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About 25 employees of the Susquehanna County Correctional Facility were laid off when the jail closed on March 28, officials announced last week. Wyoming County is encouraging those laid off corrections officers to apply in the county.
At the March 25 meeting of the Wyoming County Prison Board, Warden Heather Schmidt said the jail has already received several applications from Susquehanna County corrections officers and encourages all officers to apply in Wyoming County if they are interested in staying in the corrections field.
“Overall I’d say our staffing levels are pretty good right now, but we still do have open positions,” Schmidt said. “We (jail officials) have been in communication with Susquehanna County over the past week to help them alleviate this process.”
The jail will also help house some of the Susquehanna County Jail’s 20 inmates if needed. At next month’s prison board meeting, the board will vote on a resolution setting a daily rate for Susquehanna County’s inmates. Wyoming County Commissioner Rick Wilbur says the rate will likely be $80/day per-inmate — the rate currently being charged to Sullivan County.
In Schmidt’s report, she said the jail currently has 47 inmates with 39 males being held in-house. Six females are being boarded in Lackawanna County, and one male and one female are at a treatment facility. Of the 39 males in-house, eight are from Sullivan County and the county is being reimbursed daily for housing those inmates.
Commissioners meeting
At the Wyoming County Commissioners meeting, commissioners honored County 911 Director Jeff Porter and Deputy 911 Director Ben Norris for completing training and becoming County Staff Associates for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The two completed the training courses on Feb. 5.
“We’re very proud of the two of them (Porter and Norris),” Commissioner Tom Henry said. “We always pray there is never any type of big emergency in the county, but in case there ever is we take being prepared very seriously. I think this county is great in terms of emergency preparedness.”
Commissioners took time to address the status of the Wyoming County Active Adult Center in Eaton Twp. Wilbur said all three men found it very upsetting that people were accusing them of turning their backs on senior citizens and said they are working their hardest to secure funding for a new Active Adult Center building.
Wilbur also wanted to squash any rumor of the county pledging money to Keystone College instead of a future active adult center project. Wilbur — who serves on Keystone College’s Board of Trustees — called the rumors “completely false” and said the county has not pledged to give any money to Keystone College.
“We know very well that the current state of that building is not the greatest, and we are moving as quickly as possible,” Wilbur said. “The county does not have the budget to pay for a new building itself, we will need federal funding. We are working with Congressman Dan Meuser’s office, but with federal funding freezes in some areas currently it is going to take some time. Please be patient.”
In other business, commissioners approved the hire of John Kiwak as a full-time maintenance employee and declared April as 811 Safe Digging Month in the county.
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