![\"County](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/STT-L-COMMISSIONERS-1008-03.jpg\")
County Commissioner Thom Welby makes remarks at the Lackawanna County Government Center in Scranton on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (CHAD SEBRING\/STAFF PHOTO)<\/p>\n
A $131,250 STMP grant awarded this past summer through the state Department of Community and Economic Development will cover the cost of the salary study, Strzelecki-Eagen said, noting the project is estimated to take about six months. It was the latest grant the county received through the state program, which previously delivered funds county officials used to engage and retain PFM.<\/p>\n
On the salary study front, Baker Tilly will \u201cprovide employee allocation and implementation calculations and strategies with guidance from PFM to ensure the county has financial stability while trying to implement parts of the plan slowly over time,\u201d Strzelecki-Eagen said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be a final report provided to leadership and everything will culminate in a final presentation of their findings and the action plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Bill Gaughan emphasized the breadth of the county\u2019s workforce in backing the compensation review, noting its roster includes hundreds of positions tasked with very different and often complex duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time salaries, job descriptions, titles and responsibilities often change,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople leave, new positions might be created, duties can evolve, and if you don\u2019t as a county periodically step back and look at the entire system you can end up with inequities, salary compression, outdated job descriptions and positions that simply aren\u2019t competitive in today\u2019s labor market, and I think that\u2019s some of our major problems here in the county.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat eventually costs taxpayers money too, because when we cannot retain or recruit qualified employees, we spend money constantly advertising, hiring and retraining people while the employees who remain are asked to carry more of the workload,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhat I really like about this study is that it isn\u2019t simply asking \u2018should everybody get a raise?\u2019 That\u2019s not what this is. It\u2019s asking: \u2018What is the job, what are the responsibilities, what should that position reasonably be worth? How does it compare internally and how does it compare to the market?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Another important element of the study is that it should help identify \u201cclear pathways for people to move up in different departments,\u201d Commissioner Chris Chermak said, an apparent reference to the \u201ccareer ladder\u201d Strzelecki-Eagen mentioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes when people leave or retire it gets a little confusing, so \u2026 the path moving up the chain certainly will make things a little easier and make it better for us, because we have people here that know exactly what they\u2019re doing and what\u2019s going on in these departments,\u201d Chermak said.<\/p>\n
Endorsing his colleagues\u2019 remarks, Commissioner Thom Welby said it will be good to compare county salaries against averages elsewhere. Baker Tilly will work with county officials to establish a list of comparable peer organizations to include in the assessment and will issue market reports as part of the project, including a comparison of county compensation ranges to the market range.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might be painful for us in the future to a great degree, but it\u2019s only right,\u201d Welby said.<\/p>\n
Baker Tilly\u2019s engagement letter puts the estimated total cost of the salary study and compensation review at $104,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Lackawanna County commissioners recently awarded a contract for a grant-funded salary study probing employee pay, positions,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-305272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}