As readers may have gathered from Part One of this editorial, I’m a big fan of quitting, and a seasoned practitioner. Why, just last year, I quit Facebook, and what a pleasant change that has turned out to be.
Some stories about quitting are less pleasant.
On June 24, The New York Times posted an article by Neil MacFarquhar. “Why Police Have Been Quitting in Droves in the Last Year.”
The story focuses on Asheville, North Carolina, where a record number of resignations and retirements have decimated the city police department. 80 officers, more than one third of its 238-strong force, departed this past year.
The reason has partly to do with Asheville itself — a big blue dot amid a sea of red voters in western North Carolina. Residents often refer to the city, a tourist mecca of 90,000 people tucked into the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, as the South’s version of Austin, Texas, or Portland, Ore.
Protests are commonplace, although none in recent memory had roiled the city quite like those prompted by the death of Mr. Floyd. Asheville has removed its three Confederate monuments, including the obelisk that dominated the central square for more than 100 years. In June, the City Council agreed to earmark an initial $2.1 million to pay reparations to the Black community of more than 10,000 residents.
The police already had come under criticism in recent years, churning through half a dozen chiefs in the past decade amid widespread complaints about overly harsh policing. Often cited is a case in 2019, when an officer pleaded guilty to assaulting a Black man after an argument over jaywalking — at night with few cars on the road.
The past year’s racial justice protests brought these long-simmering tensions swiftly back to the surface.
It’s a story that is playing out all across America. According to reporter MacFarquhar, a survey of almost 200 police departments indicated that retirements were up 45 percent, and resignations rose by 18 percent between April 2020 and April 2021 when compared with the previous 12 months. New York City saw 2,600 officers retire in 2020, compared with 1,509 the year before. Police resignations in Seattle increased to 123 from 34 and retirements to 96 from 43. In Minneapolis, the force numbered 912 officers in May 2019; it’s now down to 699.
“At the same time, many cities are contending with a rise in shootings and homicides.” writes MacFarquhar.
In Asheville, low pay didn’t help matters. Starting salary for a new recruit is about $37,000 — about $18 an hour — in a town suffering from spiraling home prices.
“Policing right now is just not a profession that is viewed favorably by a large segment of the public,” said Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate, in an interview on CBN.com in May. Neudigate’s department among those facing a depleted force. The city approved funding for 813 sworn police officers but filling them has been difficult. Neudigate spent 30 years with the Cincinnati Police Department before moving to Virginia Beach last October; in the seven months since, 50 officers had either retired or quit the force.
“The national narrative, the anti-police sentiment is so strong. There are a lot of folks that were going to extend their careers and it’s not worth it to them,” Neudigate said. “So, it is not just a recruiting issue, it is very much a retention issue.”
Quitting can be painful.
At the June 22 meeting of the Upper San Juan Health Services District, the board discussed a Pagosa Springs Medical Center proposal to provide retention bonuses of up to $7,000 per employee.
The resolution begins this way:
WHEREAS, Pagosa Springs Medical Center is facing challenges with retaining staff and hiring for unfilled positions.
WHEREAS, there are a variety of reasons for PSMC’s challenge of hiring and retaining existing staff including, but not limited to, the following:
1. Other employers are hiring staff away with bonus pay (for example, PSMC has lost nurses to Mercy Regional Medical Center who has offered nursing staff a $15,000 bonus, payable 50% upon the start of work and 50% upon completion of two years service);
2. Other employers have increased wages higher than PSMC pays (for example, Pagosa’s McDonalds starting wage is now $14 per hour and until June 13, 2021, PSMC’s starting wage is $12.32 per hour but has now been raised to $14);
3. There are many employers in southwest Colorado who are unable to achieve full staffing due to people who remain out of the market…
The resolution linked to several websites detailing the shortage of nurses in Colorado and the US in general. It also proposed the expenditure of $634,000 in federal CARES funding, and $406,000 in operating cash to offer existing employees in ‘retention bonuses’ amounting to 7.5% of each employee’s annual base compensation, with a cap at $7,500 per employee.
As of June 1, PSMC had $3.4 million of federal CARES Act stimulus funds remaining that, “under current regulations/rules, must be used by end of day on June 30, 2021, or returned to the federal government if not expended by that date.”
Obviously, the funds would not be easy to offer as hiring bonuses for future applicants — considering the deadline for spending the funds — but could theoretically be used to reward the employees who have not yet quit. PSMC Chief Administrative Officer Ann Bruzzese asserted that PSMC’s auditors had endorsed the the retention bonuses as an appropriate use of the CARES funds because the issue was a direct result of COVID.
PSMC CEO Dr. Rhonda Webb described the bonuses as a one-time payment, rather than an ongoing pay raise. The Board unanimously approved the resolution.
It was encouraging to learn that our medical workers are earning at least as much as the waitstaff at McDonald’s. But I would argue (being someone who loves to argue) that the trouble retaining employees in Pagosa Springs is not merely “a direct result of COVID”. I have been hearing stories of employees leaving town for at least the past three years.
There’s nowhere for an employee earning $14 an hour to live in Pagosa, other than in their car… or in a tent…
And remarkably, the same situation confronts human resource departments and business owners in every halfway-prosperous city and town in America. Nowhere to live.
Can we wonder that so many employees are throwing up their hands, and quitting?