Hiring is officially underway for The Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole at Lake Fairfax in Reston.

The Fairfax County Park Authority is seeking to fill more than 200 seasonal positions, including lifeguards, park attendances and security staff.

Pay begins at $16.87 per hour for lifeguards, $13.50 per hour for park attendants, $18.87 per hour for security and $17.87 for leadership staff.

Lifegaurds must be 15 years or older to apply, although no prior experience or certifications are required to apply. FCPA offers lifegaurd training and uniforms.

The park authority will hold interview-only hiring events at the Water Mine (1400 Lake Fairfax Drive) on the following dates:

• Wednesday, April 10, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Saturday, April 13, from noon-3 p.m.
• Wednesday, April 24, from 2-5 p.m.
• Sunday, April 28, from noon-3 p.m.

FCPA is also hosting events that will require a swim test and interviews:

• Saturday, March 9, from 1-4 p.m. at the Spring Hill Rec Center in McLean
• Saturday, March 23, from 1-4 p.m. at Cub Run Rec Center in Chantilly
• Wednesday, March 27, from 4-7 p.m. at Oakmont Rec Center in Oakton

This year, the park authority is offering $500 signing bonuses and free use of its rec centers to summer employees. Applications are now being accepted through the Water Mine’s website.

The Water Mine will reopen for the 2024 summer season on May 25. Attractions include slides, an interactive playground, a lazy river and a log-walk obstacle course.

Screenshot via Fairfax County Park Authority/YouTube

Handling 911 calls has never been a regular 9-to-5 job, but a national staffing shortage has increased the hours and pressure felt by call takers and dispatchers across the country.

Fairfax County’s Department of Public Safety Communications wasn’t spared from the workforce challenges that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping from close to 180 staffers before 2020 to about 160 people right now.

The gap is sizable enough that workers are required to take about two overtime shifts every four months, but it’s not as drastic as the vacancy levels reported at other sites, even though the DPSC is the biggest 911 center in Virginia and one of the largest in the U.S., Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Officer Paul Ballerini says.

For instance, Richmond’s 911 agency, the state’s second largest center, reported earlier this year that it was 30 operators short, while D.C. had 39 call taker and dispatcher vacancies.

“Two additional mandatory shifts per person for a third of the year is not bad, especially hearing [about] other centers, reading online how some other similar-sized agencies are just doing tons of overtime,” Ballerini told FFXnow.

Initially, the pandemic didn’t have much of an impact on the 911 center. With people generally staying home and minimizing interactions with others, the volume of calls declined, according to Ballerini.

However, after a while, DPSC started seeing some of the same turnover that has hit other professions, from the police to trash collectors and restaurants.

“Like most other professions, people just started jumping jobs,” Ballerini said. “Not in a bad way, just people spent more time on themselves and learned about themselves and moved to other professions. So, we were hit the same as everybody else…so we started ramping up hiring and training.”

About 3,952 911 workers across 774 centers in the U.S. left the profession in 2022, often citing the stress of the job and options for better hours, pay and opportunities as their reasons for leaving, according to a study released earlier this year by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch and National Association of State 911 Administrators.

While 27% saw no change in staffing levels over the past four years, nearly one-third of the study’s respondents reported vacancy rates of 30% or higher, including 13 that said at least 70% of their positions were unfilled.

Ballerini says Fairfax County’s current 911 staffing levels are slightly above its minimum standard after hitting maximum levels before the pandemic.

Every 12-hour shift must have at least four police dispatchers and four fire dispatchers on each of its four squads, which manage two district stations each. There are also ideally 20 call takers per day, though there can be as few as 13 people on the phones depending on the workload.

“Some people get through parts of training and realize it’s not for them and end up dropping out, but we work hard to try to stay consistent levels, not just for the public, but for morale inside the center,” Ballerini said. “I feel we’ve been pretty decent about doing that.” Read More

Fairfax County wants to bridge the gap between employers and qualified talent through a work-based learning opportunity initiative.

