said after the vote that he wished the county could do this for all of its employees, however it’s through the federal government.

Other actions

Other salary board motions included:

• Changing the rate of one lead executive secretary in court administration from $28.24 per hour to $23.18 per hour, effective Nov. 9.

• Changing the rate of one part-time senior center operator I in the Area Agency on Aging from $16.07 per hour to $14.20 per hour, effective Nov. 9.

• Changing the rate of one assistant purchasing manager in the purchasing department from $17.27 per hour to $16.44 per hour, effective. Nov. 9.