The City and Borough of Sitka is struggling to fill a large number of open positions. At the Sitka Assembly meeting on Tuesday (7-23-24), Municipal Administrator John Leach said there are currently 42 vacant city jobs.
“I always hate to say that we’re not the only ones going through this, but we aren’t the only ones going through this,” Leach said.
The problem is so widespread that at this summer’s Alaska Municipal League conference, Leach said he was asked to sit on a panel with other city leaders to discuss “managing through large vacancies.”
In recent months, the city has ramped up its recruitment efforts, even working with a headhunting firm to find applicants for some positions.
“We’ve gone on nationwide searches,” Leach said. “Direct mailings and hitting everything we can find, and getting sometimes 1,2,3 applicants.”
Leach said a lot of the jobs have specific qualifications that make them harder to fill, like a master’s degree or certificates for planning or engineering. And Sitka’s police department has struggled to fill a number of vacancies off-and-on for the last few years. Leach said that lines up with national trends. He recounted a recent conversation with a police chief from a city in the lower-48.
“I saw him this weekend and had a chat, and I asked if they were going through the same issues and he chuckled and said they’re going out the door as quick as they’re coming in the door,” leach said. “And it’s just a challenging role to fill right now.”
Nevertheless, the city is making some hiring progress. At the same meeting, the assembly approved a hiring offer for a new human resources director after being without one for nearly a year. And it offered a first-round job interview to a candidate for the vacant city attorney position.
