Schuylkill County Keeps Paying $215 Per Hour for Human Resources Work

Schuylkill County government continues to pay a seemingly exorbitant rate of $215 per hour just for Human Resources work.

On Wednesday, the Commissioners took no action to address the open HR Director position at Schuylkill County Courthouse. That means the County continues to pay $215 per hour to Hubric Resources, a Wyomissing firm that provides human resources services to companies in need.

The company previously worked for Schuylkill County when it last had an HR Director position opening. Hubric was retained in September 2020 at a rate of $125 per hour. At that time, the County said it was “aware” of the cost of the outside service, indicating that it was moving quickly to fill the open position with an actual employee.

Now that the cost is considerably higher, you’d think the Courthouse would be hustling even more to fill the position but to date, there’s been no action. And while that happens, a bill for a greatly overpriced service keeps getting bigger.

Schuylkill County Continues to Pay $215 Per Hour for HR Services

Even though the previous HR Director, Heidi Zula, just officially resigned from her position a couple weeks ago, the County has known she’d be departing at least since April. That’s when it was reported that Zula was taking a similar position with Harrisburg public schools.

But the contract with Hubric didn’t start again until May 17. The Courthouse didn’t inform the public it was doing this and Commissioners didn’t formally approve the contract until June 8. They retroactively approved it, meaning that bill from Hubric was already growing even before the public knew the job was open.

While the Courthouse is advertising the HR Director job on Indeed.com, it’s not doing so on the County’s outdated website. It’s not listed on the Job Postings link there. So, is the County really putting its best effort into finding Zula’s replacement? Or is the Courthouse relying on Hubric to help it fill the job. That same contract allows this company to bill us $165 an hour for a headhunting service Hubric offers.

The Courthouse did recently post an Administrative Assistant job within the HR dept.

The Commissioners won’t meet again until July 6 so if the County does something to address the open HR Director position, the public won’t know about it until then. Or maybe not. It seems the public can only know about things happening at the Courthouse – especially things that cost you a lot of money – when the people working there are good and ready to tell us.