Humboldt County Administrator Dave Mendiola recently asked the commissioners to re-affirm the county’s attrition policy. The attrition policy, in place since 2001, has never been officially discarded but in recent years the commissioners have been more liberal in approving waivers to the policy and re-hiring for vacant positions, stating they believed many county offices and departments were running lean with the remaining employees shouldering many responsibilities.
The attrition policy has been responsible for savings in the millions of dollars without having to lay off any employees, said former county administrator Bill Deist. The attrition policy has required that when a county employee from any office or department leaves or retires, those remaining are requested to attempt to absorb that employee’s responsibilities to determine whether it would be possible to avoid filling the position.
The policy has required the attempt to absorb duties to continue for at least 120-days before a request is made to fill the position — and no vacant positions can be filled without commission approval. In past years, on a number of occasions, the request to fill a vacant position — even after the 120-day time limit had passed — was denied.
The policy has always included a provision that a county department head or elected official can come to the commission to make the case for a waiver to the policy and many waivers have been granted, particularly in public safety positions.
The county’s final budget has to be approved and sent to the state this month and commissioners are still trying to cut costs. Mendiola specifically asked the commissioners to hold the line on some waivers of the attrition policy and on some approvals for hiring.
“I would just say, rather than being automatic, we have to take a hard look — and at least hold the positions open for 120 days,” said Mendiola. “That’s one area you could have a major impact pretty quickly.”
The commissioners agreed with Mendiola that, rather than taking the chance of reaching a position where they might have to consider laying people off, a commitment to re-affirm the attrition policy was a better option.
Tightening the attrition policy isn’t likely to yield the savings it once did, since the number of county employees has already been reduced significantly.
“Everybody is already running really lean,” said Mendiola, adding, “they’ve done a tremendous job; many employees would be hard-pressed to take on any more duties.”
An example of one of those situations is Shauna DelSoldato with the sheriff’s office. DelSoldato received a promotion to Office Manager at the S.O. — overseeing all of the clerical staff.
The sheriff’s office made a presentation to the commissioners, showing the duties of both the new position and the one being left vacant.
Sheriff Mike Allen has already requested, and received approval to hire for the position DelSoldato is leaving — administrative clerk at the detention facility. However, during the three to four months it may take to accept applications, run background checks, conduct interviews and hire a new administrative clerk, DelSoldato is doing both jobs, with a workday close to being sunrise to sunset.
The above situation is also an example of why hiring waivers for many public safety positions have been almost automatically approved. In addition to putting a priority on public safety hiring, commissioners have recognized that remaining employees are automatically required to absorb the duties for open positions during the extended period of time it takes to hire a public safety employee.
