Stacy Smith says the job for “front-line” workers at the R.I. Department of Human Services isn’t easy in normal times, but the labor market is making it even more difficult.
There are too few workers to properly deal with the flood of social services cases the department is receiving, Smith told a state legislative committee in March. While the department has been hiring some workers, Smith – president of the union that represents about 280 DHS employees – said there isn’t enough new help to make up for the people who have quit.
In late March, DHS officials acknowledged that there were 75 openings for positions that deal with department “field operations” alone. And this was before the state began the massive Medicaid renewal process that requires 300,000 people to contact DHS over the next year and threatens to put much more pressure on the system.
With wait times to talk with DHS “eligibility technicians” stretching into hours, callers often are steaming by the time they reach a technician. “First thing they’re doing is yelling,” Smith said.
Employers across the state have been grappling with a tight labor market since the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic passed in 2021. They’ve lamented the lack of available help or struggled to keep talented workers while the unemployment rate has been bouncing around at a historically low 3% for the last year.
And it’s been no different for one of the state’s largest employers – the state government itself.
While the $13.6 billion fiscal 2023 state budget authorizes more than 15,400 public employees, officials say there are about 1,700 job openings across the government’s numerous agencies this year – nearly double the number of vacancies in 2020, when it stood at 870.
For example, the R.I. Department of Environmental Management has about 30 full-time jobs unfilled among a staff of about 425 people. And at the R.I. Department of Public Safety, 27 operators are fielding between 30,000 to 50,000 911 calls each month, a task that administrators say should be handled by 39 people.
One of the most affected agencies is the R.I. Department of Children, Youth and Families, which reported earlier this year that 116 employees had left their jobs since January 2022, 66 of whom resigned. DCYF officials acknowledge that they have struggled to fill the vacancies.
The situation is somewhat of a reversal of what has been government lore in Rhode Island for many years.
“In the old days you needed to know someone,” said Michael DiBiase, CEO and president of the business-backed nonprofit Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. “Now [those doing the hiring in government] are asking if you know of anyone [who needs a job].”
But while some agencies say they’re feeling the pain of staffing shortages, some observers point to the upside of having a smaller payroll.
Some officials attribute a significant portion of the state’s estimated $540 million surplus this fiscal year to not having to pay as many people as expected when the budget was passed last June. And some fiscal conservatives say this labor market might be an opportunity to examine which jobs are essential and which ones should be on the chopping block.
State Rep. Brian C. Newberry, R-North Smithfield, suggests that the state should undertake an in-depth analysis of positions to detect potential areas of bloat.
“In the private sector, people whose jobs are not needed tend not to last, and those positions that are needed tend to get filled,” Newberry said. “But in the government sector, that is not always the case.”
[caption id="attachment_438525" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
SHIFTING HEADCOUNT
In 2006, Rhode Island’s state budget authorized 16,417 positions in government, a number
that dropped by 2,000 during cost-cutting efforts in the midst of the Great Recession.
Since then, the number of authorized positions had edged upward to 15,455. / Source: House Fiscal Advisory Staff[/caption]
REDUCTION NEEDED?
It certainly was the case in 2008 and 2009, when then-Gov. Donald L. Carcieri slashed hundreds of state jobs.
At the time, Rhode Island was facing recession-fueled deficits and leaders had few options to close the shortfalls. Carcieri, a Republican, even proposed layoffs, as part of a plan to eliminate 1,000 state jobs.
Carcieri estimated the cut in labor costs would amount to $100 million annually, but adding to the difficulty of pulling it off: the Great Recession. The jobless rate in Rhode Island had shot up from 4.7% in March 2007 to 12.7% in 2009. Sending throngs of public employees to the unemployment line didn’t seem prudent for some.
Still, the number of state employees declined from 15,064 in fiscal 2007 to 13,565 by fiscal 2009. And by 2010, there were just 750 unfilled positions.
But as the state recovered from the economic doldrums, the headcount for Rhode Island government edged upward again over the years. The number of jobs authorized by the annual state budgets rose from a low of 14,340 in fiscal 2010 to 15,455 in fiscal 2023, although the number of people actually filling positions has hovered around 13,740 this year in part because of the labor shortage.
