During his report at last night's Northampton County Council meeting, Executive Lamont McClure boasted that mandatory overtime at the jail and 911 center is significantly down.
When he took office, he was down 20 dispatchers and supervisors at the 911 center, making mandated overtime necessary.
"I am happy to tell you we are fully staffed at 911 now," he told Council. These positions were filled even though the county's dispatch operation consolidated with Bethlehem.
When he took office, there were about 184 corrections officers even though the county budgeted for 212. McClure has filled vacancies, and claims the jail is now only about three or four officers short of being fully staffed.
Corrections Director James Kostura has told McClure that some officers are now asking, "Where's my overtime?"
In a meeting last year with union officers Lew Donatelli and Russell Attanasio, they pointed to a prison study conducted by former Executive John Brown. According to that study, staffing at the jail should be 247. They suggested the County was purposely refusing to fill vacancies because mandated overtime was actually cheaper.
7 comments:
Fully staffed at 911 but poorly trained with less than half of the employees trained on all positions but I guess quantity over quality when lives are at stake. They are also still not fully staffed with supervisors and expect their supervisors to make less than those they are entrusted to supervise but at least we will have a multi-million dollar forensic center that will likely never really be used to it's full potential. Toot toot as you blow your own horn out of office McClure.
The 911 center is still screwing up. Still dispatching wrong units to incidents. Hopeless.
Apparently nobody in government cares.
That's a serious accusation about a core county function. Please provide specific examples. "Still dispatching wrong units to incidents" is unhelpful. Since you used a plural, I'd like at least two specific examples so I can (and will) check.
How about the time they dispatched Williams Township to a reported fire in a laundromat on South Side Easton .Luckily the Williams Township FD chief caught the mistake right away and THEN Easton was dispatched. NO point to argue with you Bernie. Youre just a stooge for the county executive. If our local newspapers still followed up on this stuff it would be front page news.
I am not arguing. I asked for specific examples so I could check if you are being truthful. You provided one example without so much as even an approximate date. Anyone who reads this blog knows I am no Todd Weaver fan, but your failure to provide any evidence to back up your claim leads me to conclude you are full of shit.
Larry, Moe, and Curly.....all rolled up into one
the jail is disgusting filthy smells roaches let's talk about that.
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