LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Board of Supervisors’ last meeting of June saw its members confronted with numerous issues related to employment, from workplace safety to a notable retirement, and ongoing challenges with recruitment.
It was during the same meeting that numerous In-Home Supportive Services workers rallied outside on the courthouse steps and spoke to the board during public comment about wanting better working conditions and wages. Their union, California United Homecare Workers Union Local 4034, had closed session negotiations with the board, sitting as the IHSS Public Authority, on that day.
The board also approved new updates to the county’s COVID-19 workplace safety rules and honored retiring county Risk Manager Jeff Rein after 30 years of dedicated service.
One of the main employment-related items was the board’s discussion and approval of drafts of a hiring incentive policy and an updated referral policy, both of which offer cash to bring in new employees.
County leadership said they continue to struggle with recruitment, despite giving out raises to staff in the fall based on the classification and compensation study. At that time the county vacancy rate was at 20%. It’s now at 21%, county officials reported.
The challenges are being attributed, in part, to the pandemic.
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said the county’s classification, compensation and recruitment committee was largely responsible for the draft policies.
That committee includes Huchingson, Supervisor Moke Simon, Supervisor Tina Scott, Human Resources Director Pam Samac, County Auditor-Controller/County Clerk Cathy Saderlund, analyst Diana Rico of Human Resources, Health Services Director Denise Pomeroy, Sheriff Brian Martin, Social Services Director Crystal Markytan, Chief Probation Officer Rob Howe, and deputy county administrative officers Steven Carter and Matthew Rothstein, a group Huchingson said during the meeting included “the best minds.”
Huchingson said staff wanted to workshop the drafts with the board and then take them to meet and confer with the county’s employee unions. The drafts would then return to the board before the policies are put in place, which could take place in July.
Samac said the committee had worked over the course of several months to develop a hiring incentive policy to attract and retain hard to fill positions.
The document defines hard to fill as those which have had two failed recruitments in a six-month period, resulted in fewer than three to five qualified and available candidates, candidates have declined job offers due to wages and benefits, non-entry level positions that have turned over multiple times in the last three to five years, and promotional recruitments that are not eligible for hiring incentives.
The positions are not entry level, with Samac adding, “Promotional recruitments are not eligible for this incentive.”
The list the committee sent to the board includes positions in 10 classifications that have typically been hard to fill. Those classifications are for attorneys, engineers, licensed medical staff, mid/senior level management, planners, safety, senior accounting and finance, senior social workers, mental health and substance abuse, and specialized skills and certifications.
Samac said they will look at those positions twice a year and ask to have more positions added to the list twice annually.
Proposed incentives as initially presented to the board were $6,000 for deputy sheriffs, deputy probation officers and welfare fraud investigators; $5,000 for correctional officers and dispatchers; and all other positions would be 10 percent of the overall salary, not to exceed $10,000.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier said he had asked Human Resources for a list of all vacancies. He said that list showed 237 vacant positions but the list of jobs proposed for incentives covered only 60 of them.
He said every one of the positions that are vacant need to be supported. “How are we going to fill those positions?” he asked, adding, “We don’t need a list.”
Sabatier said the plan shouldn’t be specific to pay and that it doesn’t matter why the position isn’t filled.
He also noted the “insane” competition for public safety employees, adding he’s talked to the sheriffs of surrounding counties about it.
Scott said they needed to look at the proposal as “one brick in the wall,” and she was fearful of completely opening the incentives up to all jobs.
During the pandemic the county’s recruitment has been in a “holding pattern,” said Huchingson, noting that the vacancies now may look different than they would if not for emerging from a pandemic.
“Ultimately, we are looking for an overall fix,” said Simon, calling the incentive list a tool.
Huchingson said the incentives will be funded by cannabis tax for general fund departments, and for self-funded departments with salary savings, they will cover it themselves.
Sabatier wanted to have the matter brought back to the board once $100,000 in incentives have been spent.
“That would be a miracle,” said Huchingson, who suggested that the program might have traction in three to four months from implementation.
Huchingson said staff plans to bring back to the board at a future time the county relocation policy that offers $3,500 to new employees; she said the goal is to increase that amount.
Department heads ask for additional jobs, more money
Sheriff Martin told the board that with the proposed increase to $6,000 for deputies, “I wouldn't say we’re competitive at $6,000. I’d say we’re more competitive.”
Neighboring agencies also offer incentives — some of them substantially more.
Martin said the Ukiah Police Department pays $10,000 to recruits out of the academy, $8,000 to live in the city and $20,000 for lateral transfers.
“It’s tough to compete with that,” he said.
He said awhile back the committee’s name was changed to also include a focus on retention. “The current employees we have are arguably more important,” with more experience and dedication, Martin said.
“In my department I’m dealing with a retention issue as much as a recruitment issue,” said Martin, explaining that he’s hiring people and losing them more quickly.
Since taking a draft budget to the board a few weeks before, his number of employees had dropped from 121 to 114. The next conversation, he said, needs to be about retention.
Not discussed during the meeting was the fact that when many county employees were given raises last year as a result of the classification and compensation study, the deputies did not receive a raise. In June, the deputies’ union returned to negotiations with the county.
During the discussion, other department heads raised their own concerns.
Todd Metcalf of Behavioral Health Services explained his department is used as a training ground, with people staying only a few years.
Crystal Markytan of Social Services said a committee isn’t needed to figure out that Lake needs to pay its employees on par with other counties, because the county is spending an enormous amount of money to train people only to lose them.
Public Works and Water Resources Director Scott De Leon asked to have the board add the county surveyor position, which he said will be hard to recruit. It is being vacated due to a retirement.
Health Services Director Denise Pomeroy told the board that if her agency doesn’t have the staff to draw down funding from the federal government, the government will take away the funds.
She said the Public Health Department is a training ground, hiring licensed staff out of school who stay a few years and then leave. She said they have had some positions vacant for as long as nine years.
Huchingson said the updated hiring policy could be implemented on July 13 and three months after that the county could see changes in recruitment outcomes.
Sabatier said that looking at the hard to fill vacancy list, the average pay of vacancies on the priority list is $30 an hour.
Other vacancies average $22 and hour. He said those support staff positions will be very hard to fill if nothing is done.
“I’m still very uneasy with just pushing this forward when it seems very top heavy as to who we’re trying to recruit versus what does our county need,” Sabatier said.
He said the county won’t be able to fill $14 an hour positions with no incentive.
The board reached consensus to raise the incentive for public safety employees to $10,000.
Samac said Animal Care and Control Director Jonathan Armas asked for the veterinarian and vet tech positions also to be added.
The board also supported the second policy change, raising the employee referral incentive from $500 to $750 for most positions and up to $1,000 for hard to fill positions.
The new employee has to work for 90 days and mention who referred them for that person to receive the incentive, staff explained.
Huchingson said they were asking to increase the amount for the referrals due to minimal success.
Simon said he wants to entertain increasing the referral bonus for all positions to $1,000 in the future.
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