CLEARFIELD – Clearfield County Children, Youth & Family Services has been in a “staffing crisis” for some time now.
According to Administrator Trudy Lumadue, casework is 47.6 percent staffed, clerical is 50 percent staffed and fiscal is 30 percent staffed.
“The burden is great,” she said Tuesday during the county’s Salary Board meeting. “We have rising intakes; we have rising referrals.
“And, our staff is really struggling because the burden is just so great for everybody right now.”
She then sought to use federal Family First Transition Act funds to award bonuses to all existing staff and four future caseworkers.
The board approved Lumadue’s request to pay sign-on bonuses of $2,500 to the first four new Caseworker I employees.
Retention bonuses also totaling $2,500 were approved for all 20 existing CYFS staff as part of the board’s action.
The existing employees will receive their first retention payment of $1,250 in March, with a second retention payment to follow in June.
It was noted that new caseworkers who receive a sign-on bonus will not be eligible for a retention bonus payment.
Lumadue had requested a higher retention payment, totaling $3,200, but the board felt filling the casework jobs would be more valuable.
“The greatest value we can give them is more help, to get this department staffed,” said Commissioner Dave Glass.
“It doesn’t matter how much we pay to retain them. We could pay them $20,000, but they still might not stay because of the burnout.”
Commissioner Tim Winters agreed, adding there was value beyond the bonus as more qualified staff would lessen everyone’s burden.
Commissioner John Sobel spoke of how CYFS really needs an aggressive marketing campaign to advertise the sign-on bonus.
He didn’t believe the reserve of $2,110 allocated for advertising was sufficient, adding that CYFS would burn through that quickly.
Sobel suggested a lower retention bonus so more funds could be redirected towards advertising and addressing the personnel crisis.
Later Sobel did cast the only opposing vote for two reasons. First he was uncomfortable with not having some sort of “clawback clause.”
Clawback clauses are a contractual provision that allows—under a prescribed set of circumstances—an employer to reclaim bonus funds.
Sobel also feared it may potentially cause low morale among employees in other county departments.
Both Glass and Winters understood why Sobel was uncomfortable with the constraints that the county was dealt.
However, Glass said the funds must be used by June 30 and CYFS was in need of four or five caseworkers to just get its “head above water.”
If other employees felt the retention bonuses were unfair, then Glass said they could apply for a job at CYFS because “they’re really struggling.”
In other business, the board:
- approved a request from Rick Redden, Domestic Relations director, to create three temporary intern positions in Domestic Relations at a rate of $12/hour for up to 1,000 hours per intern. It’s the hope of Redden and the county that the student interns will develop an interest in this line of work and become future county employees.
- approved the minutes of the Feb. 13 meeting as presented.