And despite struggling to fill the existing jobs, Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s $13.7 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2024 seeks to boost the number of authorized positions by 136.
DiBiase says the overall number of full-time jobs has not been increasing at any alarming rate, but Gary Sasse sees question marks on the horizon when it comes to the growing size of the state’s payroll.
Sasse, who served as Carcieri’s director of administration and is the founding director of the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University, notes that state governments have received a big helping hand in the form of COVID-19 pandemic relief money in recent years.
“It will be interesting to see how states come down from the federal aid high,” Sasse said.
“The question of whether the state can afford 15,000-16,000 workers is a matter of political choice,” he said. “The greater the state’s personnel costs, the less resources are available for direct payments to needy Rhode Islanders, enhanced educational aid and new initiatives.”
Whether state government could operate properly if the 1,700 unfilled jobs were just eliminated is a gray area, according to House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale.
Some agencies likely need to fill positions to fulfill their mission, says Chippendale, R-Foster. But other departments could stand to operate with a smaller staff, he says.
“I think we need to say, ‘Let’s see how it’s working’ and not fill some positions until we absolutely have to,” he said. “We should always be looking at ways to reduce overhead.”
He points to the R.I. Department of Transportation, which employs about 700, and the R.I. Department of Revenue, which employs about 560 and oversees the R.I. Division of Motor Vehicles and the R.I. Lottery, among other agencies.
“We really might not notice that [the positions are] gone,” Chippendale said. “And I hope they will operate with a leaner model built out of necessity.”
[caption id="attachment_438524" align="alignright" width="401"]
FRONT LINE: The R.I. Department of Human Services has taken steps to hire more people and reduce the backlog of social service cases DHS eligibility technicians are processing. Pictured is the DHS regional office in Providence.
PBN PHOTO/WILLIAM HAMILTON[/caption]
STRESS FACTORS
DCYF officials say the agency is struggling to work with what it’s got. Workloads are having to be spread among fewer workers, which is in turn causing many of them to leave and further shrink the workforce.
The employee attrition rate for 2022 stood at 18%, DCYF says. The rate was much worse within the juvenile justice program and child protective investigators, which stood at 31% and 43% for 2022, respectively.
Katelyn Medeiros, who is leading the R.I. Office of the Child Advocate, recently told the House Oversight Committee the labor gap has resulted in lengthy waitlists for services, with “[youths] languishing in hospitals and residential facilities due to the limited availability of placements or sent out of state to receive services.”
At the time of her testimony, as many as 63 children under DCYF care remained in out-of-state facilities.
The issue goes beyond social case workers and other support staff. DCYF attorneys who litigate cases in the Family Court system remain at historic lows, leaving many of the agency’s legal minds frustrated and overburdened.
DCYF spokesperson Damaris Teixeira said attorneys who have left DCYF cited “staggering workloads, the daily stress and pace of the work that can contribute to fatigue and burnout, the enormity of responsibility, and concerns and fear that they will make a mistake because of the size of their workload.”
The situation is much the same at the Department of Human Services, which administers social assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid.
Indeed, high vacancy levels were coinciding with the massive undertaking of recertifying and managing the safety net benefits that over one-third of Rhode Islanders rely upon. In April, DHS resumed Medicaid renewals for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To reduce the backlog of applications, DHS shuts down its call center on Wednesday so workers can catch up on paperwork. Administrators say the move has worked to ease the load. But Smith, president of Rhode Island Council 94 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO Local 2882, says her members are feeling the stress. One technician had a backlog of 2,000 cases to process, she says.
“I’ve never seen the morale where it is right now,” Smith said. “We don’t have the staff to do it. But I know I can go into any other [agency] office and it’s going to be the same.”
At DEM, the labor shortages aren’t as severe. But they are unusual.
Where the department has struggled the most is with the higher-skilled roles such as environmental police officers and engineers, according to DEM spokesperson Michael Healey. Positions that typically would attract more than 30 applicants now receive less than a dozen.
