EASTON, Pa. – Northampton County’s Juvenile Justice Center remains deep in a staffing crisis, forcing the facility to limit who it accepts. The issue also raises questions about its future.
On Wednesday night, the center’s administrators are slated to appear before a Northampton County Council budget hearing to answer questions about staffing issues.
- Northampton County's Juvenile Justice Center is less than 25% staffed
- The center has been turning away kids from other counties—like Lehigh County—and limiting who it accepts into treatment programs
- County Director of Court Administration and the center's director are slated to answer questions from the County Council at a budget hearing Wednesday night
The center is operating with about 25% of a full complement of youth care workers, the front-line staff who watch over the children in the center’s care, according to its administrator, JaMarr Billman. He said employees are required to work a growing number of mandatory back-to-back shifts to keep things running.
“If you're here 16 hours, your day off is going to consist of resting instead of doing the things that you would normally do,” Billman said. “If they're getting mandated back-to-back days, then they could go for a couple of days without even tucking their kids into bed. They could go a couple days without seeing their wife or a significant other.”
He said the crunch is likely to worsen during the holidays when more senior staff take time off.
In order to comply with state-enforced ratios of children to workers, Billman said the Juvenile Justice Center has been limiting who it accepts into its treatment programs and turning away kids from outside the county.
For neighboring Lehigh County, which closed its juvenile jail in 2014, this means finding beds at a shrinking number of other facilities in the region, all of which are located outside the Lehigh Valley.
If the Northampton center continues to lose workers without being able to hire more, officials said the facility may have to cut back on the programs it offers, or shutter altogether.
“If we had to get to a bare minimum,” Billman said. “We’d have to figure out what we're going to do here at the juvenile center if we're going to have to start looking at what programs we could possibly temporarily close.”
“We don’t want it to be another statistic of a juvenile facility closing,” he added.
Wage competition
The crisis began with the pandemic and has shown no sign of easing. Billman said it is because the pay at the center he runs is too low.
Currently, youth care workers at the center start off making $16.46 an hour. It is less than Northampton County’s living wage, according to MIT’s calculator.
It is also less than what similar facilities around the state offer for the same work: one juvenile detention center in Morgantown, Pa. is advertising $22 an hour to start for youth care workers; Billman said another in Montgomery county pays slightly more than $20 an hour.
“When you look at Walmart, Amazon, any of these other warehouse jobs, we're nowhere close to competing.”JaMarr Billman, administrator of Northampton County’s Juvenile Justice Center
Billman said other industries in the region may be more attractive for workers.
“When you look at Walmart, Amazon, any of these other warehouse jobs, we're nowhere close to competing,” Billman said.
In order to attract staff, Billman said he needs to be able to offer $20 an hour.
But it is not his decision to make because Northampton County’s youth care workers are represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees [AFSCME], and the pay is negotiated by union representatives and County Executive Lamont McClure.
Offer dispute
When negotiations over a new contract for youth care workers began earlier this year, McClure said he offered workers a series of raises over the next three years to $17.20 when the new contract takes effect, and $18.42 by 2025, calling it the biggest package they have ever received.
“The youth care workers are very, very important,” McClure said. “That's why in our administration, we have determined that they should be paid fairly, and that's why we've made them this huge offer over three years.”
According to Billman, the workers and their union asked for the same pay as their counterparts at the county jail, where corrections officers start out making $18.93 per hour, according to a current job listing.
“That’s where the negotiation has failed,” Billman said.
Representatives for the union did not respond to requests for comment.
If AFSCME rejects McClure’s offer, the question goes to arbitration early next year, in a process similar to court but overseen by an independent third party hired by both parties instead of a judge.
“Frankly, I think they’re going to do better with my offer than they will in arbitration because it’s a very fair offer,” McClure said.
Billman said the raise McClure offered would barely make a dent.
“I think we’re going to be in the exact same position in a few months, if not worse,” he said.
