(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

“It’s a calling for most people, and a lot of people aren’t seeing or feeling the calling to get into that line of work.”

One week after displaying his feelings on the situation regarding the declining numbers of essential service members–police officers, EMT, firefighters among them–in Beaver County, first-term Commissioner Jack Manning dove deeper into the conversation with Matt Drzik on the July 20 edition of A.M. Beaver County. Manning said that the lacking numbers are “not a severe crisis, but it’s getting there.”

Manning noted that there was a decline in traditional jobs that affected industry back in the 2000s, but an upward trend in the trades came in Beaver County with an invested interest in the Shell Cracker Plant in Shippingport. “I think we need to take a similar approach for people that want to get into the public safety realm. We need to convince people that being a police officer is a great career,” Manning stated. “So we’ve got to start reaching into the schools at an early age; having those kinds of career counseling and job fairs that promote that, and fire departments, and all of the medical opportunities that come out of that…those are good honorable jobs.”

A step in that direction came later that day with the grand opening of the CCBC Center For Public Safety, but Manning acknowledges that the turnaround will be a multi-year process. “I’m hoping that we’ve bottomed out,” he added. “I think we’ll be on the rise, but I’ll be honest–everybody’s competing for the same talent…and it’s gonna be how quickly we respond…I think it’s going to take a while. It may take five or ten years for us to get to the fully staffed level again.”

To hear the full, uncut interview with Jack Manning, click on the play button below.