COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

Employee and Public Services

DATE:

May 14, 2003

BOARD MEETING DATE:

June 10, 2003

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

Mary Welch, Employee and Public Services Director

SUBJECT:

Expansion of the Reinstatement/Rehire Program

Recommendation

Adopt a resolution enabling the Employee and Public Services Director to restore sick leave and grant advanced vacation accrual to former County employees who are re-hired within 5 years for hard-to-fill classifications.

Background

On January 29, 2002, your Board adopted a resolution enabling the Employee and Public Services Director to restore sick leave and grant advanced vacation accrual to former County employees who are re-hired within 2 years of separation. Since January 2002, five employees have been rehired/reinstated with restoration of sick leave and/or advanced vacation.

Discussion

This program has been an incentive for former employees to return to work for the County. Due to the success of this incentive and the particular need to attract qualified applicants to hard-to-fill positions, we are proposing that a resolution be passed under which the time limit for rehire be expanded from two to five years for hard-to-fill classifications, such as Staff Nurse, Psychiatrist, Radiologic Technologist, Communication Dispatcher and others. In fact, the San Mateo Medical Center is seeking to recruit two Psychiatrists who formerly worked for the County, one in Psychiatric Residency Program.

Vision Alignment

This item keeps the commitment of responsive, effective and collaborative government through goal number 20: Government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain.

Fiscal Impact

The cost of this change would depend on the following factors:

· The amount of sick leave an employee had when they originally separated and whether they eventually retire from the County. If the employee does not retire, restoration of sick leave has no direct additional cost.

· The number of years of service an employee had when they originally separated. Since accrued vacation is paid out upon separation, this would result in an additional direct cost.

These additional costs would be offset by savings resulting from reduced recruiting costs and reduced costs of training new hires. For example, newly hired Communications Dispatchers go through six months of training. A Dispatcher who previously worked for the County would require only a short period of on-the-job refresher training.