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Northampton officials urge pay raises to fill juvenile-center jobs and restore contracted bed revenue
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Summary
Officials said staffing shortages have left many of the county—acility—eds empty; raising youth-care-worker pay from about $19.80 to roughly $23 an hour is proposed to restore capacity and the $1–2M of contract revenue that offsets county costs.
Wayne Green, district court administrator, told the Courts & Corrections Committee that Northampton County—an fill more juvenile-center beds and increase contract revenue if the county addresses pay. "We need to raise the salaries of our youth care workers," he said, adding that "The youth care workers right now make about $19.80." Green said a target of about $23 an hour would stabilize staffing and allow the county to operate more beds.
The county runs a mixed detention-and-treatment juvenile facility that currently sells contracted beds to other counties; Green said the center brought in $2.4 million, $1.6 million and $1.8 million in prior years at about 80% occupancy but that revenues have fallen as staffing and census dropped. Committee members noted nine contracted beds (three to Lehigh, three to Monroe, two to Lackawanna and one to Pike) that pay a per diem; staff confirmed the rate is $415 per day now and scheduled to rise to $435 on July 1.
Jamar Billman, director of the juvenile detention facility, gave a more detailed operations accounting and said staffing shortfalls are the main limiter on taking additional county and out-of-county youth. Billman described facility capacity as 84 beds (including 36 detention beds and treatment pods) and said current daily census for the full facility hovers in the mid-teens to high twenties depending on program, with treatment-beds especially underused. He said many outside counties call seeking beds but the center must sometimes refuse because it lacks staff.
Billman highlighted one operational improvement: "In the 4 months that we've been operating in 2026, we have not had 1 restraint down in our facility," he said, attributing the decline to staff de-escalation efforts and supervision changes. He also described plans to seek a license change to create a more secure, smaller unit (application submitted in October; review expected in three-to-six months) to retain higher-need youth locally rather than sending them out of county.
Why it matters: the county offsets juvenile-center spending with contract revenue; higher occupancy improves public safety and reduces costs from out-of-jurisdiction placements. Committee members pressed for a brief cost analysis of the proposed wage increase; Green said he would prepare that analysis for the council so it can weigh the up-front personnel cost against increased per-diem income.
Next steps: officials asked county administration to work with the council on options to fund higher wages so the center can staff and fill available beds. No motion or formal vote was taken during the committee update.
