On July 28 the Wall Street Journal printed an article titled, “Rural Towns Are Aging, Cash-Strapped, and in Desperate Need of Workers.” The article talked about rural towns in our country who could not recruit new, younger workers to take on the tasks of running local government.
Nothing could be truer for the rural communities here – in the San Joaquin Valley – where we call home.
Something happened in 2020. The world experienced a global pandemic where we were told (and sometimes forced) to mask up, stay home, and vaccinate. But while we were sheltering in place, something else happened. People realized they did not want to go to work from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. We saw a new era where employers desperately sought workers and they were willing to change working conditions to allow remote work, flexible hours, and much higher wages.
This new employment agreement may work for some private sector jobs, but it does not work for government employment where our citizens expect to have a face-to-face conversation and a place to go to receive tax-funded services. Our county services require us to respond to our citizens with a hands-on and face-to-face approach to address the public’s needs.
In a backdrop where fewer and fewer workers seek jobs without full teleworking or flexible working opportunities, the County of Kings undertook a salary survey. The survey determined how much the county should pay by comparing wages with how much other rural counties paid their workers. But the county did not obtain adequate information about the types of jobs or services performed. Only a small percentage of workers were able to fill out the ten plus page survey about their job description. The salary survey did not adequately compare our workers’ jobs to other county’s jobs. And lastly, the salary survey failed to consider whether other rural counties were able to fill the jobs with the minimal wages offered. The end result was a recommendation to pay Kings County workers a median salary compared with other rural counties.
What does median salary mean? It is the middle salary in a list of other salaries give or take 5%. And Kings County median salaries cannot compete with surrounding area.
Kings County loses at median. Kings County is a small rural county with a population of approximately 150,000 people with 63% of the population of working age. We cannot only draw workers from our community to work in Kings County. We must draw from other nearby cities, such as Fresno and Visalia. This is especially true for professionals with college degrees or graduate degrees. Approximately 12% of Kings County residents have a college degree and 4% have a graduate degree. When the county pays its employees at a median salary, it does not take into consideration that its employees can work in Tulare or Fresno Couties for the same salary with a shorter commute. It makes no sense for an employee to commute 20, 30, or 40 minutes away for median pay. While the county has offered a flexible schedule and telework for two days per week, Kings County remains understaffed.
As the District Attorney for the County of Kings, I ask Kings County residents to consider the effects of chronic vacancies in our local governments. Our detentions deputies and juvenile detention staff must work overtime shifts (at overtime pay) to keep these facilities running. Maintenance for public works projects is delayed. Responses for emergency services are slower or take away resources from other parts of the county. Prosecution for crime is slower. These are all examples of how chronic understaffing affects the services we provide to the public. The county compensates for the understaffing by paying our current staff overtime pay or hiring outside independent contractors to do the work. While these measures are appropriate options for the short term, we are not building a committed workforce for the long term.
Each and every county employee strives to give the public his or her best, but the Board of Supervisors cannot expect fewer employees to bear the heavier workloads left by others looking for better opportunities. We face burn out and fatigue. Some departments have high turnover. And when people are pushed to their max, there is always a risk of mistake or miscalculation. The county spends money to plug the holes by paying for recruitment and training efforts. However, when the County constantly recruits and trains our workers at median salary, we are only training someone to leave and find work in a county that pays higher wages.
This is the time where we need the community to take a stand. We all need and seek the services of our local government. And we value those who serve our communities in the capacities of firefighter, peace officer, maintenance worker, clerk, nurse, and prosecutor to name a few. Each week, county employees come to the Board of Supervisors to ask the board members to acknowledge their service and to compensate them accordingly. Let’s join them and advocate for fair compensation.
The county should invest in its workers to pay better wages now so that we are not paying more for delays, constant training, or liability for mistakes.
Or maybe all of the many employees who have left the DA’s office since you took over just didn’t want to work for a raving lunatic.