Pandemic hitting workforce of nonprofits

Officials: Tougher to fill jobs that serve disabled, kids, substance abusers

A Windham nonprofit that runs behavioral health and substance abuse treatment programs has begun scheduling appointments as much as six weeks out, while in Bloomfield, a statewide staffing crisis for nonprofits has left a counseling program with 40 vacant jobs.

Nonprofit organizations across Connecticut say the COVID-19 pandemic has made it tougher to serve the disabled, abused children and others because they can’t fill critical jobs.

“The way we’ve been keeping it together is really at a breaking point,” said Fernando Muniz, CEO of Bloomfield-based Community Solutions, which provides counseling and job placement services for inmates and foster children. The organization has 40 of its 250 fulltime posts vacant.

While Muniz also offered hazardous duty pay last year and used state aid to boost standard compensation, it’s hard to retain staff when the jobs they find for clients pays more than Community Solutions does.

Salaried administrators have been filling vacant staff shifts on nights and weekends for weeks now — but that can’t continue indefinitely, Muniz said.

Leaders of the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance and the legislature’s budget-writing panel say their ability to fully assess the crisis is being hindered by prolonged delays in getting state funding to community-based caregivers.

Connecticut spends more than $1.4 billion annually to hire these agencies, an expenditure

“It’s very widespread. People are finding they can be paid more elsewhere, and they are going.”

— Gian-carl Casa, president of the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance

that roughly mirrors its payments to the nursing home industry, which also is facing financial and staffing crises.

But while caregivers for the elderly quickly grab politicians’ attention, nonprofit leaders say, those who serve patients with mental illness or substance abuse issues, prison inmates or the developmentally disabled don’t get a similar focus.

“It’s very widespread,” said Gian-carl Casa, president of the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance. “People are finding they can be paid more elsewhere, and they are going.”

To avoid closing behavioral health and substance abuse treatment programs, Perception Programs Inc. of Windham has begun scheduling appointments as much as six weeks out — for services that, until recently, could be obtained on a walk-in basis or with one week’s notice, said Perception CEO Kristie Scott.

The nonprofit, which serves 3,000 to 4,000 patients annually, offered telehealth, remote working arrangements and hazardous duty pay to protect and retain staff during the worst of the pandemic.

Like many nonprofits, Perception has raised standard pay for most caregivers, who were earning about $13.25 per hour, to $15. And as often as possible, Scott added, “I buy doughnuts.”

With 94 full-time positions in her budget, Scott is trying to run her agency with 20% of jobs vacant.

While Connecticut long has relied on the private nonprofit sector to keep down the cost of social services, that reliance is expected to increase dramatically over the next three to five years.

Following a directive from the General Assembly, Gov. Ned Lamont hired the Boston Consulting Group in September 2020 to craft a plan to take advantage of projected surge in state employee retirements in 2022 and 2023.

The firm issued a report in March estimating that state government, over several years, could reduce annual operating costs by as much as $900 million through various efficiency initiatives.

One key component of that savings involves continuing to reduce the number of state-employed social workers and shifting their clients onto the private sector.

But state spending on nonprofits already matches the annual budgets of the departments of Correction, Motor Vehicles and Transportation combined — and the industry has complained for decades of underfunding.

Over the past two decades, state spending on nonprofits grew only about 10%, well below inflation.

The two-year state budget enacted last spring included an extra $83.2 million for the industry this fiscal year and $145 million beyond last year’s levels by July 2022.

But while nonprofit leaders praised state officials for the investment, they also noted those dollars came with several strings attached.

A portion of the extra assistance — $30 million in each year — came not from the state’s coffers but from federal coronavirus relief grants that expire in 2024.

Take that away, and the state’s investment is down to $53 million in the first year of the new budget and $115 million extra in the second.