City reports 14% vacancy rate under AB 2561; unions warn staffing shortfalls threaten services ahead of major events

At the council’s request and to comply with Assembly Bill 2561, staff presented an annual report on staffing vacancies, recruitment challenges and retention strategies. Ashley Lancaster, deputy director of Human Resources, told the council the city’s overall full‑time vacancy rate stood at about 14.16% at the time of the report, and department‑level and bargaining‑unit details show substantial variation.

Lancaster said the report identified two bargaining units exceeding the 20% vacancy threshold required for additional reporting under AB 2561: the City’s engineers (about 15 vacant positions, near a 30% vacancy rate after the council added engineering positions during the year) and the public‑safety non‑sworn group (about 14 vacancies, 20% vacancy rate). She told the council typical civic recruiting timelines vary from three to six months, and backgrounding for some public‑safety positions can add three to four months; classified civil‑service rules and the requirement for eligible lists constrain flexibility.

Union representatives used the AB 2561 presentation to press the council on staffing risks. Jeevan Balath, speaking for Unit 4 engineers, said the utility and engineering workload has grown sharply with an expanding capital program and data‑center electrification, and noted SVP’s capital program approaching the mid‑hundreds of millions of dollars creates a demand for engineers the market struggles to meet. He urged the city to treat targeted pay adjustments and sustained recruitment investments as cost‑effective compared with heavy contract engineering and overtime.

Leslie Loreto, a senior public‑safety dispatcher (Unit 10), described shortages in dispatch and records: the department had 11 of 15 records specialists and 12 of 21 dispatchers at the time, she said (soon to fall to 10), and the typical time‑to‑independent performance is nine to 12 months for new hires. Loreto said the region’s labor market and Santa Clara’s benefit structure (dispatchers pay into Social Security) make lateral hires difficult and that the department’s staffing needed to be competitive to avoid longer response times and eroded service levels.

Police representative Jeremy Schmidt (Unit 2) told council the department faced a roughly 10% sworn shortfall and that it usually takes more than 11 months to train a new officer before independent patrol duty; he said a recent lateral recruitment yielded five applicants compared with earlier cycles that produced 30–40 candidates. Schmidt said the department depends on lateral transfers for near‑term staffing and that the city must maintain competitive packages to retain officers through major events such as the Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup.

Human Resources described several mitigation actions: 194 as‑needed hires this fiscal year, 142 new hires/rehires/promotions (including 62 promotions), a partnership internship program with Mission College (13 interns), expanded advertising, and an upcoming NEOGOV Attract purchase to improve outreach to candidates who have applied to other public agencies. Lancaster added human resources is exploring civil‑service rule revisions to speed hiring steps but said any changes require meet‑and‑confer with bargaining units and civil‑service commission review.

Council action: after the presentations and union remarks, council moved to “note and file” the AB 2561 report. The motion passed unanimously.

Why it matters: the city will host major events in 2026 and staff and unions signaled that gaps—particularly in dispatch, engineering and sworn police staffing—carry operational risk. Councilmembers asked staff for follow‑up on recruitment timelines, compensation benchmarking and the proposed fiscal sustainability study’s potential to identify long‑term funding for staffing.