“We’ve never had to publicize and promote openings via social media,” Healey said. “Now it’s a necessity.”
There’s a similar dilemma at the R.I. Division of Sheriffs, where the deputies manage security at courthouses around the state. The division is down 40 to 50 employees out of about 180 total positions, according to J. Michael Downey. president of Council 94 AFSCME, AFL-CIO, which represents the deputy sheriffs.
A posting on the division’s homepage tells visitors to “be on the lookout” for qualified job candidates who can apply in July when job openings will be posted.
In the meantime, Downey says, the staff shortage is causing security concerns. “They provide protection not only for the judges but the people that come into the courts,” he said. “That’s a dangerous situation. There is a sense of fear that they don’t have the help they need.”
[caption id="attachment_438526" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
ADDING POSITIONS: Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s fiscal 2024 $13.7 billion budget proposal seeks to increase the authorized jobs in state government by 136 even though officials are struggling to fill many of the 1,700 vacant jobs now.
COURTESY R.I. OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR[/caption]
‘TREADING WATER’
The labor situation has also frustrated those in charge of hiring.
Before he left for a position with the U.S. Department of Treasury in late April, former R.I. Director of Administration James E. Thorsen – tasked with overseeing human resources throughout state government – told Providence Business News his department has been looking for new ways to close the employment gap.
“They are quitting just as fast as we can hire them,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure what to do about it. Because it’s too expensive to have that kind of churn.”
DiBiase says Rhode Island state government vacancy rates parallel nationwide trends. These challenges are made more difficult due to the nature of public-sector employment, which is less flexible in responding to market forces than its private-sector counterpart.
“Their ability to quickly increase salaries creates a problem,” he said. “It’s a public, transparent system that has a lot of rules. Even in the best of times, it is going to be challenging, and it can inhibit the ability for state government to effectively perform.”
Thorsen agreed.
“Because [of bureaucracy size] we tend to be inflexible in our compensation structure,” he said. “A small change in one group has a knock-on effect across all of state government.”
Thorsen also decried what he called a “demonization” of the state’s public-sector compensation, which has lagged its competitors. “As a result, it makes it hard for us to compensate people fairly,” he said. “If we are competing for employment talent on the basis of price, we have already lost.”
McKee spokesperson Olivia DaRocha said the administration has taken steps “to grow the visibility of state job openings,” including buying cable advertising time to run a recruitment commercial that has been promoted online.
The administration is also coordinating with agencies to post positions on “a near-daily basis” and started airing Spanish-language ads for select positions on local radio stations, DaRocha said. And McKee is recommending a $200,000 allocation in fiscal 2024 to pay for a recruitment campaign “intended to grow awareness of the opportunities and career pathways available in state services.”
Furthermore, the state is undertaking a $2 million personnel study looking at efficiency and compensation of various state jobs “to ensure that the state is able to attract and maintain a skilled workforce,” according to budget documentation from the McKee administration.
Organized labor officials have a warning for those looking to eliminate vacant jobs instead of filling them – there could be other costs created by operating with a small workforce, such as added overtime paid to the remaining employees to make up for staffing losses.
“And when you cut down on people contributing to the pension system, that certainly doesn’t help,” Downey said.
There are signs that the situation is easing.
Labor data shows that total jobs filled in state government declined to 13,490 in fiscal 2022 – even lower than during the dark days of the Great Recession. Also in 2022, there were about 1,830 vacant positions. A year later, filled positions have increased by about 250.
And at DHS, Smith says there are efforts to get help, but it’s often not enough.
The agency recently hired five new staff members to process cases, she says, but they only replaced five people who recently left. And it will take more than a year for the new employees to be fully trained.
“We are treading water,” Smith said. “A couple of us have life preservers, and the rest are going down.”
Apparently, none of these jobs are necessary and, therefore, they should all be eliminated.
Thank goodness we are highlighting this important issue and spotlighting the integral piece of our social fabric these jobs represent. Some of us love to complain about the product of governing while also stifling any potential our state could deliver.