Who we are &
what we do
“The crisis stabilization unit is a 24-hour facility, and we’re required to have medical personnel on site 24 hours a day. Short staffing can jeopardize being able to stay open. If we don’t have a nurse on site, that may require having to send the patients here to emergency departments until we can get staffing back on site.
“Having a competitive salary is important. The hardest thing is recruiting new staff. Some folks have sounded interested in the beginning, but then they find other positions that pay significantly more, so it’s really hard to get people to want to work here when they can do something similar somewhere else and get paid 10, 20, 30% more than what they’d get here.”
Eric Acuna
Supervising Staff Nurse
Behavioral Health
“I started 35 years ago. We had over 150 road workers. Now we’re down to 50 or less.
“Staffing is a huge public safety issue. To attract more workers, we need a good wage to be able to afford to live in this county. We don’t pay enough to get people to come here, and when people leave, we don’t fill the positions.”
Mike Woodbury
Maintenance Worker III
Transportation & Public Works
“My favorite part of my job is helping clients who need our services, like getting CalFresh for basic food needs or Medi-Cal for medical needs.
“We are very short staffed. It greatly impacts the services we’re giving these clients. Average wait times are 3-4 hours now. Clients are not getting the services they need because they’re coming in and can’t wait, because they have to work or take care of their families.
“I’ve noticed a high turnover rate. It’s unfortunate. I see a lot of stress in our employees which is impacting them helping their clients.
“In order to keep our current staff, we need to show our staff that we appreciate them. Definitely the last couple of years our pay has not reflected the current cost of living in Sonoma County. We need action on that.”
Irene Ruano
Eligibility Specialist II
Human Services
“My job is going out in the field, serving court documents to people. I like it. The people are generally pretty receptive to me because I’m kind about it and explain the papers to them.
“Short staffing is a big issue. The work just slows down; we’re working a month behind in processing paperwork. The public doesn’t get their papers served in a timely manner, and we really pride ourselves on being timely with our paperwork.
“Housing prices are too high, food prices are too high, gasoline prices—everything has gone up except wages. They need to get our wages commensurate with the prices in this county.”
Terri Serbins
Community Service Officer II
Sheriff’s Office