Kentucky child protection workers getting an immediate 10% pay raise

Starting December 16, all Department for Community Based Services social workers and family support staff will receive a 10% raise, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday.

Though his two-year budget request will include additional funding to hire more social workers — at least 300 need to be hired to help spread out caseloads — this raise needed to be immediate, the governor said. The raises will cost $15 million — an amount that exists within the current budget in part because there are so many social worker vacancies, he said. Entry-level salaries start around $34,000.

“For far too long, our social workers have not been monetarily valued as they should be,” Beshear said from the Capitol Rotunda. “Low pay, long hours, and crushing case loads have led to poor morale and high turnover. With the loss of so many great workers, this can’t wait.”

Though he didn’t provide immediate details, the governor also said his budget request will include a loan forgiveness program to alleviate the burden of school debt for entry-level workers. State social workers, a beleaguered population in dire need of assistance, will also be eligible to receive “hero pay” essential worker bonuses in the next legislative session. The state also is launching a pilot program that expedites the hiring of entry-level workers within seven days of them applying, “light-years faster” than the current process, which often takes months, Beshear said.

The announcement comes after a group of roughly 50 state social workers gathered on the steps of the Capitol last month to demand higher pay amid a hemorrhaging workforce. “We’re not asking for a lot. We’re not asking to be overcompensated,” Jefferson County supervisor Shawnte West said at the protest. “We want to be able to take care of our families and not need food stamps, not need the same services we’re providing to our clients.”

West, who stood alongside Beshear on Wednesday, was part of a small group that met with the governor before the protest to outline workforce needs. The governor lauded them on Wednesday for their advocacy.

“This wouldn’t have been happening without the advocacy of our social workers, themselves,” he said.

The call for social worker salary raises isn’t a new one, but it’s one that has largely gone unheeded year after year. And in a state agency known for low pay, untenable caseload volumes, and high turnover rates, what has resulted is an exodus of the department’s veteran workforce. More than 600 social workers have left DCBS so far this year, Beshear said.

In October, DCBS Commissioner Marta Miranda-Straub told the Child Welfare and Advisory Committee that the number of child protective services intakes had climbed to an all-time high of more than 112,000. What’s more, with the exodus of hundreds of workers this year alone, by the late fall, more than 66% of workers were either entry-level employees or still in training. In late November, DCBS said 227 social worker positions were unfilled. Fifty-seven of those vacancies were in the Southern Bluegrass region, which includes Fayette, Boyle, Clark, Estill, Garrard, Lincoln, Madison, Mercer and Powell counties.

That only feeds the cycle of early burnout and high turnover, said Jennifer Walker, a Fayette County social worker supervisor.

“We’re not setting them up for success because we’re immediately handing them large numbers of cases that they’re expected to manage because there’s so little staff,” she said last month. As of mid November, the average caseload for a social worker in the Southern Bluegrass region was 38. Caseloads are heaviest in Jefferson County, where each social worker manages an average of 49 cases. National standards typically cite a recommended caseload of 15 to 18.

Walker’s near 16-year-tenure with DCBS makes her an anomaly. She, like many, stays not because of the pay — she hasn’t gotten a raise since the department handed down cost-of-living raises in 2016 — but because the work is personally gratifying. But it’s hard to remain buoyed by personal gratification, alone, when the state refuses to invest further in a system who’s staffing woes have become chronic.

“We are the working poor. I got in to this because this is my heart, this is my passion, [and] I want to see change,” Walker said. But, “we are expected to do the most with the least amount of money, and that’s been obvious for several years. Staffing has always been an issue, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

When a unit is short-staffed, it not only creates stress for workers, it means support services provided to families are subordinated.

“We’re making decisions on who can be seen based on staffing, and that’s not OK,” said Walker, whose normally 26-person unit had roughly a dozen vacancies. At one point in 2021, her unit was so short-staffed, Walker took on a full caseload on top of her supervising duties.

State social workers aren’t the first agency to beg for more funding so far this year. Last month, Beshear said he is recommending a salary boost for Kentucky State Police as part of his two-year budget, namely a $15,000 raise in the starting salary of troopers, bringing them up to $55,000 a year, and an $8,000 increase for dispatchers, raising them to $32,000.

The raises for state social workers and state police will require approval from the Republican-controlled legislature, whose members return to session in January. GOP lawmakers have shot down the Democratic governor’s requests over the last two years to give raises to school teachers and state workers, including money to add 350 social workers to the state’s payroll.