The full House of Delegates will soon consider significant pay increases for state social services workers, aiming to entice them to stay on the job with raises adding up to about 20 percent.
That won’t automatically solve the problem of vacancies among child protective services workers, said Jeff Pack, commissioner of the Bureau for Social Services. But it’s a start.
“What the pay raises seek to address is we have a great and growing number of vacancies That does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. I don’t know that salary is the be-all and end-all silver bullet but it’s part of the equation,” Pack told members of the House Finance Committee on Thursday afternoon.
“If we can slow that bleed in turnover by 25 or 30 percent a year then in a few years we can at least function. But at this moment we’re struggling.”
Members of the Finance Committee passed House Bill 4344 after asking questions of Pack, so now it goes to the full House. It already had been passed by the House Health Committee.
The bill would require pay raises to encourage recruitment and retention for employees that include adult protective services and child protective services workers. The raises are 15 percent per employee in addition to the average 5 percent pay raises for state employees being pushed by Gov. Jim Justice.
The budget presentation for the Department of Health and Human Resources has revealed 1,400 unfilled positions of the agency’s total 6,400 full-time roles.
The highest number of openings, 836, are for people who would make less than $32,000 a year. The next highest, 573 positions, are for workers getting paid somewhere in a big range of $32,000 to $64,000 a year.
Responding to questions from Delegate Larry Rowe, Pack said the salary range for adult protective services workers is $27,000 to $62,000 — “but I don’t know that there’s anybody who makes 62.” He said the average for that job is $38,000.
The pay range for child protective services workers is $32,722 to $60,535. But he said “that minimum salary is lower than all our adjoining states.”
House Bill 4344 also makes a range of changes to the state policies governing foster care, including requiring child placement services provide services to kinship families and requiring the agency to use updated computer systems and clarifying some of the roles of the foster care ombudsman.