Editorial: L.A. needs to dump its hiring process that leaves critical city jobs unfilled

Sanitation workers clear a homeless encampment along Ocean Front Walk in Venice in July 2021.

Jan. 2, 2024 5 AM PT

Los Angeles has thousands of vacant city jobs and an outdated hiring system with pointless red tape and months of delays that makes it extraordinarily difficult to fill positions quickly.

City services suffer as a result. Some streets are rarely swept, and park facilities stay closed longer for maintenance. It can take weeks to get a return phone call regarding a service problem and there’s less enforcement of city laws, from parking violations to illegal short-term rentals.

L.A. is long overdue for hiring reform that makes it faster and easier to get the best candidates into public service. But the problem goes deeper than just bureaucracy.

The job vacancies are also a result of the city’s boom-and-bust budget cycles and the failure to grapple with the ongoing structural deficit, which is the gap between what the city takes in through taxes and fees and what it pays out, mostly in salaries. The gap has to be closed every year with all kinds of financial gymnastics, such as postponing infrastructure repairs and leaving open positions unfilled.

Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council need to right-size the budget and staffing to account for what the city can actually afford. On paper, the vacancy numbers are staggering: The city has more than 56,000 positions but one out of every six city jobs is unfilled and 17% of the municipal workforce is missing, according to the controller’s office. But that number reflects an aspirational workforce.

Over the years, mayors and the City Council have added jobs to departments for new programs and services but many positions were not filled; even before the pandemic the city has routinely had a 5% to 10% job vacancy rate. Why? The unspent money from an unfilled position helps balance the budget each year. And when the economy slows and departments have to cut spending, it’s easier to eliminate a vacant position than a filled one.

Now the city is possibly heading into a difficult budget year. The state is facing a deficit and the economy remains uncertain. The city just gave LAPD officers hefty raises and is in contract negotiations with 21 city unions. That’s going to limit the city’s ability to keep hiring, Bass recently told the Times editorial board.

But rather than impose a temporary hiring freeze, Bass and city leaders ought to set a more realistic permanent staffing target. So far, the mayor’s office is leading an effort to set performance standards for core city services, such as how long it should take staff to complete a request for bulky item pickup and then alert the person who made the request that the task is completed. The goal, according to Bass’ office, is to allocate staffing to meet those standards. That could mean boosting hires in some departments for high-priority services and reducing hiring in lower priority areas.

Still, there is a shortage of workers in key departments. After the onset of the pandemic, the city’s deficit spiked and some 1,300 employees were given cash bonuses to take early retirement. There was also a hiring freeze.

The exit of so many veteran employees hit certain departments especially hard. The Bureau of Sanitation, for example, has hundreds of open jobs, meaning there are fewer workers to collect trash, drive street sweepers or respond to illegal dumping. The Recreation and Parks Department has had to reduce community sports and class offerings. Parking ticket revenue is down because there aren’t enough traffic officers to enforce parking violations.

Recruitment and the pace of hiring has to be improved quickly. Municipal jobs come with good pay, benefits and opportunities for career advancement, yet in this strong job market many candidates don’t bother to wade through the cumbersome procedures of the civil service system, which requires tests to get on a list just to interview, or wait around for a job offer that can take months or more than a year.

In the last year, the city has tried to speed up the process for entry-level jobs. Departments have hosted career fairs where candidates can submit applications and get on-the-spot interviews and sometimes even job offers. That’s a good start but there needs to be a broader effort to modernize recruitment and hiring so L.A. can better compete for workers with the private sector and other government agencies.

Angelenos depend on a strong, stable municipal workforce and smart reforms can help ensure the city has it.