Lawrence County Salary Board makes cuts to remain solvent
The corrections officers at the county jail have still managed to avoid pay cuts
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — The Lawrence County Salary Board made cuts Thursday designed to help the county general fund last through the end of 2009.
As they had announced previously, county Commissioners Steve Craig and Rick DeBlasio and Controller David Gettings voted to cut wages by 3-percent for management and non-union employees in the Department of Public Safety, the jail and the Coroner’s office, effective Oct. 5 and through Dec. 31. Commissioner Dan Vogler was in Pittsburgh on county business and missed the meeting.
They also formally created a Deputy Warden position at the Lawrence County Jail at a $46,000 salary which they made retroactive to their appointment of Brian Covert to the post this summer. Covert was named to that position when Warden Charles Adamo retired, but Covert has continued to make his lower captain’s salary since then. Commissioners said they do not intend to name a permanent warden in the near future.
The salary board also eliminated an $11 per hour part-time maintenance position at the jail and created a part-time records keeper position at $11 per hour, which replaces a full-time records keeper position.
The board also eliminated a $28,000 case manager position in the district attorney’s office with the approval of District Attorney John Bongivengo. But salary board members said that when a new district attorney assumes office in January, he would have the prerogative to restore the position. Bongivengo was defeated in the primary election.
Corrections officers at the jail who are members of Laborers’ Local 964 are now the only county employees to escape cuts imposed due to the county’s budgetary situation. The union recently voted down a request by county commissioners to accept a three percent cut for the rest of the year. There had been indications the union might reconsider its vote, but officials said Thursday they have now been officially informed the union will not vote again.
The rest of the county’s employees will be forced to take unpaid leave when the courthouse closes Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.
Officials have said the state budgetary impasse froze state funds which normally come to the county, creating a shortage in the general fund. While the state budget has now been signed, officials do not think the money owed by the state will come through quickly enough to insure that the rest of 2009’s payrolls can be met.