King George DSS facing a staffing crisis

Given that there’s a statewide and national shortage of DSS workers, replacing those lost in King George is already “hard.” If changes aren’t made to sweeten the deal the outlook for the county’s DSS isn’t bright because the reality is there are better options, Franklin explained.

Both the public and private sectors are luring the county’s DSS employees.

Of those who left in September, one took a supervisor position with Spotsylvania DSS, where “she could make more money and see career growth,” said Franklin.

The other two went private, taking jobs with Mary Washington Healthcare. “In my opinion, and I’ll say it publicly, it’s an easier caseload for more money. So I don’t blame them,” said Franklin.

“We’ve seen it coming for a while,” he added. Whether it’s people who have left the department or those who apply but reject the offer due to the salary, King George is losing out on “seasoned, trained, capable employees primarily because we aren’t paying at what Stafford, Fredericksburg, and Spotsylvania are paying [at a] minimum.”

Franklin said before he became DSS director, all new hires were brought in at the lowest possible salary, regardless of credentials. Since he’s been in the role, there have been adjustments but they were “modest.”

The family services II positions vacated in September were held by individuals who had two years and three years of experience and their salaries were $44,721 and $45,335, respectively. The family services specialist III who left had eight years of experience and a salary of $57,527, Franklin noted.

He told the board that nearly half of his current staff lives in Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania. In addition to King George not paying comparable salaries to what’s offered in those locations, the county’s DSS has a heavy workload.

We do more with less, he said. Our staffing is below comparable and smaller localities, he added pointing out that  Essex, for example, is a smaller locality but has more DSS employees than King George and Essex has a smaller caseload.

Although DSS workers, like those the department lost, aren’t considered first responders, they often put themselves in danger to carry out the job. They are often the first ones on the scene at a home, and then they call law enforcement. They are addressing immediate safety issues on a daily basis, Franklin noted.

He was candid with the supervisors about the lack of appeal in county’s DSS jobs. “I don’t know why they’re staying. I really don’t,” he said of his current staff.

In addition to needing to retain the employees he has, there is the big challenge of filling the vacancies.

The candidate pool for CPS and foster care workers is very limited. A lot of the candidates who are applying are inexperienced, and it takes two years to get fully trained and an additional year to be really comfortable, Franklin noted.

Meanwhile, it’s an employee’s market for those with experience. Franklin explained that he worked hard to get a candidate for one of the foster care vacancies. She was moving back to the area from Annapolis but she simply couldn’t afford to take such a major pay cut to work for King George. She’ll end up with one of the competitors, like Fredericksburg or Stafford, and they can and will pay her required salary. And honestly, in my opinion, it’s a reasonable one, he told the board of supervisors.

To make King George a more attractive option, Franklin said he’s proposed some “key” moves to the DSS board, including a 5% retention increase and 5% end-of-probation increase. He’s completed an internal alignment to compare all the service workers and address the inequities, and he’s put a 10% increase and 15% increase to the DSS board for CPS and foster care workers, effective January 1.

Those two categories of workers are the ones King George is losing,  the ones that, based on state trends, are really hard to fill, and those are the ones that I can’t afford anymore bleeding or anymore loss, he said.

“This is more of a band-aid to stop the bleed, not to heal the wound,” Franklin told the supervisors. But he hopes an upcoming salary study will heal the wound.

Franklin said he doesn’t think the proposed changes will impact the budget for this year but it could have an impact going forward.

Cupka said the local DSS board requested that Franklin reach out with this information because they knew anything they tried to do in the short-term to address  this crisis could have potential impacts and they wanted the board of supervisors to know sooner rather than later.

“And I would just remind everyone that these family services specialists often are dealing with children and some of our most vulnerable…” she added.

In response to Franklin’s proposal of only offering raises for specific positions, Supervisor TC Collins issued a word of caution.

“I understand the needs for certain employees are higher than the needs for other employees, but I would caution when you pull out a specific group of employees and give them an increase without giving the others the same increase. I don’t think it’s good for morale to put people in different categories. I think you would find more issues if it wasn’t across the board,” he said.