Date: 08-16-2016
Entry level workers get increase to $33,644
Kentucky’s embattled state social service workers are about to get a raise — their first significant pay upgrade in nearly a decade.
Officials with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced the pay raises Monday and said the changes will mean some increase in pay for all “front line” workers in social service jobs.
“Just about everybody gets a raise,” said Tim Feeley, deputy secretary of the cabinet.
The changes also create a “career ladder” to increase pay for workers who would like to move up within their area of expertise but aren’t necessarily seeking to become supervisors, Feeley said. The changes apply to about 3,765 social service and family support workers across Kentucky, with the exception of a handful of top supervisors who have reached the maximum pay level.
The pay raise takes effect Sept. 16.
Cabinet officials said this month that the pay increase is part of an effort to upgrade working conditions for the state’s social service workers, who handle child abuse and neglect, adult protection and other services for vulnerable children and adults. Workers have reported increasingly high caseloads, frequent turnover in some local social service offices and vacancies throughout the state, with workers leaving faster than they can be replaced.
In Louisville, the cabinet has lost one-third of its social services workforce since January because of resignation or retirement.
Vickie Yates Brown Glisson, secretary of the cabinet, said the salary increases will be covered with $4.8 million Gov. Matt Bevin had included in the state’s two-year budget to try to improve pay for social service workers, who start at about $32,000 a year.
Their last significant pay increase was in 2008.
Loretta Bartonherd, who has worked for the cabinet for 25 years in Adult Protective Services, said she was pleased by the news.
“I’m excited,” she said. “It’s been a long time since we had a raise. That really makes a difference.”
Bartonherd said she loves her job helping victims of domestic violence. But she said morale around the agency has been poor and the raise in pay could help lift spirits.
“It will boost our morale,” she said.
Entry-level workers who start at $32,042 a year would get a pay increase to $33,644 — an increase of about $1,600 a year. Supervisors who start at $38,770 a year would be raised to $40,800, an increase of about $2,030 per year.
The new salary system also creates categories within certain areas allowing workers to seek higher classifications for higher pay.
Patricia Pregliasco, a 17-year social worker in Jefferson County who oversees foster children, said she welcomed the changes though she said they were long overdue.
“For the most part, this will help to show workers that the work we do is valued,” she said. A pay increase also could “help to retain the few experienced workers left,” she said.
State Rep. Tom Burch, chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee, said he is glad the state has found a way to get front-line workers more money and create opportunities for them to advance within their areas.
“It’s something that’s been going on a long time,” he said. “It’s about time we dealt with it.”
Burch said he remains concerned about staff shortages and high caseloads, particularly in Jefferson County, where he has heard of social workers carrying as many as 80 or more cases. Professional standards call for no more than 17 cases per worker and state law requires the cabinet to report to the governor and legislator if the average number of cases per worker exceeds 25 for more than 90 days.
Feeley said officials at the Department for Community Based Services, the social services arm, continue to work to recruit and retain more workers and find ways to make caseloads more manageable.
By Deborah Yetter
The Courier-Journal