Talent Up will match local employers facing hiring challenges with qualified talent through paid temporary-to-permanent work-based learning internships, staff explained to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at an economic initiatives committee meeting last week.

According to the presentation, Talent Up will offer a variety of solutions to employers facing hiring challenges:

• Targets hard-to-fill, entry-level professional gateway jobs
• Repositions work-based learning as low-risk temporary to permanent hiring on-ramp
• Incentivizes employer participation by underwriting work-based learning wages
• Advises employers on revising job descriptions to focus on skills-based hiring, increasing the pool of qualified applicants by up to 50%
• Easy access to hundreds of candidates via talent development partners

“There’s a lot of movement going on in the workforce space right now — movement towards skills-based hiring, and we believe that this can dramatically accelerate that movement,” Bill Browning, workforce innovation manager at the Fairfax County Department of Family Services, said of the initiative.

The focus will be on gateway jobs such as information technology specialists, accounting clerks, sales representatives, and office administrative support.

“These are entry-level professional jobs, where there’s reams of data showing that they’re great springboards for future advancement and career advancement for candidates,” Browning added.

According to his presentation, Fairfax County had more than 67,000 job openings in May of this year, and 71% of employers in Northern Virginia reported it being more difficult to fill jobs now than last year, or even just a few months ago.

The initiative will also address what Browning called the “missing middle.”

“We’re looking at middle-skilled jobs that require some skills beyond high school, but perhaps not a college degree,” he said. “And we’re also looking at some of those midsize employers that don’t have some of the advantages large employers have.”

How it works:

• Business outreach: Initial focus on small to medium-sized employers
• Advise: Address hard to fill occupations and sponsor new temporary-to-permanent internships
• Match: Talent partners’ referrals to generate qualified candidates to interview
• Choose: Employers select interns
• Support: Coaching and training support during internship to increase success rates
• Success: Convert internships into full-time offers or place interns into new jobs

Theresa Benincasa, manager of economic mobility with the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives, said the plan is to get started right away with the board’s approval.

“We’re going to just go ahead and do a launch event in the fall with board approval. We’ll start doing events with workers to communicate, we’ll do some one-to-one engagement,” she continued.

To be eligible for Talent Up, employers must have a physical presence in Fairfax County and be ready to establish a work-based learning internship.

Job seekers must be county residents, meet the skills requirements of an open internship and be impacted by pandemic-related unemployment, underemployed or seeking greater economic mobility.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay voiced support for the initiative, saying it builds resilience.

“If you can help some folks move into these jobs, not only do we help our employers, we help those individuals. But it’s a resilience thing where their lives can change dramatically for the better,” he said.

The program will seek the board’s approval at the July 11 meeting.

Photo via Eric Prouzet/Unsplash

One of Vienna’s police officers recently got some kudos for giving the department a major staffing boost at a time when law enforcement is struggling with recruitment regionally and nationally.

Sgt. James Sheeran was named the Vienna Police Department’s “Employee of the Year” by the Rotary Club of Vienna, which presented its 2023 Rotarian M. Jane Seeman “Service Above Self” award to the sergeant at a banquet on April 19.

Bestowed annually to an officer who displays “motivation, commitment, and service to the community,” the award went to Sheeran this year after he hired 10 officers in two years — the equivalent of nearly a quarter of the VPD’s 41 sworn officer positions.

The department also employs 11 civilian staff members.

“Sgt. Sheeran’s hiring accomplishment is a feat that has not been achieved in the recent history of our police department,” the police department said in a press release on Friday (May 5).

According to the release, Sheeran was “managed to screen hundreds of applicants” during his two years working in the Criminal Investigations Section:

Sgt. Sheeran was assigned to the Vienna Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Section (CIS) for approximately 24 months. His duties included internal investigations, personnel hiring and investigator supervision. Sgt. Sheeran is described by his section commander as an exemplary employee. Always willing to lend a hand and never turns down a new assignment. Sgt. Sheeran approaches all his duties with enthusiasm, dedication, and professionalism.

