Job seekers may want to put “Scottsdale” in their search engines.

As the private sector job market tightens in Maricopa County, where the unemployment rate has nearly doubled since April 2024’s 2.5%, the City of Scottsdale is looking to fill scores of openings.

At its Oct. 21 meeting, City Council was asked to address an ongoing condition: “chronic vacancies in police communications, water operations and water maintenance positions.”

Part of the solution, City Manager Greg Caton pitched, is allowing him to pay more.

He asked – and received, by unanimous vote – “compensation adjustments” for dispatchers, supervisors, treatment plant operators, electricians and technicians.

Those people who answer when you call 911? Big shortage around here, according to Caton’s presentation.

“Currently there are 15 vacancies out of 40 full-time positions in the Police Communications Dispatch role,” he outlined.

“While all communication centers across the country have similar vacancy rates, there is proven remedy for this problem and (the) Gilbert Police Department has led the way.”

The winning formula: boost and raid.

Caton said Gilbert had 16 vacant dispatcher positions in fiscal year three years ago – but, after bumping up their pay, “they filled all 16 of their vacancies.”

Here’s how he knows:  “Five dispatchers joined them from the ranks of the Scottsdale Police Department who left for a significantly higher salary …The first two dispatchers that left Scottsdale for Gilbert reported that they received a $10,000 to $12,000 raise – which promptly made three others leave for Gilbert.”

According to Caton’s presentation, Scottsdale has 15 police dispatch openings and 32 water positions.

In a retention move, Council also unanimously approved a new “Public Safety Compensation Philosophy,” which requires the city to keep police officer and firefighter pay within the top three of benchmark cities in the local market.

Scottsdale Police Chief Joe LeDuc thanked the leaders “for their continued support of our officers and their recognition that the foundation of any vibrant and healthy city is public safety.

“This commitment to keeping Scottsdale’s police officers  in a leading market position ensures we can retain and hire the very best.”

Scottsdale Fire Chief Tom Shannon added his team is “grateful for the mayor and city council’s steadfast support of our firefighters.

“This latest action affirms our shared commitment to excellence and ensures we can continue to attract and retain the best firefighters to serve our community.”

 

Hot topic

City job vacancies were also a topic of discussion at the Oct. 1 Budget Review Committee meeting.

City Manager Greg Caton gave a presentation, with a bullet-point list of “Initiatives and Changes Made.”

One of the bullet points: “Unfilled positions ongoing review.”

Mark Stephens, a committee member, made it a point to say there was “a misstatement” in a recent newspaper story that “disappointed” him.

He later told the Progress he was alluding to an Aug. 31 Progress story on city vacancies.

Stephens said he feels the article “infers the budget is padded. My point is that the budget factors in expected unfilled positions as a negative expense (effectively a reversal of budgeted payroll of $11 million) thereby eliminating padding other cities use unfilled positions for.

“I am still learning myself,” Stephens allowed.

Yet, he insisted the article “omitted a key expense reversal element. To me it seemed unfair since it ignores the expense reversal.”

Compared to David Smith, the former councilman and city treasurer who chaired the BRC before resigning last month, Stephens clearly has a different position on this topic.

Smith said he stands by his position on unfilled positions in the budget.

“Assuming that every position will be filled and paid for the entire year develops a payroll estimate that is an absolute maximum,” Smith said.

“When revenues are reserved for this conservative number, it means other community needs must be postponed or foregone altogether.”

At the BRC meeting, Caton followed Stephens’ comments by saying, “There’s a little misinformation out there… a couple years ago we had a high-water mark of a little over 300 (vacant) positions … it was probably a little excessive.”

He then pondered the “magic number” of city vacancies, musing “maybe somewhere between 75 and 125.”

Caton said that, since he took over as city manager, he has been “reviewing every single job that becomes vacant … every single vacancy comes by my desk for approval.”

Caton then repeated some figures on unfilled positions:

“We went from a high-water mark a couple years ago of a little over 300 to April of this year at approximately 188.”

However, a presentation from City Treasurer Sonia Andrews stated the city has 301 vacant positions as of Aug. 1.

Responding to Progress questions about his presentation, Caton said, “The term ‘misinformation’ was not intended to convey any sort of malice – ‘lack of clarity’ may be a better way to say it.”

He attached “a snapshot look at vacancy numbers,” showing 198 open jobs June 6, as compared to 191 the previous June and 183 on June 9, 2023.

“At the beginning of a fiscal year,” Caton added, regarding the budget vacancy number, “it’s almost always going to be at its highest – because that’s when new positions are on the books that we have not yet had a chance to fill.”

Indeed, this year’s budget added nearly 100 jobs – most in public safety.

“You’ll consistently see that by the end of the fiscal year,” Caton said, “the numbers are substantially lower.”

He noted that August numbers near the start of a fiscal year show around 10% vacancy over the past three years, “versus June numbers at the end of a fiscal year which show less than 8%.”

“Given the tight labor market that is very competitive, this is a fair number for an organization our size.”

And, Caton stressed, “It’s important to reiterate that we don’t move labor funding to cover non-labor expenditures – labor savings created by vacant positions is built into the budget.”

Underscoring Stephens’s position, Caton said, in the current budget “we have planned for $11 million in vacancy savings over the course of the fiscal year.

“Said another way, we are required to have vacancy savings within this fiscal year that totals $11 million, or we will not meet this budgeted amount.”

Acknowledging his “high-water mark of a little over 300 vacancies” statement, Caton said: “Yes, it was mentioned, but now we are calculating vacancies in greater detail and have more accurate numbers.”

Of 98 new positions approved in the budget that began July 1, Caton said, “39 have already been filled.”

According to the city manager, as of Oct. 10, the city had 272 vacancies.