The Lycoming County commissioners approved two out of three personnel actions listed on their agenda Thursday, choosing to push back action on the third until next week to make room for discussing an alternative to hiring new staff.

The hire was meant to fill an existing maintenance position in the county prison at $18.08 per hour plus benefits starting Monday.

Recalling conversations with employees at the Pre-Release Center from earlier in the year, in which some stated they didn’t have enough work to keep them busy each day, Commissioner Rick Mirabito instead is proposing the county chooses the most qualified work foreman available at the center and moves that person permanently to the prison.

Doing so would leave the county’s current employee count the same and also might save time and money on training efforts because the work foremen already are familiar with some of the tasks that would be required of them, Mirabito said.

“We are not using our staff as efficiently as we could be,” he said.

His proposal, made in the face of upcoming high-dollar projects, keeps with his ongoing efforts to downsize the county’s personnel complement.

“We have to do something somewhere,” Mirabito said. “Especially when we get hit with a $7.4 million radio bill. And, you know what, we’re going to have to do a reassessment — it’s going to be $3 million. And we’re going to have to buy election machines … that’s going to be $2 million. Because some of this is out of our control.”

While he understands Mirabito’s goal, Commissioner Tony Mussare said a maintenance position in the prison is not the position to test other people in.

“I don’t necessarily disagree with Commissioner Mirabito, I know what he’s trying to accomplish,” Mussare said. “But (the foreman’s) role is to take offenders out into the community to work, they don’t do any of the maintenance for the county. Those people supervise the offenders. If he wants to bring that position down into the prison, I’m not sure that the qualifications are there.”

In addition, when a name has been added to the personnel actions on the commissioners’ agenda, it often means that person already has been extended, and likely has accepted, the job offer — the next step in the hiring process is to formally vote on the hiring and start date at a public meeting.

“I really think that the person is going to end up getting hired because, one, it’s the correct thing to do now,” Mussare said. “And, secondly, I can’t really speak for (Commissioner Jack McKernan), but we had a good discussion about this and I think we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t think it’s an issue because we still need to hire more maintenance people,” Mirabito said, adding the county’s maintenance department will be losing “two or three” employees in the near future.

McKernan was absent from the meeting in which this conversation took place, thus Mussare and Mirabito decided to continue it at a time when McKernan could participate. A decision on the matter will be made next week, the commissioners agreed.