Six weeks after supervisors signed off on the sheriff’s plan to, hopefully, boost recruitment and retention, Norma Williams says vacancies continue to plague county departments, particularly the Department of Health and Human Services.
Williams, chapter president of the Del Norte County Employees Association SEIU 1021, told supervisors on Tuesday that the county’s overall vacancy rate is 30 percent. Most of those vacancies are concentrated within DHHS, where some staff are struggling to serve more than 700 clients, she said.
Wages associated with several classifications fall well below what other similar counties offer, Williams said, giving Humboldt, Modoc, Siskiyou, Trinity and Lassen counties as examples. She said that the vacancy rate equates to $7 million in savings to the county in unpaid salaries and benefits and argued that those dollars should be repurposed to try to make those positions more attractive.
“The county should certainly conduct a compensation and structural analysis, but it also should take action now,” Williams said during her public comment. “A wage increase now would show county staff that the administration and the Board is paying attention and understands that staff is struggling.”
Williams went before the Board at a time when the county is in the middle of a compensation and structural organization analysis. According to County Administrative Officer Neal Lopez, that analysis is expected to be completed in March.
The Del Norte County Employees Association is also hoping ongoing contract negotiations with county officials will lead to “wage increases that will satisfy the county employees we represent.”
The Del Norte County Employees Association represents more than 200 staff members “across the board,” Williams told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. Their membership includes most DHHS employees with the exception of mid- and upper-management.
DNCEA members are also in the county roads division, the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office, the probation office as well as in public safety. Del Norte County Sheriff’s deputies are represented by the Del Norte Sheriff’s Employees Association, Williams told Redwood Voice.
While Del Norte County is in the midst of a compensation study, which is expected to be finished early next year, the DNCEA is conducting its own analysis, Williams said.
“What I reported on today was information — especially on the vacancy rates — we requested and received from Human Resources,” she told Redwood Voice. “Our local SEIU 1021 … are conducting their own salary and compensation analysis. We’re going and looking at comparable counties and we’re looking at classifications and how they compare to what county employees are making.”
Following public comment on Tuesday, four county supervisors approved a series of resolutions that addressed vacation accruals and benefits associated with Del Norte’s unrepresented employee groups. These positions include appointed department heads, assistant department heads, deputy directors, confidential employees and the undersheriff.
District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson was absent.
The Board’s action on Tuesday comes after it approved 5 percent salary increases for those employee positions about a month ago.
According to the county’s Tuesday staff report, following their discussion in open session on Nov. 12, the Board in closed session heard concerns that the consultant acting on Del Norte’s behalf — Deborah Muchmore, of Muchmore Than Consulting — had not fully completed meetings with unrepresented employee groups.
Some of the terms the Board was asked to consider on Nov. 12 weren’t supported by those groups, who asked to meet with county supervisors before they made a final decision.
“I think the biggest issue with the consultant that was hired was there wasn’t any communication with our groups prior to the resolution [being] brought forward and a lot of them felt as if they weren’t heard,” Lopez told supervisors on Tuesday. “We gave them that opportunity and met with each of them and, as I said, the resolutions are supported by each of those groups.”
Williams, who criticized the 5 percent wage increases for unrepresented employee groups on Nov. 12, told Redwood Voice that in most cases, if the employees DNCEA represents receive a pay raise it’s possible due to state and federal grant dollars the county receives. Those are one-time dollars, she said.
“Stipends, though they’re nice, are a one-time thing,” she said. “They don’t increase the base salary or do anything for an employee’s pension if that employee decides to stay with the county long enough.”
According to Williams, DNCEA’s contract was extended through the end of February 2025. That was negotiated and approved by union members and the Board of Supervisors last year. Williams said DNCEA accepted a 2 percent salary increase to extend the contract.
There are other items up for negotiation in that contract besides salaries, though Williams didn’t want to be specific since it’s tentative.
In addition to approving 5 percent salary increases for unrepresented employees, the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors authorized salary adjustments of 2.5 to 10 percent for Road Division workers.
Lopez had presented the proposed wage adjustments to supervisors in July as part of the Board’s deliberation over the 2024-25 budget.
On Oct. 22, supervisors approved a proposal to freeze or eliminate long-vacant positions in the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Garrett Scott told supervisors that eliminating those positions would allow him to offer better pay to new and existing employees.
In November, the Board allowed Scott to continue to hire at a more advanced step on the salary schedule in an effort to recruit more employees.
