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Lycoming County Commissioners highlight hiring crisis, approve purchase of $100K landfill backhoe

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Executive Plaza.

As the county was conducting a job fair Thursday just around the corner and down Third Street at the Trade and Transit Centre, Lycoming County Commissioner Scott Metzger told those attending the commissioners’ meeting at Executive Plaza that Lycoming County is among many counties in the state faced with hiring crises, not just in the public sector but also in the public workplace.

“It’s very tough to find employees,” Metzger said.

At a recent County Commissioners of Pennsylvania conference the commissioners attended, Metzger said that one of the “buzzwords” was retention.

“How do you retain employees making sure that they stay with your agency or with their current business,” he said.

Metzger said that the commissioners would report on the job fair at their meeting next Thursday.

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the commissioners will host a town hall regarding the America Rescue Plan Act funds in order to elicit ideas from the public on how the funds should be spent. The meeting will be held at the Commissioners’ Board Room, 1st floor Executive Plaza, 330 Pine St.

“What we’ve done over the past year is last June we met with the City of Williamsport and asked them what their target was with their ARPA funds and they expressed at the time that they were still in the early stages of that,” he said.

“Then we met over three nights over the summer with township supervisors, borough council people on their needs…we wanted to hear from them. Then we proceeded to meet with the water and sewer authorities throughout the county,” he added.

Because of the shortage of houses in the county, Metzger said that they also met with housing developers and realtors.

“We’ve heard there’s a housing crisis in Lycoming County. Normally we have 600 houses on the market in Lycoming County. We’re at about 175,” he said.

“The next stage is meeting with the public to share with them ideas about what we’re doing,” he added.

Metzger noted that the county will be receiving $22 million in ARPA funds and at this point they have requests for about $54 million.

In other business, a budget revision which would move a total of $17,790 from the Community Development Block funds to the Center for Independent Living’s rooftop air conditioning project.

The purchase of a 2022 John Deere backhoe for use at the landfill was approved by the commissioners at a cost of $102,511, which will be paid through Resource Management Service revenues.

Other actions by the commissioners were

• Approval of an amendment to an agreement with Air Management Technologies, Inc. to make electrical changes to the HVAC build project.

• Approval of software and support renewal with Tyler Technology for the assessment office at a cost of $114,858.

• Approval of a Memorandum of Understanding with West Branch Drug & Alcohol Commission related to COVID-19 disaster relief funds.

• Approval of an amendment to a Memorandum of Understanding with Roads to Freedom Center for Independent Living of North Central PA related to COVID-19 Disaster Relief funds.

The next regular meeting of the commissioners will be held at 10 a.m. March 31 at the Commissioners’ Board Room.

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