For City Council Meeting June 10, 2025
TO: Honorable City Council
FROM: Tanya Williams, City Manager
AUTHORS: Shama Curian, Director of Human Resources/ Risk Management
Title
Request City Council to Conduct a Public Hearing on the Status of Vacancies and Recruitment and Retention Efforts in Compliance with Assembly Bill 2561.
POWERPOINT
(ACTION)
Body
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council open the public hearing to receive a report on workforce vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts, and provide recognized employee organizations of bargaining units the opportunity to make a presentation on these topics, as well as to receive and file this report in compliance with Assembly Bill 2561.
BACKGROUND:
Assembly Bill 2561 ("AB 2561") added Government Code 3502.3 to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act in response to a trio of findings:
1. Job vacancies in local government are a widespread and significant problem for the public sector,
2. High job vacancies impact public services and workers who are forced to handle heavier workloads, while understaffing leads to burnout and increased turnover; and,
3. There is a statewide interest in ensuring that public agency operations are appropriately staffed and that high vacancy rates do not undermine public employee labor relations.
As a result of these findings, effective on January 1, 2025, public agencies must report on workforce vacancy rates, recruitment and retention efforts, and obstacles in the hiring process at a public hearing before the public agency's governing body at least once per fiscal year, prior to the adoption of the agency's annual budget. If any recognized employee organization for a bargaining unit has a vacancy rate of 20% or higher, then additional information on vacancies for that unit must also be presented at the hearing at the request of the bargaining unit. This includes the total number of job vacancies within the bargaining unit, the total number of applicants for the vacant po...
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