amended agreement with PFM<\/a> extending the consulting arrangement through July 2026. The county received additional state grant funding to support that engagement during the second phase of the STMP initiative, and now seeks $200,000 more through the program as officials prepare for continued implementation in phase three.<\/p>\nGaughan, Chermak and Commissioner Thom Welby voted Wednesday to retroactively authorize an application seeking that phase three funding, with the county planning to retain PFM through 2027 in what Chief Financial Officer David Bulzoni described earlier this week as \u201cmore of a limited-scope engagement.\u201d Among other duties, the firm will update cash flow projections and provide training for revenue and finance staff to bolster the county\u2019s internal capacity.<\/p>\n
The grant funding would also cover a salary study and compensation review \u201cto evaluate compensation structures, market competitiveness, internal equity, and long-term compensation administration practices,\u201d per the resolution commissioners adopted Wednesday.<\/p>\n
That project is consistent with and would support a number of workforce management initiatives in the PFM-authored financial management plan. It\u2019s also expected to account for the majority of the $200,000 in funding the county seeks, as the cost of retaining PFM is only expected to be about $25,000.<\/p>\n
Gaughan, recounting the myriad fiscal challenges he inherited upon taking office in 2024 and the considerable progress made in the years since, credited PFM with helping \u201cmove this county away from crisis management and toward actual financial management.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis phase three legislation continues that work in a targeted and responsible way,\u201d he said. \u201cIt supports implementation of the recommendations already made. It helps train county staff so we build internal capacity instead of relying forever on outside consultants, which we do not want to do. And it funds a comprehensive salary and compensation review so that we can evaluate county positions with fairness, market competitiveness, internal equity and long-term sustainability in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
A goal of the study would be improved employee recruitment and retention, with Gaughan noting \u201ca county government cannot recruit and retain good employees if its compensation system is outdated, inconsistent or impossible to defend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I have to tell you, since I\u2019ve been here \u2026 it is really hard to understand the compensation in Lackawanna County,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a very hard time hiring people because the compensation is totally out-of-whack.\u201d<\/p>\n
A salary analysis would provide a road map for improvements in that area, he contends.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously you can\u2019t do it all at once, it has to be done over a number of years, but in addition to helping us recruit and retain people, the taxpayers of Lackawanna County deserve a salary structure that\u2019s fair, rational \u2014 which it is not rational now \u2014 and financially responsible,\u201d Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
Officials, meanwhile, expect the phase three engagement with PFM, running through the end of next year, to be the county\u2019s last.<\/p>\n
Copies of the county\u2019s financial management plan and related resources are available online at lackawannacounty.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Lackawanna County commissioners will retain the financial consultants behind the county\u2019s long-term financial management plan as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,28421,983,3,3234,147,530,24933],"class_list":["post-712247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-scranton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}