Potter County court approves one-time staffing shifts, $183,540 certificate-pay fund for sheriff; directs further salary study

Potter County Commissioners on Monday approved a set of short-term steps to ease staffing pressures in the county’s public-safety agencies, including $183,540 to expand certificate pay for sheriff’s office personnel and the creation of a county fire marshal position funded from the county’s capital account (CAD). The court also accepted the removal of several unfilled positions from department budgets to free money for those moves.

County Fire Rescue and the sheriff’s office told the court they had been losing staff and increasingly relied on overtime and volunteers. Jonathan Stevens, who came forward with colleagues to describe recent fire responses, said the department “is currently the only department in the county that relies heavily on a volunteer-driven model, and it is failing,” and asked commissioners to restore pay increases and a fire marshal role that had been cut from an earlier draft budget.

The court approved a motion allocating an additional $183,540 to expand…