Massive county employee shortage affecting services

By Kevin Jeffries
County Supervisor, District 1

The shortage of applicants seeking jobs is hitting the county and state very hard. CHP, CAL FIRE, OES and other state agencies (including the USFS) reportedly have thousands of vacancies across our state.

Kevin Jeffries

Riverside County is not immune to this shortage. Vacant county positions are having a real impact at the customer service counters of many county agencies. Our office receives the phone calls of upset First District constituents waiting for overdue inspections, plans, permits, or just a return phone call from a department.

The Board of Supervisors has directed the County CEO and his team to do a deep dive into this problem and determine what we can do to make some improvements (that will likely come with a steep price tag).

My philosophy has been that we are going to have to pay our employees more (to recruit and retain quality staff), but because we don’t print our own money, we may have better-compensated employees, but there will likely be fewer total employees in noncritical positions/functions.

How to triage those will be the next struggle. There are many good county jobs available at our website, www.rc-hr.com/Find-A-Job/Job-Searching/County-Job-Openings.

Riverside County Fire and CAL FIRE have been partners since at least the 1940s. In years past, many local CAL FIRE employees started their careers as Riverside County Volunteer Firefighters.

Before I was elected to the Board of Supervisors, the Fire Chief at the time proposed to disband the long-standing volunteer firefighter program and replace it with an underutilized Reserve program. The Board back then agreed, and unwittingly started closing fire service employment doors for young men and women.

Fast forward to a new Board and a new Fire Chief and pathways are reopening again. County Fire has partnered with the County Workforce Development Centers, Riverside Community College District, and American Medical Response (AMR) to open a pathway for our Volunteer Reserve Firefighters, Explorer Firefighters, and local college students to obtain training, certifications and firsthand experience necessary to land a fire service or paramedic job, many fully paid for by the County.

Return Grants?

Earlier, I reported on the inability of various departments to streamline their longstanding bureaucratic traditions of taking years to approve community infrastructure projects.

I wish I had some good news to share today, but I am beginning to think that in roughly 24 months or so Riverside County will be returning some of its grant funds back to the federal government because of the excessive delays. While some delays are caused by ancient internal processes (study everything to death) others are caused by labor and supply shortages. This impacts everything from new streetlights, water and sewer lines, sidewalks, streets, etc.

Another area that appears to be delayed despite millions of dollars coming from the State and Feds is the delivery of affordable and accessible broadband services to low-income communities. It looks like this one is also going to take years to roll out.

Trash Challenges

Many of our waste haulers in Riverside County have been or are facing serious labor shortages including truck drivers and even some call center staff. Our office has received numerous complaints over many months about trash cans and dumpsters not being picked up on time, sometimes delayed for over two weeks. I was recently told that the labor crunch is easing just a little bit and that at least the home pick-up service “should” be back on track. Apparently, staffing for the commercial type dumpsters and large item pick up is still hit and miss with challenges and delays remaining, at least until new hires can be found.

Charging Challenges?

With the (unelected) California Air Resources Board and the (unelected) South Coast Air Quality Management District looking for ways to clean up California air, new hard-hitting rules are rolling out for trucks, trains, cars, ports and ships, etc. If it moves, it’s being regulated and reformed to reduce air pollution.

Our County Board of Supervisors does not get to vote on these new regulations or when they take effect, we just have to be ready. With roughly 23,000 employees who drive to and from work, and a very large fleet of county passenger vehicles, emergency vehicles, and heavy equipment (backhoes, graders, dozers, etc.), your county government has its work cut out to prepare for this large-scale conversion.

Some employees have already been switching over to electric vehicles (EVs) and the county vehicle fleet has already begun acquiring EVs, but we will need to accelerate that transition and add charging stations across the county. The County will also have to look at the needs of the motoring public and the electric charging infrastructure they will need.

This is going to be a massive (and expensive?) infrastructure undertaking to accomplish, should the State stick to its time frame mandates. My guess is that the county undertaking may pale in comparison to the infrastructure buildup that the power companies will have to take on in order to deliver enough electrons to charge all those vehicles.

The Press-Enterprise recently reported that the state of California needs to add over 85,000 charging stations per year (costing an estimated $3 billion by 2035). The next issue will be the cost to generate all those electrons so that we do not have blackouts.

Spay and Neuter Challenges

A rigorous spay and neuter program can take a big bite out of the number of abandoned, stray, and feral dogs and cats out on our streets and filling up our animal shelters. We incentivize pet owners to do this by offering significant discounts on licenses for altered versus unaltered pets.

Our office has also prioritized discretionary funding to provide mobile spay and neuter services (“The Neuter Scooter”) at no-cost (and vaccinations) to residents in some of our poorest communities. Lately the demand for these services has overwhelmed the supply of veterinarians to perform them, and Animal Services has had to keep their mobile surgery unit on site just to catch up with their own backlog of 800-1000 animals.

They have recently hired a fourth veterinarian and are still trying to hire more surgeons to help, but this shortage of vets is not limited to our county DAS, it is nationwide, with even private veterinarians scheduling spay and neuter surgeries 3-6 months out, and local clinics overwhelmed with demand for services.

Why is there such a shortage? One major reason is the shortage of veterinarians in the US. Believe it or not, there are only two vet schools in California, and only 29 in the entire country. As a result, it is about four times harder to gain admission to vet school than it is to medical school or law school, and the number of new vets keeps falling behind the number of pet owners.

Makes me wonder if instead of pursuing a new law school, UC Riverside should consider a School of Veterinary Medicine? That said, Animal Services hopes to catch up on their immediate backlog soon and have the “Neuter Scooter” back in our district as soon as November.

Political Contributions

The flow of campaign contributions is about to undergo a big change, maybe for the best, but maybe not. We all pretty much subscribe to the view that large campaign contributions to political candidates can be corrosive if a candidate does not have a good moral compass to guide them. A new state law (SB1439) was recently passed that will “sort-of” limit contributions from some sources to $250 or less to local government candidates. I say “sort-of” because candidates can still accept the larger contributions, BUT if they do, they will not be able to vote on matters involving either licensing, permits or other entitlements from the big donor for 12 months. This change will undoubtedly have a notable impact on big money players with large developments. The one downside to this change is that it will likely drive the large contributors underground. How would that be legal, you ask? They are called PACs (Political Action Committees), or IEs (Independent Expenditures) from business and/or union groups that have different (read: less) timely public reporting/disclosure standards compared to individual candidates. The money may still flow, we just won’t be able to see it so clearly or timely. Welcome to Political Whack-a-Mole!

Fire Hazards

Suppose for the moment that you live in an unincorporated community and located directly behind your home is a field full of dried out weeds that pose an immediate fire hazard to your home and property. The odds are the owner of the field would be promptly cited, and if the weeds were not cleared, a contractor would be hired by the County to mow down the weeds. Now, change out that field of weeds for a field of illegally stacked wooden pallets, hundreds, perhaps thousands brought in by a pallet business with no permit, no spacing, and no fire hydrants. That is a tinder box waiting for a tragic spark. You can stop imagining, because that is actually occurring in a handful of communities. I cringe when I drive by those locations because every neighboring house is at risk. The next problem is that our County Ordinances are so inadequate that it can take the county years to force the landowner to clear away the pallets. I have publicly challenged our County Counsel, Fire Marshal, and Code Enforcement to find a new legal path to speed up the process and protect adjacent homes. Let’s see if they collectively step up and make a difference before a tragedy occurs.