The VPD now has just one vacancy, even though it has encountered the same hurdles with recruitment as other police departments, possibly “even more because we are a smaller police department,” Public Information Officer Juan Vasquez told FFXnow.

“Recruiting and hiring new officers is an extremely difficult and challenging task,” the department said. “The Vienna Police Department is located in the heart of a very large metropolitan area with numerous agencies actively and aggressively competing for law enforcement officers.”

Police departments actually reported an uptick in hiring during 2022 compared to 2019-2021, but those gains have been offset by increased retirements and resignations, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found in a survey released April 1.

Among the agencies competing with Vienna is the Fairfax County Police Department, which has been in a “personnel emergency” since last summer. The FCPD welcomed 56 recruits to its academy last month — its largest class in over a decade — but as of early April, there were 206 vacant positions.

In a push to improve recruitment and retention, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is set to adopt a budget tomorrow (Tuesday) that will boost pay for police officers by an average of 12.8%.

The Town of Vienna’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, gives an additional $400,960 to the police. Though there aren’t any significant changes to compensation, anticipated initiatives include enhanced “recruiting efforts using social media.”

The town council will adopt the budget on May 15.

An IT contractor headquartered in Reston’s South Lakes area has agreed to pay over $435,000 to settle a federal investigation that found racial discrimination in its hiring practices.

Intelligent Waves LLC allegedly engaged in “systemic hiring discrimination” against 14 Black applicants who sought work in Arizona and Nevada as test instrumentation technicians, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced Friday (April 21).

The allegations were raised by a “routine” compliance investigation that took place between Nov. 5, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2021, according to a news release.

Investigators found violations of Executive Order 11246, which prohibits discrimination by federal contractors, by personnel at the company’s Reston headquarters (1801 Robert Fulton Drive, Suite 440) who were responsible for filling the technician positions.

“OFCCP identified a statistically significant disparity (equivalent to a shortfall of five (5)), not otherwise explained, in the hiring of Black Test Instrumentation Technician applicants on the basis of their race,” the office says in the compliance agreement.

The OFCCP also found that Intelligent Waves failed to preserve accurate employment records and implement an audit system to monitor the effectiveness of its affirmative action program during the investigation period, according to the agreement.

“Our settlement with Intelligent Waves reflects our commitment to preventing hiring discrimination and holding federal contractors accountable when they fail to ensure equal employment opportunity,” Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Mid-Atlantic Regional Director Sam Maiden said.

Launched in 2006, Intelligent Waves provides cybersecurity, data science, network & systems engineering and software development services. Its clients include the Air Force, NASA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the General Services Administration, according to the labor department.

Per the compliance agreement, the company “neither admits nor denies” any violations of the federal government’s nondiscrimination rules.

According to Intelligent Waves, the discrimination allegations stem from “a single position and an incident that transpired almost three years ago, resulting from a record-keeping error when Intelligent Waves was a small business.”

The company says it hasn’t employed the people involved since 2022 and started “implementing measures” to ensure compliance with federal rules as soon as it became aware of the error.

“Intelligent Waves has a long history of providing an equitable and inclusive workplace for all employees, exceeding industry averages for diversity and veteran employment, and has maintained a strong anti-discrimination policy since its founding,” Intelligent Waves said in a statement, noting that it was listed among the D.C. area’s top corporate diversity employers last year by the Washington Business Journal.

However, as part of the settlement, Intelligent Waves has agreed to not only provide $435,368 in back pay and interest to the 14 affected individuals, but also give them priority for a job offer if there are future test instrumentation technician vacancies.

The contractor is also required to evaluate its hiring policies and procedures for the position and train employees involved in hiring on any changes.

All of the settlement funds must be distributed by Feb. 20, 2024, and the company must give the OFCCP a progress report on its hiring practices by April 1, 2024, per a timeline in the agreement. The office has a Class Member Locator with information for anyone who thinks they’re eligible for relief.

