Lackawanna County is working to fill several jobs in its roads and bridges department and seeks applicants with commercial driver’s licenses as officials prepare for the winter season.

Hiring for the equipment operator/truck driver positions has remained an ongoing challenge despite the county raising salaries earlier this year, county Human Resources Director Jenna Strzelecki said. The county currently seeks Class A and Class B CDL holders for jobs offering starting annual salaries of $55,000 and $50,000, respectively, up from prior starting rates of $37,500 annually, she said.

“It’s been extremely difficult to find qualified people with CDL licenses to fill the positions,” Strzelecki said. “We’ve been looking to fill these positions for quite some time and the salaries just increased for those positions, so we’re hoping that it attracts people … but it definitely has been a struggle to find qualified CDL drivers.”

Workers in those county positions are busy year-round, with responsibilities that range from paving, material hauling and manual labor to plowing, snow control and more, per job descriptions posted on the county’s website.

“They do the plowing, they treat roads under our winter maintenance program, so they’re basically on call 24/7 if we get inclement weather,” Strzelecki said. “They’re always in demand, but as we are coming to the winter months we’ll be ramping up in that department a little bit more, so we’re looking to fill those spots as soon as possible.”

County Roads and Bridges Director Bob Milewski, who started in that role last month after serving as Jefferson Twp.’s roadmaster in recent years, echoed Strzelecki. Staffing in the department is currently at about 50% when it comes to the CDL positions with five such positions unfilled, he said, noting the county had to contract with several outside firms to plow county roads last winter because of internal manpower constraints.

Contracting for plowing is more expensive than doing the work in-house and less than ideal for other reasons, too, Milewski said. He hopes to mitigate the potential need for plowing contractors this winter by filling driver vacancies.

“Right now basically what we’re trying to do is build a team again,” he said.

Job postings for those and other vacant county positions are available online at lackawannacounty.org.