Understaffing is a crisis for our public services.
There are currently over 3,700 vacant permanent positions in the City and County of San Francisco, hurting our ability to deliver timely, quality services that address San Francisco’s biggest problems such as mental health disorders, street and sidewalk cleaning, and homelessness.
TIME TO GET TO WORK
A report released by the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury last year has brought renewed attention to the City’s difficulties with recruitment and retention in critical services. Many of us are stretched so thin, we are doing the jobs of 2 or 3 people.
There are over 600 vacancies in the Department of Public Health, the highest number of any department.
There are over 400 vacancies—a vacancy rate of 22%—in the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for street and sidewalk cleaning.
An 18% vacancy rate in the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The report warns that “the effects of understaffed critical City services are everywhere.” According to the report, the City is losing workers at an increasing rate as they seek higher salaries in the private sector, cheaper cost of living outside of San Francisco, and less stressful work. The report also warns that 40% of the city’s workforce is over age 50 and approaching retirement, meaning that if we do not take action soon, staffing problems are likely to grow.
We believe the City needs to follow all recommendations made by the 2023 SF Civil Grand Jury report to speed up the hiring process and invest in more full-time staff to deliver for our residents.
The City and County of San Francisco has thousands of vacant positions they can fill, but instead are prioritizing funding for private contractors.
The City spends on average $5.2 billion each year on contracts—the vast majority of these dollars (94%) are awarded to contractors with no roots in San Francisco.
Only a small fraction of the Mayor’s recent budget cuts have been from reductions to outside contractors, while over $21 million was from cuts to vacant city jobs.
We believe that the City needs to transition away from wasteful private contractors and spend that money instead on hiring full-time staff.
Private contractors can cost the City anywhere from 2-3 times as much as it would to hire a city worker to do the job…
AECOM
Billing rates in the AECOM Wastewater Capital Plan Delivery contract with SFPUC reveals that contractors were being paid up to $300 per hour with multipliers as high as 3.05. The multiplier in this contract is in addition to the contractor’s hourly rate and accounts for the company’s desired profits and any overhead expenses.
Cross Country Staffing
In a contract awarded to Cross Country Staffing for $85 million, it cost taxpayers 14% more for contracted nursing services than had the city filled in current nursing vacancies. Providing in-house nursing services would have translated to around $1.8 million in cost-savings for a single year.
Heluna Health
Heluna’s president and CEO Blayne Cutler was paid $569,057 in total compensation in 2022, including over $90,000 in bonus payments. Collectively, top executives received over $1.5 million in total compensation. In a contract for outreach and case management services, Heluna Health failed to meet contractual obligations.
Nan McKay & Associates
According to the lawsuit documents, NMA failed to implement quality control systems, hire qualified staff for all positions, and implement a customer service system. Housing Authority personnel were instead used to fulfill tasks that NMA failed to complete. Total damage is estimated to be around $6 to $10 million.
Urban Alchemy
In 2020 and 2021, two separate complaints developed into class action lawsuits against Urban Alchemy, where plaintiffs alleged that the employer had failed to appropriately calculate overtime wages, failed to reimburse workers for business expenses, did not appropriately provide off-duty meal breaks, and more. Urban Alchemy eventually reached a settlement of $980,000 for one of the lawsuits.
WSP USA
A breakdown of billing rates in the $5 million WSP USA contract with SFMTA for As-Needed specialized consulting services reveals that contractors were being paid up to $301.02 per hour with multipliers as high as 3.14. Language in the contract allows WSP to charge the City a fixed fee of at most 7% of their estimated direct salaries and overhead costs for the sole purpose of making profit.