Photo via Cytonn Photography/Unsplash

Reston Association’s Board of Directors is closing in on identifying the organization’s next CEO after Hank Lynch resigned last year.

Yesterday evening (Wednesday), the board narrowed down the list of candidates during a closed meeting. Finalists will be interviewed next week, according to RA spokesperson Mike Leone.

“The interviews will take place ‘in-person,’ not virtual, and the full Board will participate,” Leone told FFXnow by email. “The current Board hopes to complete the hiring process in early April before the next Board is seated and is on-track to do so.”

Reston Patch first reported that the board conducted virtual interviews with candidates last weekend.

The hiring process continues as some call on the board to delay a hiring decision until new directors are elected on April 1. Consulting firm Baker Tilly is conducting a national search for the new CEO. The annual salary was advertised in the mid-$200,000s.

This year’s election is uncontested, but a 10% quorum of votes must be met. Laurie Dodd, Irwin Flashman and Glenn Small are running for three seats that will be vacated by Aaron Webb, John Mooney and Tom Mulkerin.

RA has not yet filled vacancies for three other leadership positions, including a human resources director, an information technology director and a high-level environmental position.

A move by at-large board member Sarah Selvaraj-D’Souza to involve future new board members failed at a Feb. 9 Board of Directors meeting.

Selvaraj-D’Souza sought to create a committee with the three board candidates to sit on interviews with CEO applicants and observe the hiring process.

The effort failed by a 3-4 vote, with dissenting votes from board president Caren Anton, Mike Collins, John Mooney and Tim Dowling.

In a separate move, Flashman asked that the board delay the hiring process so newly elected board members could have input.

“The difference in terms of time is relatively small, at most one or two months of deferral time, while the impact could be relatively great, three years and more,” Flashman said during a Jan. 27 board meeting.

Lynch replaced Cate Fulkerson who resigned in 2018 after 13 years in her position.

The Fairfax County Police Department is grappling with high levels of understaffing and attrition, a problem that law enforcement officials warn could intensify in the coming months.

During a public safety committee with the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Oct. 26), officials said understaffing and retention are impacting the entire public safety sector, including the Fire and Rescue Department, 9/11 call centers, and the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office.

“The FCPD is experiencing an unparalleled level of staffing shortages within its workforce,” FCPD Capt. Rachel Levy said, adding that the issue could become “an insurmountable task” for the agency to overcome if left unaddressed.

FCPD has 144 vacancies in its 1,484 authorized sworn force — a vacancy rate of nearly 10%. Currently, some officers work voluntary overtime. Others are pulled from special positions like neighborhood patrols and community outreach to fill gaps in shifts.

That’s despite undertaking what Levy described as an “unprecedented effort” for recruitment. This year, the police department hosted 109 recruitment events and initiatives, up from 54 in 2018.

Board members acknowledged that the county needs to increase the applicant pool, attract a higher number of qualified candidates, streamline the hiring process, and increase retention.

The missing piece — compensation — remains unaddressed. Lee District Supervisor Rodney Lusk, who chairs the public safety committee, called lack of competitive pay the “elephant in the room.”

Deputy Chief of Police Bob Blakley said the police department needs to be able to compete aggressively with other police departments to attract every candidate considering a career in law enforcement.

He says FCPD needs to double the number of officers it hires every year and slow attrition by encouraging officers near the 25-year retirement mark to stay for a few more years.

Blakley pointed to a recent 15% pay increase instituted through a collective bargaining agreement by the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland as a good example of competitive pay.

“We will never be able to compete with organizations that are going to just leave us in the dust. And [if] we’re going to be the best, we need to be the best,” he said.

Lusk said the board will work with its budget and personnel committees to determine next steps, including whether compensation increases are warranted.

FCPD did not immediately share its pay scale.

The issue of understaffing was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to board chairman Jeff McKay.

“Already, people are thinking if they want to work the same way they did,” he said, adding that he supports collective hiring and pay increases for public safety personnel.

