Sonoma County’s Staffing Shortage Crisis Hurting Residents, Workers

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sonoma County’s airport, jail, and social services office, among other county services, are suffering from severe understaffing. According to a six-month investigative report by Sonoma’s Press-Democrat, vacancy rates for key county positions range from 25% to 41%. Burnout, turnover and early retirements are contributing to the crisis. Meanwhile, frustrated county residents seeking assistance face long lines, interminable hold times, and busy phone signals. We’ll talk about how Sonoma is trying to address these problems, which are common to many Bay Area counties. Guests: Emma Murphy, Sonoma County government and politics reporter, Santa Rosa Press-Democrat - Murphy co-authored the newspaper's investigative series on understaffing across Sonoma County departments Martin Espinoza, senior reporter of investigations team, Press Democrat - Espinoza co-authored the paper's investigation of understaffing across Sonoma County departments Janell Crane, director of human resources, Sonoma County Travis Balzarini, president, SEIU Local 1021 Sonoma County Chapter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for KQBD Podcasts comes from Rancho LaPuerta, a wellness resort 45 minutes outside of San Diego.
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0:47.3	Music From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal, beautiful Sonoma County, home to almost half a million people is a big place, stretching
0:55.1	from San Pablo Bay all the way up and over to the coast.
0:58.5	The legit, mid-sized city of Santa Rosa sits in the middle flanked by adorable wine country
1:03.3	towns.
1:04.5	It's hard to imagine that it would be hard to draw workers to this place.
1:08.2	But a six-month investigation by the press Democrat found that the county itself
1:13.3	is in the midst of a staffing crisis that's undermining the basic functioning of the government
1:18.5	in some key areas. We'll talk with reporters who put the story together and the people trying to do
1:24.5	something about it. That's all coming up next after this news.
1:28.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about a staffing crisis in Sonoma County
	...

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