LAKEPORT — Social workers who handle child protective services (CPS) cases will get a 15 percent pay increase after a unanimous vote by the Lake County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. The raise will be effective immediately, according to the board clerk Georgine Hunt.
“We have a very serious SW (social worker) staffing shortage in our CPS division, which has grown from 14 percent in recent weeks to 36 percent as of this writing,” Lake County Social Services director Carol Huchingson read to the board from a memo she wrote dated Feb. 20.
Huchingson said a “major contributing factor” to the shortage was that CPS caseworkers are paid five percent less than integrated caseworkers, who carry government financial aid caseloads.
Huchingson said that CPS caseworkers “are expected to handle the most difficult and complex cases, and they require additional skills in report writing, legal interpretation, crisis intervention and high-risk decision making.”
To qualify for a CPS caseworker position, a candidate for a CPS caseworker position needs either a bachelor”s degree or 30 college units and “years of pertinent job experience,” according to Huchingson. As little as one year of experience as an eligibility worker is needed to qualify for a job as an integrated caseworker.
Huchingson said that CPS caseworkers with a bachelor”s degree “are more likely to succeed, and are better equipped to handle the emotional and stress-related demands in CPS.”
A 2005 study by Merit System Services, the department”s recruiting firm, found that CPS caseworkers had an 80 percent turnover rate, compared to a 20 percent turnover rate for social workers who handle adult services caseloads.
The Lake County Grand Jury recommended in its 2006 ? 07 final report that eight vacant social worker positions be filled. Recommendations included adopting a “realistic pay scale to attract qualified applicants” and recruiting at high schools and community colleges.
Huchingson requested a 10 percent pay hike for all social service workers, and total 15 percent pay increase for CPS caseworkers. Huchingson told the board that the county”s general fund would not need to fund the increases, because the social services department had available approximately $226,000 per year in state funding that the department had not used in previous years because of the vacancies.
“Thirty-six percent is a dramatic vacancy rate, and the turnover is huge,” supervisor Denise Rushing said.
Asked by Rushing if it was possible to re-work the department”s overhead costs, Huchingson said that was not an option because of state requirements about how the costs are shared. “Why force another program to pick up a higher cost for overhead for things like rent,” Huchingson said.
Huchingson wrote in her memo that the county salary reclassification committee supported the increases.
“What is interesting about a request like this is that the board doesn”t see re-class (reclassification committee) applications that were denied; we only see those that were approved,” supervisor Rob Brown said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
