At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans applauded them as “essential.” Today, however, local public sector workers who shouldered many of the pandemic’s heaviest burdens feel more exhausted, beleaguered, left behind, and even resented than loved or respected.  

Consider these facts: 

• New York City government headcount is the lowest it’s been in five years. The City’s Independent Budget Office and the State Comptroller have recently reported staffing shortages that leave the City with an overall vacancy rate of 7.5 percent. In 12 agencies it exceeds 10 percent, with staffing declines concentrated in the human services, education, public health, and public safety.  A July front page New York Times story delved into the reasons, citing plummeting morale, increasing workloads, low pay, competition from the private sector, a ban on remote work, and a combination of rapid retirement and limited hiring. 

• Nor is this only a local problem. In May, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office released a new advisory to address the health care worker burnout crisis in localities. It cited causes that included severe PTSD and the threat – and reality – of violence directed against workers, all arising from the pandemic. It projected a resulting national shortage of millions of health care workers.  

• A report six months ago from the Center for American Progress found that, nationally, the workforce in state and local governments remains smaller today than it was before the Great Recession of 2008-09. And only the leisure and hospitality sector of the workforce has sustained deeper and more long-lasting job losses from the pandemic’s economic dislocations. 

In our federal system of government, some of the most critical functions, including social services, health, education, and public safety, are principally local responsibilities. The experience of the past three years has put enormous additional stresses on the people – many of them women and people of color – who carry them out.  

These stresses aren’t going away. The federal funding that provided Covid-related emergency relief to local governments is expiring. Temporary benefits that have helped families and workers keep their heads above water financially, such as the child tax credit, continuous Medicaid coverage, and expanded unemployment assistance, have either already ended, or soon will. As the tide of temporary financial and health care support runs out, the remaining social problems will become more visible and urgent. 

Meanwhile, the profusion of new restrictions on abortions resulting from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will make complex and fatal pregnancies more likely, severely inhibit women’s economic and educational attainment, and increase the number of families unable to support children who may themselves have complicated medical needs. 

Politicians, including in New York City, are fond of exhorting local government workers to do more with less – to be more efficient and make greater use of technology to do their jobs. But my experience in government at both the national and local levels convinces me that there are real limits to automating and innovating your way to better government.  

You also must invest in the people that serve. That means implementing compensation and retention structures that fully recognize the critical roles they play.  

If we don’t, we’re likely to find ourselves flirting with disaster. 

We need an entire shift in the perception of the public service workers who care for our communities. They perform difficult tasks with skill and expertise; they must be recruited, valued, and managed accordingly. They deserve competitive wages and benefits, including paid parental leave, affordable child care, and hazard pay. How can these workers support a city if they can’t even afford to live in it?  

We should also pilot new models of work. At a minimum, public sector workers should not be saddled with impossible work assignments or unrealistically high caseloads. There also must be adoption, where appropriate, of remote and hybrid work, alternative work schedules, and temporary assignments so expert staff can move around to learn new topics and step in where they’re needed most. The private sector and parts of the federal government have already started to adopt these reforms. Now local governments need to evolve, too.  

We must also recognize that dealing day in and day out with society’s most difficult challenges has serious effects on mental health. We have a responsibility to ensure these workers receive high-quality mental health supports, are not bullied by politicians or supervisors, and are protected by a zero-tolerance policy for any violence that may be directed against them.  

Labor Day's annual recognition of American workers is now in the rearview mirror – but the challenges confronting public sector workers, and the slow-motion crisis created by the understaffing of critical public services, still loom ahead. Meeting them should be a top priority for officials at every level of government – in public policy and in collective bargaining agreements.  An equitable recovery and future depend on reimagining what is possible for these workers and for our communities. 

Megan Tackney was until recently executive director of the NYC Children’s Cabinet and deputy chief of staff for the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services. Prior to that, she worked in the Administration for Children for Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration. She also spent six years with the National Women’s Law Center.  

Photo by: Berellian