Near 20% of State Gov’t vacant

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

The Oregonian reports, “Nearly a fifth of jobs within Oregon’s state agencies were vacant as of April, according to an analysis by Oregon’s largest state employee union.An analysis released Wednesday by the Service Employees International Union Local 503 found that 8,643 permanent state jobs were vacant last month, raising concerns about the state’s ability to deliver essential services to Oregonians. The union highlighted retention as a major problem as well…”

This is unfortunate because State Government employees make more than their private sector employees.  Oregon recently doled out a quarter billion in government raises, with even (then) Governor Brown last year expediting raises by nearly six-months.  All this tax cash being spent and government still cannot keep staffing levels from falling apart.

The Corporation Division has so few employees that they are not even open a full day everyday and are closed all-day on Fridays.  Instead of staffing the Corporation Division, their boss, the Secretary of State (then) Shemia Fagan was moonlighting with her third job as a $10,000/month consultant to one of Oregon’s top marijuana tycoons.

DMV was so under staffed last year that they had to close scores of offices for the entire summer.

The Bureau of Labor kept their doors closed to the public long after the State’s Covid restrictions were dropped.

It gets worse.  Based on past State practices, those thousands of vacant government positions will most likely still have taxpayer funds allocated to them.  There is no rush for State managers to fill positions as long as their budget continues to grow.  Who seems to care in these agencies that government services are not open normal hours to the public or not answering their phones?

This is sad news.

By the way, here is a chart we did showing that government employee raises outpaced every other private sector category during the pandemic — and they still cannot retain employees.

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