BRATTLEBORO â Itâs no secret that finding staff now is difficult.
âIâm hearing that across the board from lots of people â restaurants, you know, small factories,â said Greg Lesch, interim director of Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, âskilled and not skilled.â
Lesch said it seems to be a statewide and nationwide problem.
âWe hear from employers on a daily basis about the need to hire,â said Adam Grinold, executive director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp.
Grinold said the sentiment expressed to him is, âIt used to be hard to find people. Now, itâs next to impossible.â
The Covered Bridge Inn on Putney Road in Brattleboro closed after all the guests checked out of their rooms on Memorial Day due to a shortage of staff. Needing 10 employees to run the property, the inn was down to three.
BRATTLEBORO After experiencing a prolonged shortage in staff, the police department has rearranged scheduling. Our department has been relatively short staffed for some time now but over the past six months, maybe year, our staffing has continued to decline as additional officers have resigned and left the department, Interim Police Chief Mark Carignan said during the Select Board meeting held remotely Tuesday. Currently, our overall strength is at less than two-thirds.
Brattleboro has 17 officers working in a department authorized for 27, and not all of the officers are assigned to patrol duties, Carignan said. If officers did not offer to work overtime, they have found themselves assigned to overtime shifts.
Athol unions oppose regionalizing dispatch
Police dispatcher Becky Isakson works inside the Athol Police Station on Thursday. Athol’s police, firefighters’ and dispatchers’ unions have submitted letters objecting to regionalization. Recorder Staff/Domenic Poli
Published: 9/23/2016 9:32:50 PM
ATHOL The town’s three emergency services unions have submitted letters objecting to proposed regionalization of their dispatching and blasting what members view as a mishandled process to achieve it.
Unions representing Athol’s firefighters, police officers and dispatchers filed formal opposition with the Board of Selectmen, which two of the letters contend did not properly gather input from the unions. The proposal is to consolidate Athol police and fire dispatch with that of Gardner and operate in a regional emergency communication center in the new Gardner police station.