08 27 25 Colorado WINS Director Hilary Glasgow on the state employee hiring freeze

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's borning news. The state wide hiring freeze
taking effect today and it runs through the end of
the year. It's an effort to save the state money
and close that big budget gap.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
And kwa's Connor Shree. You spoke with Hillary Glasgow, the
executive director for the Colorado Wins Local eighteen seventy six,
the state's employees union. She says, the situation is very complicated.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
The hiring freeze is going to be the least detrimental
thing to the Colorado public for state employees, because the
Colorado public is so deeply reliant in ways that they
probably don't fully understand. On state employees. We have a
chronic understaffing problem with the state, and so there will
be some impacts because we are already running short staffed,

(00:45):
and the truth is the need is growing and the
resources are completely depleting, and so with the lack of
money coming in from the federal government, we're certainly going
to operate in a way. It's going to affect how
the state is able to operate, and the hiring trees
will have the least negative impact on Colorado citizens, but

(01:07):
also on state employees.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Is there anything your group can do for the state
workers that are currently employed in that understaffed situation.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, I mean the entire the basis of the union
is that you're working with the people who deliver the
services on the front line to ensure that we are
as a state providing the most quality services that we
can and that for state employees that they have to
say in their pay, benefits and working conditions, and that's
what we negotiate through the contract. What we do, of course,

(01:41):
through that contract is create shared agreements with the state
government about how state employees work. And what we do
is make sure that everything stays above board as much
as possible. Then and is you know that the contract
is followed right now because of the situation we've found
ourselves in America and now in Colorado. On July first,

(02:05):
we had a balanced budget and after the administration signed
off on HR one on July fourth, we were one
point two billion dollars in the whole. So, working with
the governor, the governor's people, and state agencies, I'm sure
you have read that they are not every single position

(02:26):
is going to be frozen, because we know that there
are positions within care and custody jobs in Colorado that
we can't. We can't freeze corrections officers' jobs. There has
to be human beings in charge of that work to
be there every day, so they can't put a freeze

(02:46):
on that. So I have to give credit where it's due.
The governor is working very closely with us to think
about what positions are we deeply understaffed and where having
a hiring freeze would impact services and jobs. So that's
what we're doing. And without the Union, I don't know.
I mean, the conversations would all be internal, but there

(03:07):
is a perspective that you cannot get from numbers on
the spreadsheet that we can't. You know, our members can
bring real life information to about what's happening on the
ground level of providing state services to people, and Governor
takes that is taking that on into account to make
sure that we have as little impact on the services
that come from the government as possible, because the need

(03:31):
is going to increase as we undergo these financial changes
that are outlined in HR one.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, and that perspective from your members is hard to
put a finger onto because in a sense, it's it's
virtual right because we're talking about future positions we're not
at this point a couple of weeks removed from from
the layoffs. These are potential future positions. So is there
a risk to maybe overreacting.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Oh, that's a good question. I think No, I think
think I think that there is that Governor's being prudent
right now, especially in a not blanket statement of putting
a freeze on every position, but putting a freeze where
we have the staff to cover it. However, what that
really means in real life is additional time at work,

(04:20):
additional work during that time at work, working on weekends,
working late, and if you're in caring custody, because the
turnover in positions like that is very high, there's always openings.
I mean, even currently with a hiring freeze, we have
vacancy rates in departments that those positions are still going
to be frozen. They will be frozen, and it's very

(04:42):
much trying to figure out what has the least impact
on public services, while for us, what our job is
is to make sure that they don't run these workers
into the ground backfilling all of these positions with individual
well was working multiple jobs. That's something that's where we

(05:04):
come in as the line like this is too this
is too much.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
What do you hope this looks like at the end
of December when this freeze as of now is scheduled
to expire.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, I hope this looks like we made it to
then and we still are able to provide services and
we aren't losing too many employees. Because keeping in mind
that a hiring freeze just like low pay, just like
bad benefits or overworking people, a hiring freeze has a
confounding effect on vacancy because when people are working two

(05:40):
or three jobs for the pay of when you compare
public sector pay to private it's less. So when you're
working two to three jobs and you're one person who
are supposed to be working and is getting paid for
one job, it's hard to keep people.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
That's Hillary Glasgow, the executive director of Colorado WINS the
State Employees Union, discussing the hire phrase that is now
underway for Colorado governmental agencies,