Open city jobs imperil services
Department officials push Albany Common Council to address vacancies
One out of every 10 city workers has left city employment in the past six months, and Albany is staring down 255 open jobs with the possibility of more employees leaving.
The city’s department heads, as well as several other members of Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s administration, sent a letter raising the issue to the Common Council over the weekend. The letter also serves as a notice to the Common Council that the administration will likely be asking for midyear raises next year when a new council is seated.
In the letter, the departments note that many workers are leaving for higherpaying jobs elsewhere — and warn that the extent of the vacancies threatens the city’s ability to provide services.
“We will not ask the council for midbudget salary increases lightly, but we need flexibility to respond to market conditions,” the letter reads. “When salary increases for promotions or requests for additional resources are delayed or denied, we end up losing experienced employees and then have to raise the salary anyway to hire replacements.”
The issue arose several months ago. In September, Sheehan unilaterally granted the city’s white-collar workers a 3 percent retroactive raise, as well as an additional 3 percent across-the-board raise in the 2022 budget, in part using American Rescue Plan funding. Union workers also received premium pay for their work during the pandemic.
In the meantime, Sheehan and council leadership agreed not to provide additional raises until the city received the results of a long-awaited pay equity study. Several council members have pushed for the study for years, along with a living wage for the city’s lowest-paid workers.
Ginnie Farrell, the council’s majority leader and finance chairwoman, said Sheehan’s administration did the right thing at the time by holding off on additional raises until the study was released. The study, being done by a private company, was supposed to be completed this
month. It’s unclear if that is still the case.
“We pushed for that so we could go back to our constituents ... when those raises happen,” she said. “The council always supports our workforce.”
Farrell also pushed back against the idea that council members didn’t support the raises Sheehan issued earlier this year.
“There was an unhappiness with the way it was done, without the council being involved in the process,” she said.
But in the letter, Sheehan’s administration argued that without the ability to properly compensate workers, the city is losing valuable employees.
That was highlighted by Corporation Counsel Marisa Franchini at Monday night’s meeting, as she attempted to keep employed a longtime city attorney who has received
a job offer from a private company. The city tried to offer a raise to get her to stay, but could not get the salary change approved quickly by the council as members had questions about it.
The letter, and Franchini’s plea, were met with pushback from council members.
Several members noted that they supported every raise and position change Sheehan proposed in the 2022 budget. Councilman Alfredo Balarin noted that the council had been told to hold off on raises for some workers until the pay equity study was complete, but now was being asked to support raises for higher-paid city employees.
Sheehan’s chief of staff, David Galin, did not return requests for comment. Sheehan did not return a call for comment.
Council member Owusu Anane, in an interview with WAMC, accused the city of favoritism when it came to some hires.
“I hear some concerns that individuals are being promoted that are not qualified for certain positions,” Anane told the station. “And there’s just been a list of nepotism that has taken place.”
When the Times Union asked Anane where he got that list from, Anane said that he misspoke about the issue of nepotism and that he supported the city’s workforce.
Rachel Mceneny, the city’s commissioner of administrative services, said the open jobs are spread throughout the city departments.
Of the 255 open positions, 116 are in the city police department, which includes crossing guards and 911 call center employees. Another 58 are in the city’s Department of General Services.
“We have an alarming amount of vacancies,” she said.
Mceneny some of the issues were clearly tied to pay as the city struggles to compete with the private
sector. Other employees indicated in exit interviews that they wanted to make life changes; and the city needed to be able to respond to new demands from a workforce that had often been on the front line during the pandemic, she said.
But she said she also
believes that some of the council members’ actions and comments also played a role, and that employees don’t feel appreciated.
“I think words matter,” she said. “I think morale is low in a lot of the city workforce.”
Mceneny said she anticipates the city taking a
deeper dive into some of the other issues behind the employee exodus after the pay equity study is completed.