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Previously:

• Budget Discussion Turns Testy When Starkey, Short Request Raises For Road Workers

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District 2 Valerie Starkey used a cliché familiar to Del Norters when urging her colleagues to increase wages for Road Division workers.

Pointing out that locals lament a one-size-fits-all approach the state often imposes on rural communities, Starkey said Tuesday that she and her colleagues shouldn’t apply that philosophy to the county itself.

Starkey advocated for salary changes outlined in a proposal she and District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short saw from Road Division staff — one that administration declined to share with the full Board last month. But when that support wasn’t forthcoming, she settled for moving ahead with adjustments proposed by the county’s budget team.

“We can’t do a one-size-fits-all in this county anymore. We have to go department by department,” Starkey said. “If the auditor-controller and administration came to us and said we’ve been at a 50 percent vacancy rate for two, three [or] four years, we would try to help them out. But somehow we don’t apply the same thing to Roads and the sheriff’s office. Why can’t we do that?”

The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 in favor of wage adjustments that administration had revised since the June 25 meeting. Those adjustments range from a 2.5 to 10 percent increase, according to Starkey.

County Administrative Officer Neal Lopez presented the proposed wage adjustments to the Board as an initial step to address road maintenance worker vacancies.

Another step the Board took to address Road Division staff vacancies was to authorize Community Development Director Heidi Kunstal to hire employees at a more advanced step on the salary schedule than Step A but no greater than Step C.

According to Board Chairman Dean Wilson, this decision allows for more flexibility and saves Kunstal from having to go before him and his colleagues to seek approval.

But though Wilson and District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard were on board with providing that flexibility, they opposed changes to the Road Division’s salary schedule.

Wilson said he felt improving wage adjustments before a compensation study could be completed was unwise.

Howard also felt it necessary to wait to see the findings of the county’s compensation study before taking steps to increase staff wages. He said that he didn’t think it would solve the staffing shortage within the Road Division and argued that private industries are also struggling to find employees.

“There are private industries here today that have increased wages significantly — by 25 to 30 percent — and have yet to see the result of those increased wages with warm bodies,” he said. “Instead what we see when, at least, the public sector has done that in the past, we’ve seen a stealing from our current community workforce. There are no new bodies coming into our area to fill those positions.”

Howard used the Department of Health and Human Services as an example, saying staff have left the county to work with the school district because the school district has increased state funding to address mental health concerns.

“We’re not seeing a new recruitment of bodies,” he said. “I’m just questioning whether or not this fix, which is being advocated for to increase wages to make it more attractive for folks to come on board, is actually going to work.”

Del Norte County has an overall staff vacancy rate of 27.8 percent, Lopez told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday. That percentage is as of April, which is the last report the CAO said he received.

While county supervisors focused on staffing challenges within the Road Division on Tuesday, Lopez said vacancies are being felt throughout the county. The county has commissioned a compensation and structure analysis to address those issues. Lopez said he expects to bring a contract related to that compensation study before the Board of Supervisors next month.

“We’ve done several comp analyses but we’ve never done a structural analysis,” he said, adding that it will likely compare Del Norte to similar counties as well as local agencies, including Del Norte Unified School District, Crescent City and potentially Curry County. “The [consultant] we’re looking at has about 40 years experience and could give us some guidance on where our [staffing] structure stands.”

Other potential measures to boost staff include holding department-specific job fairs, Lopez said. He said he and administration are urging individual department directors to “take some ownership” and come up with ideas to recruit and retain staff.

“What can we do to help sell your department?” Lopez said rhetorically. “We also realize everybody’s working their butts off.”

On June 25, Lopez and the budget team presented the Board with an overall recommended 2024-25 fiscal year budget of $182,513,391 and a general fund budget of $40,386,950. At that meeting, the Board approved a list of reclassifications within the Road Division that included salary adjustments, but asked the budget team to return with further revisions.

On June 25, Starkey brought up the April 10 proposal she and Short had seen. She said she felt the proposed salary revisions were too low and argued that since it receives $1.5 million in SB 1 gas tax dollars and has about $5 million in reserves, the Road Division could afford increasing staff wages.

A copy of the proposed reclassification of staff within the Roads Division, submitted to the budget team by County Engineer Jon Olson, was included in the Board’s agenda packet Tuesday as “Option B”.

In his request, Olson told the budget team that the currently-offered wages are only attracting novices. The typical road maintenance worker is someone with little to no experience, he said.

A fully staffed Roads Division would be able to perform paving, chip sealing and other projects without having to hire contractors at prevailing wage rates, Olson argued.

“It is my opinion that the Road Worker positions are different from other positions in the County and should be set apart and seen as separate from other ‘workers’,” he wrote. “Road construction and maintenance requires significant experience, skilled labor and responsibility with expensive equipment that can cause great damage and endanger public safety if improperly used.”

District 4 Supervisor Joey Borges ultimately approved the county’s proposed changes. He said he agreed with Starkey that the skillsets a road maintenance worker needed warranted wage increases, but Olson’s proposal didn’t follow a “chain-of-command.”

“We have policies in place that everyone must follow,” he said. “I cannot support Option B. I know I asked to bring it back, but I just wanted to see what everybody was talking about. But it didn’t follow the proper steps, so I can’t support you on that.”

Wilson hearkened back to Del Norte County’s strategic plan that he and his colleagues adopted in April, which outlined recruitment and retention as a priority. The Board’s approval of the salary schedule within the Roads Division “circumvented that plan.”

Plus, Wilson said, there’s $5 million allocated to the Road Division. Spending roughly $700,000 to $800,000 on salary increases will eat that up.

“Plus it won’t really allow us a lot of material if we are fully staffed and can actually do those projects,” he said. “This proposal, it circumvents the very important strategic plan we put in process. We’re spending money on studies and we’re not even waiting for the results to come in.”

Jeff Daniels, who retired from the Roads Division after more than 30 years, concurred with Olson. The road maintenance worker position shouldn’t be compared to other jobs within the county, Daniels said, pointing out that staff are often in danger of being hit by a car when they’re out on projects.

Daniels also rejected a statement from Lopez that wages county staff are paid shouldn’t be compared to what the state can pay. Daniels said that when he worked for the county, staff often quit to take a job at Caltrans or with the federal government for better pay.

“I lost over a dozen employees. And they didn’t leave because they didn’t like the job, they left because of money,” he said. “I think it’s important that money be thrown in to keep them there so they can have a career, so they can enjoy it like I did.”

Norma Williams, president of the Del Norte County Employees Association SEIU 1021, said that the association met with the budget team and with roads staff twice. She said the association approved the proposed salary schedule adjustments presented by county staff. But “what’s good for some is good for all.”

“You want to staff up, then you’re going to have to treat us with dignity and respect,” she said. “[If] you want to staff up, then you’re going to have to negotiate with us in good faith. We will come to the table to work with you in good faith to resolve these issues in all areas, not just wages. But you have to do the same and you have to show us that you’re willing to do the same.”

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