Los Angeles has thousands of unfilled city jobs and an outdated hiring system with wasteful red tape and months of backlogs that make it extraordinarily difficult to fill positions quickly.
As a result, urban services are affected. Some streets are rarely plowed and park facilities remain closed longer for maintenance. It can take weeks to receive a phone response about a service issue and there is less enforcement of city laws, from parking violations to illegal short-term rentals.
Los Angeles is long overdue to reform hiring to make it faster and easier to get the best candidates into public service. But the problem goes beyond simple bureaucracy.
Job vacancies are also a result of the city’s boom-and-bust budget cycles and the inability to deal with the current structural deficit, which is the gap between what the city takes in through taxes and fees and what it pays. , mainly in salaries. The gap must be closed each year with all kinds of financial gymnastics, such as postponing infrastructure repairs and leaving vacant positions unfilled.
Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council must adjust the budget and staffing to take into account what the city can really afford. On paper, the vacancy numbers are staggering: The city has more than 56,000 jobs, but one in six city jobs is vacant and 17% of the municipal workforce is missing, according to the comptroller’s office. . But that figure reflects an aspirational workforce.
Over the years, mayors and the City Council have added jobs to departments for new programs and services, but many positions were not filled; Even before the pandemic, the city routinely had a 5% to 10% vacancy rate. Because? Unspent money from a vacant position helps balance the budget each year. And when the economy slows and departments have to cut spending, it’s easier to eliminate a vacant position than a filled one.
Now the city is likely approaching a difficult budget year. The State faces a deficit and the economy remains uncertain. The city just gave hefty raises to LAPD officers and is in contract negotiations with 21 city unions. That will limit the city’s ability to continue hiring, Bass recently told the Times editorial board.
But instead of imposing a temporary hiring freeze, Bass and city leaders should set a more realistic permanent staffing goal. So far, the mayor’s office is leading an effort to set performance standards for core city services, such as how long it should take staff to complete a bulky items pickup request and then alert the person who made the pickup request. that the task was completed. The goal, according to Bass’s office, is to assign staff to meet those standards. That could mean increasing hiring in some departments for high-priority services and reducing hiring in lower-priority areas.
Still, there is a shortage of workers in key departments. After the start of the pandemic, the city’s deficit skyrocketed and about 1,300 employees received cash bonuses to retire early. There was also a hiring freeze.
The departure of so many veteran employees hit certain departments especially hard. The Bureau of Sanitation, for example, has hundreds of unfilled jobs, meaning there are fewer workers to pick up trash, drive street sweepers or respond to illegal dumping. The Parks and Recreation Department has had to reduce the offering of community classes and sports. Revenue from parking tickets has decreased because there are not enough traffic officers to enforce parking violations.
Recruitment and hiring pace need to be rapidly improved. Municipal jobs come with good salaries, benefits and opportunities for career advancement, however, in this strong job market many candidates do not bother going through the cumbersome procedures of the civil service system, which requires testing to be on a list only for to interview. or wait for a job offer that may take months or more than a year.
In the last year, the city has tried to speed up the process for entry-level jobs. Departments have organized career fairs where candidates can apply and get on-the-spot interviews and sometimes even job offers. It’s a good start, but a broader effort is needed to modernize recruiting and hiring so Los Angeles can better compete for workers with the private sector and other government agencies.
Angelenos depend on a strong, stable municipal workforce, and smart reforms can help ensure the city has it.
