City reports 6.6% vacancy rate as of June 3; DHR outlines hiring reforms under AB 2561

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee held a required hearing June 27 under California Assembly Bill 2561 to receive the city’s annual report on vacancies, recruitment and retention. Carol Eisen, director of the Department of Human Resources (DHR), told the committee the data presented were current as of June 3, 2025.

Eisen said the city’s calculation methodology starts with funded positions in the annual salary ordinance, subtracts budgeted attrition and then subtracts filled positions to produce a vacancy count. Using that approach, she said the city had 39,664 FTEs in the salary ordinance and reported a citywide vacancy rate of 6.6% as of June 3. For ongoing, on-budget operating positions, she reported a 4.3% vacancy rate.

Why it matters: AB 2561 requires California cities to report vacancies and hiring efforts to legislative bodies while budgets are being prepared. City vacancy levels and hiring timelines affect service delivery across departments and shape budget decisions for the coming fiscal year.

Eisen described the pandemic as a period when vacancy rates rose sharply and said the city has since reduced its vacancy rate from a peak above 14% to levels approaching pre-pandemic figures. She identified targeted process improvements: moving to online, on-demand examinations with continuous lists for many citywide classifications; historic rewrites of civil service rules for sworn and non-sworn staff; streamlined onboarding; and technology upgrades to replace paper transactions. She also highlighted a newly opened DHR career center in City Hall that offers coaching, apprenticeships and recruiting events.

On specific job classes, Eisen said some areas remain challenging. She told the committee the bargaining unit that includes rank-and-file police officers had a vacancy rate of 19.6% as of the June 3 snapshot, noting most of those vacancies are on-budget positions and that the city and police department were engaged in addressing the shortfall.

When asked by Vice Chair Sauter about obstacles to hiring and progress in removing barriers, Eisen said the city’s merit-based and highly regulated civil-service system adds procedural steps to hiring. She described trade-offs between openness and speed, and said DHR has focused on technology and process changes to speed applicant processing while maintaining merit protections. Eisen said some occupation-specific hiring (for example, nurses) had been shortened to a matter of weeks where candidate supply and process adjustments allowed.

Committee members asked about the average time to complete hiring and the average number of applicants per opening; Eisen said a prior grand jury report had cited lengthy timelines (several months), that DHR had not run an updated citywide average for the committee that day, and that applicant volumes vary by job class. DHR staff indicated they could run snapshots on request.

No members of the public offered comment during the item. Chair Jackie Fielder moved to file the item; the roll call recorded aye votes from Vice Chair Sauter, Supervisor Sherrill and Chair Fielder. The motion to file passed, 3-0.

Context and next steps: Eisen cautioned that the June 3 snapshot did not reflect personnel changes already approved in the pending budget; she said the vacancy figures will likely change after budget adoption. DHR indicated it will continue to implement the process and technology reforms described to reduce time-to-hire and improve candidate experience.