June 27, 2024 / By mobanmarket
ALEXANDRIA, VA — To address areas of city government experiencing more employee recruitment and retention challenges, Alexandria City Council approved contingent reserve funds on Tuesday.
City Council had allocated the funds to contingent reserves during the add/delete budget process. Tuesday’s actions released the $900,000 in reserve funds to stabilize mental health staffing, $1 million to start updating the classification and pay system, and $1.75 million for employee retention initiatives.
“Together, this is a significant investment in addressing some of the staffing challenges that we’ve been experiencing in a couple different areas of city government,” said Mayor Justin at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “This was a discussion that we had during the budget process. And I think the scale of this investment is a testament to the fact that the council wanted to take a big swing at some of these issues, both with some one-time money as well as with some ongoing money to address some of these concerns.”
The mayor said it was “non-traditional” to approve signficant funding and only have a high-level overview of where the funds are going. He asked city staff to report back to City Council on how the funds end up being assigned and what impacts the funds achieve.
Councilmember Alyia Gaskins added that it would help to know for the next city budget process what city departments were not addressed with the funds.
The funds will tackle certain areas of government with challenges related to pay levels or employee retention. For mental health staff, a city budget memo noted there were 64 vacancies of 301 direct service positions as of April 2. Since the 2022 calendar year, 128 mental health employees have left Alexandria’s Department of Community and Human Services. The budget memo noted there were disparities in mental health staff pay on a regional level, with an average $20,000 pay gap.
The funds are earmarked to review pay increase estimates for 103 mental health positions, provide a $3,000 signing bonus for 25 mental health positions per year, provide an administrative support position to expedite hiring, and contract a firm to recruit mental health positions.
Another conversation during the add/delete budget process was updating the city’s employee classification and pay system to improve recruitment and retention. According to a city staff memo, some employee positions have pay not keeping up with the pace of the labor market. The $1 million in reserve funds will allow the city’s Department of Human Resources to adjust some employee salaries and provide a process for a consistent review process for employee pay.
An additional $1.75 million in reserves are slated for retention in departments experiencing high turnover and vacancies. City Council asked for a focus on the Department of Community and Human Services, the Sheriff’s Office, the Department of Emergency and Customer Communications, and the Office of the Circuit Court Clerk, among others. City staff recommended using prioritization to award retention bonuses and consider other strategies to address challenges. Other incentives for retention with the contingency funding could include longevity onboarding incentives, professional development and educational trainings.
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