In Indianapolis, the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding hiring and retention issues for city government.
And when the city offered early retirement payouts for employees in 2020, in all 147 employees across 26 departments took the bait. The police and public works departments were hit the hardest.To cope, department leaders have dipped into savings from unfilled positions to provide bonuses for the employees that remain.Facing a dire shortage, last month the city’s Animal Control Services negotiated new hourly rates for unionized workers like Hicks.
The city-county council also approved other ordinances that could make employment more attractive, authorizing the controller to institute 3% cost-of-living increases each budget cycle and allowing up to six weeks of parental leave for non-union personnel.A new “spot bonus” program, too, allows department directors to award employees up to $2,500 for exceptional performance.
But with an ongoing staffing shortage that has only gotten worse since the pandemic, Drascic's case load prevents her from feeling like she’s truly making a difference. “We certainly saw some fatigue there from the challenge so the pandemic,” said Prosecutor Ryan Mears, “in trying to work through the pandemic while also still fulfilling our obligation to the community.”
The city’s court system is often seen as a training ground for young lawyers to build their resume and depart for higher-paying public jobs elsewhere. Low pay and underfunding of the budget are two main problems, Hill said. For the Department of Public Works, attracting college-educated engineers to work on city infrastructure projects has long been a struggle.
With parental leave and other benefits, the department has gone from a troubling situation to a more tenable one — as of mid-May, eight of 52 engineering positions were vacant. The department revved up its recruitment efforts and pushed the controller’s office for higher salaries, bumping entry-level engineers from $48,000 in 2018 to $60,000 today.“It’s been awful,” Parker said. “We’ve always focused a lot on the engineering side. On our blue-collar side, we’re getting killed.
Pay for commercial driver's license positions starts at $21 an hour, but drivers could find better-paying alternatives — for example, neighboring Carmel, which begins at roughly $23.58 an hour.that left residents irritated and streets lined with trash bins. Snow season, too, will pose another challenge.
Now, he has two zones doing commercial and residential inspections in some of the busiest parts of the city — Bates-Hendricks and the Fountain Square area. But after the 48-hour window passes, construction can continue — leaving some projects without a trained eye to sign off on building code. The Parks Department has also offered $100 and $200 sign-on and referral bonuses for seasonal positions. It still needs 175 lifeguards, 24 camp counselors and 15 cashiers.
The city’s switch to a new pay scale for non-unionized positions is perhaps a more permanent solution, one that aims to more properly compensate those with specialized skills.
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