Sixty-six employees eliminated. (Plus 31 vacant positions eliminated)
They eliminated 13 from just Aspire House in Centralia. They said it wasn't being utilized and needed. Which makes sense if it's true.
No word on others. I bet none of them were executives. Even though Chief Programming, Chief Transformation and Public Affairs could be spun down and their direct reports could go right under the Secretary. Tribal Relations already does. Heck maybe more of the "Chiefs" could go and bring the Secretary a layer closer to reality... I mean the people doing the actual work - rather than having information go through a filter of Chiefs first.
The Office of "Strategic Initiatives and Collaboration" and the Office of "Innovation, Alignment and Accountability" could be combined, and streamlined. The Social Justice/Racial Equity office has 3 emoloyees. A Director, an administrator and Program Specialist. Tell me that making all three of those Program Specialists and putting on in HR for employee issues, on in JR for JR Youth issues and the last in child welfare to manage their youth issues.
Or, get rid of the whole office and use employees we already have, who already manage other issues for the agency, handle these issues. HR should handle Racial Equity and Social Justice issues concerning employees anyway.
Harbor Heights is a poor answer to investing in the agency's infrastructure and capqcity by opening Naselle or expanding Echo Glen and Greenhill...
JR losing 24 filled positions and 17 Vacancies by removing "staff and counselors" while creating additional officer positions. The pay is so bad for officers that we're competing for new hires with places which require only a highschool education. The job where you're less likely to be stomped on and less likely to be accused of abuse is probably going to win out in the eyes of potential employees. Plus, if the agency is going to keep treating staff like 💩, a person may as well work for a faceless corporation where employee abuse is expected and feels less personal.
Our Union is useless, they've been notified this week. Think what you want about Teamsters, but they'd have been up in Senn's office raising a fuss as soon as they caught wind of this. WFSE has got the motivation and energy of a snorlax suffering from some sort of major depression. They need to get the boot. If you want a benchmark of their effectiveness look at the class salary ranges, specifically your range and step. Then subtract what WFSE members (you) make from what Teamster's members make.
Now ask yourself what is it WFSE actually does for you, because it's not get you paid anywhere near as well as Teamsters gets their members paid.
See if WFSE can answer why Juvenile Counselors and security staff make so much less than Classification Counselord and Correctional Officers. The environments are the same. It's not small potatoes either. A teamsters classification counselor in a prison names almost $20,000 more a year than a JR Counselor 2. What would your life look like with $1,600 more a month? That's almost a tank of gas. 🤣😔😭
The situation Kinda undermines the foundations of Washington's whole Equal Pay and Oportunities Act.
Anyway, any word on other positions eliminated? I'm very curious about top tier execs, top managers and middle nanagers.
Of the managers, I'm guessing the middle managers got it pretty bad.