The Denton County Commissioners Court is set to hire a second recruiting firm today in an effort to boost its county engineer applicant pool, officials said.

Adecco, a  recruiting firm based in Swit­zerland, is the latest one tapped to help the county hire a county engineer. The county already has a contract with Aerotek Staffing Agency, but the firm has not brought any serious applicants before the court.

Both firms would require the county to pay the firm 30 percent of the applicant’s first-year salary.

“We are trying to expand our options,” County Judge Mary Horn said. “This will help us get the word out to people. We’ve got to do what we need to do to get the job done.”

For the past 15 months, the county has struggled to hire an engineer because a shortage of civil engineers has thinned the pool of qualified applicants, county officials said. The county has received 12 applicants since the position opened in 2006.

The court has interviewed three applicants, but one has removed himself from consideration. Another has expressed concern about the changing job description, officials said.

“We’ve got some tweaks to do, but we are going to get it done,” Commissioner Bobbie Mitchell said of the job description. “Times are tight with engineers.”

In the meantime, the county is paying engineering firm Teague, Nall & Perkins to perform interim county engineer duties at the cost of more than $12,000 per month. Commissioner Ron Marchant has expressed his unwillingness to continue to pay those bills.

However, the court has been reluctant to move forward on the remaining applicants, citing numerous reasons.

“The primary reason is the applicant pool is too small,” Horn said. “The other is members of the court don’t want to address the job description until we get into the budget.”

The commissioners have discussed changes in the job description that would make the position a department head over the planning department, but commissioners have deferred that decision until summer.

Amy Phillips, director of human resources, has said a change in the job description would likely increase the pay of the position. The position is budgeted for about $81,000, but court members have conceded that the pay might have to be increased.

“We might have to go to $100,000 or more,” Horn said. “We don’t have another choice. That is what the going rate is.”

DAN X. McGRAW can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is dmcgraw@dentonrc.com .