Lycoming County commissioners have removed, consolidated or renamed — with lower paygrades — positions on the TDA (table of distribution and authorizations) on a near-weekly basis for the past six months.

All was done with the goal of reducing costs.

Then rumors started surfacing that the commissioners were asking employees who were close to retirement to consider stepping away earlier than anticipated. The option of voluntary layoffs was purportedly on the table for others.

Offices, such as the county’s transportation planning, were decimated.

Some employees moved on for better paying jobs and others just left. Upper management positions were not being filled as former employees moved on.

Leaked emails showed employees asking other offices to share their supplies.

The commissioners were claiming that the county was in trouble financially and they were asking everyone to tighten their belts and support their efforts of trying to get finances back on track.

Still, the overwhelming mood was, what comes next?

“We’re trying to look at every possible way to save money,” said Commissioner Scott Metzger.

“We don’t want to do mandatory layoffs. That’s the last thing you want to do along with a tax increase,” he added.

The commissioners pointed at the Joinder Board on the fourth floor at Third Street Plaza where they were offering voluntary layoffs or retirements to their employees.

“Voluntary retirement-we’ll give you an incentive and we’ll make the incentive payable on or before the end of March,” he said.

The timing aligns with tax monies that come in at that time of year.

Metzger noted that they had a “handful” of people who opted for the voluntary retirements. It was about the same for voluntary layoffs.

“But, we didn’t want to do anything mandatory,” he reiterated.

They also asked the courts to try to cut $1 million from their budget.

“We have no control over the courts. They’re a separate branch of government, or an equal branch of government, at their 1620 rates,” he explained.

The term 1620 rates refers to the county code, which grants row officers, who are elected officials, authority over hiring, firing and supervising their staff. The commissioners have no say over those personnel actions.

An example of this, recently in the news, was the loss of the courthouse dog, Ludo, when his handler was terminated after the judge for whom she worked lost her bid for retention in the November election.

Although the commissioners had nothing to do with that, they were still blamed for the situation, primarily in the court of public opinion.

“We got blamed on social media for it, but we had no control,” Metzger said.

Both Metzger and Commissioner Marc Sortman acknowledged that they support having a dog at the courthouse, but without the handler having a job at this point, it’s not going to happen.

“I can’t have somebody who’s an employee not have a judge to work for,” he said.

As far as the voluntary layoffs and retirements, the commissioners admitted that it was a way to help with the budget, but it was designed as a means of balancing it.

“You can’t balance a budget on police backs and salaries, that’s impossible…you get down into a public safety issue. We don’t want to jeopardize any public safety,” Metzger said.

The number of employees currently in county government is about 550, while 20 years ago that number was around 375.

The commissioners are seeking ways to trim that amount. They’re doing it by looking at the departments to see if there is a duplication of service — multiple employees doing the same job. “There are departments over there that have drastically increased over the years that have two people doing one job, and we’re identifying that. We’ve had employees actually leave for maybe another line of work, and they’ll tell HR (Human Resources), ‘I wasn’t busy. You really don’t need this job.’ I’ve heard that more than once.That’s somebody who left and went to another occupation. So that’s alarming,” Metzger said.

“So then we go back to the department head and say, ‘Do you really need this position?’ Or if a position sits open for six to nine months, do you really need it? Because everybody else is doing the work,” Metzger said.

“You just split up. You do the work. Just like any job, you pick it up and you do it to get the mission done, and that’s what you have to do, and that’s what we have to do. We have to do more with less. The courts are taking that philosophy, do more with less,” he added.

The commissioners pointed out that for every 20 employees with their salaries and benefits is an average of a million dollars in payroll.

While looking at staffing in the county departments, the commissioners admitted that there was no set number or goal of the positions that they needed to eliminate.

“There was no number…We just looked and said, OK, there’s people around here that would retire if they had a way out. So we gave them the way out, and then we took another group and just said, Hey, who would take a layoff,” said Commissioner Marc Sortman.

Sortman shared that the commissioners’ looked at their own staffing to see if it could be cut.

“We have two administrative assistants for three people. We didn’t really need that. We moved it down to one, but the answer that I kept hearing from everybody is, what happens when she goes to lunch? What happens when she’s on vacation,” he said.

Sortman, who has a background in private industry, said that is not standard operation procedures.

“We don’t have a backup in private industry. The county grew itself into that, and we’re gonna fix that. We’re gonna hone that in almost every department that had two administrative assistants based upon that same scenario, what about lunch and what about vacation,” Sortman said.

The commissioners are also looking at positions that were funded by grants. The grants have ended, but the positions are still in place.

“Those jobs we have to look at and say, if it’s no longer being paid for, why is it still in existence,” Sortman said.

“Obviously the reason it was brought in was temporary, so you’ll see us in the future when we say yes to jobs, if it’s that type of job, we’re going to put an end date in there. We’re no longer just approving the jobs,” Sortman added.

The commissioners indicated that so far the reception to their reductions has been positive.

“We’ve asked everybody to please reduce. They’ve been good. We’ve had a couple pushbacks. The elected officials kind of seem like they see one elected official get this and they want the same thing, and we’re like, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together…we’re working for the taxpayers,'” Metzger said.