Luzerne County Manager Search Committee selects five applicants for second interview

Luzerne County’s Manager Search Committee received 40 applications for the top manager position and has narrowed the pool down to five who will advance to a second interview and other further review, committee Chairman Chris Hackett said Monday night.

These are the first numbers to be released by the council-appointed committee, which accepted applications from Dec. 27 through Jan. 24.

Hackett spoke after a committee closed-door executive session Monday evening and said the screening has now reached a stage in which he is comfortable providing specifics.

Under the county’s home rule charter, the independent citizen committee must recommend the applicants it believes are the most qualified to council for its consideration.

Council then performs its own interview process. Seven of 11 council members — a majority plus one — must approve the manager selection for the hiring to take effect.

The committee initially evaluated and ranked all applicants based on their resumes, measuring a broad range of qualities with assessments of not qualified, somewhat qualified, qualified and highly qualified, Hackett said.

Those scores were then used to determine which 11 applicants would receive initial interviews through an online meeting platform, he said.

Now that those initial interviews have been completed, the committee determined five will be invited to participate in a second interview and undergo background checks and outside personality tests, he said.

The previous manager search committee also had used personality assessments through the Princeton, New Jersey-based Caliper Corp. for finalists in 2016, maintaining such tests were increasingly used in corporations to predict job performance personality traits.

“It’s an invaluable tool,” Hackett said of the personality assessment.

The test and background search will help ensure the committee has fully reviewed the candidates it will be recommending, he said.

About half of the 40 applicants — 21 — were considered not qualified by the committee and have been contacted to inform them they won’t be continuing in the process, Hackett said.

The committee plans to complete its second round of interviews of the highest-ranking applicants in person, although it will need council to earmark additional funds for the travel.

Hackett said he will appear before council at its work session Feb. 8 to request an additional $10,000 allocation, including $6,000 to cover expenses for applicants to travel here for interviews. Council could then decide whether to grant the request at its subsequent voting meeting Feb. 22.

He said his letter requesting the funds stressed the committee has been frugal with its initial $5,000, spending only $2,500 to date.

“We will continue to be very careful stewards of the taxpayers’ money,” Hackett said.

Committee member Rick Morelli had argued the committee’s second interviews should be completed remotely instead of in-person because council will want to personally interview finalists after the committee makes its recommendations. However, the six other committee members voted to proceed with the travel request, with some saying they are not comfortable recommending the highest-ranked applicants without meeting them face-to-face.

The committee has said it plans to recommend at least three qualified applicants to county council for its consideration in early April.

County Councilman Gregory Wolovich Jr. told the committee last week he agrees with Morelli’s opinion that remote interviews should suffice for the committee to determine which applicants should be recommended.

In addition to Hackett and Morelli, the following citizens serve on the committee: Sherri Homanko, Walter S. Mitchell Jr., Brian D. O’Donnell, Patrick Patte and Alec Ryncavage.

The manager position is open because C. David Pedri resigned last July.