The police officer shortage in the United States predates recent calls to “defund” the police, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In fact, staffing has declined for the past eight years, with 86% of departments across the country reporting a shortage last year.

While the pandemic and anti-police sentiment have intensified issues, the shortage stems from staffing boosts granted by the federal government between 1996 and 2002. Hundreds of those positions are now eligible for full retirement, though some were eliminated through attrition during the economic downturn between 2008 and 2012.

This year, 27 Fairfax County police officers are expected to retire. Next year, an additional 48 will become eligible. The number continues to climb each year with not enough new recruits to fill in shoes.

Applications for the county’s police academy are down from 4,121 in 2015 to 1,450 as of last year.

Unlike previous years, Blakley said some officers who have been in the force for years are leaving for other careers like information technology.

Lusk suggested the county could bolster public safety recruitment efforts by improving the online hiring process.

The county sheriff’s office is facing similar issues, prompting it to eliminate some work-release programs to free up staff for other services. Further reductions may be needed in the future, officials say.

“We just can’t keep up with departures,” said Major Tamara Gold, sheriff’s office assistant chief. The office loses some of its staff to the police department, which offers between 2.5% and 7.5% more pay.

The Department of Public Safety Communications has started aggressively recruiting at the high school level. The department’s priority is ensuring its 911 call center is fully staffed, Assistant Director Lorraine Fells-Danzer said.

Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity said legislation that he called “anti-law enforcement” — like the Police Civilian Review Panel  — is deterring people from becoming police officers.

“What I haven’t heard today is our plan…moving forward,” he said.

Over a month into the current school year, Fairfax County Public Schools is grappling with two key issues: how to recruit and retain staff, especially in special education and transportation, and how to feed students.

FCPS officials have said shortages in those areas are affecting the rest of the country, while supply chain issues have resulted in more students getting fewer choices to pick from in school cafeterias, thanks in part to free meals becoming available to all students.

When it comes to staff retention, the Fairfax County School Board approved some immediate relief at its regular meeting on Thursday (Sept. 23), increasing seasoned bus drivers’ salaries by 2.5%. The change will show up in their paychecks starting Oct. 23.

The change excludes new bus drivers who got a pay boost in August when the board voted to increase starting hourly rates from $19.58 to $22.91.

“Attract is one thing, but retain is something altogether different,” Springfield District Representative Laura Jane Cohen said.

In consultation with stakeholders, FCPS is conducting an in-depth market compensation study that it plans to finish by the end of the school year. The need to retain experienced bus drivers will only grow in urgency, as 25% will become eligible to retire.

FCPS also offers a $3,000 signing bonus, and Superintendent Scott Brabrand said the changes have boosted applications from about five to seven per week to an additional 20-50 each week.

Meanwhile, as of Sept. 15, FCPS had 133 teaching vacancies, nearly half of them in special education, according to Karen Corbett-Sanders, the school board’s Mount Vernon District representative.

Brabrand has suggested that state requirements for special education teachers need to be adjusted to ease the process for existing teachers, saying Thursday that he plans to bring the school board more information later to help its advocacy efforts.

School systems nationwide have reported bus driver deficits as potential hires turn to higher-paying commercial jobs, among other factors.

However, the commercial driving sector is experiencing labor shortages of its own, which are colliding with supply chain disruptions and increased student demand to create problems in school cafeterias.

In its annual “Opening of Schools” report, FCPS says it is now serving some 138,000 students per day — about 28,000 more than before the pandemic. Brabrand reported on Thursday that the school system distributed a record number of meals the previous week, when 150,000 students used its food services.

Mason District School Board Representative Ricardy Anderson noted that families have raised concerns and wondered about the quality of the food. Department of Financial Services Assistant Superintendent Leigh Burden said the issues have affected the number of the options available to students, but not the quality.

“We’ve had to double down on some of our oldies but goodies like pizza, which maybe doesn’t make students upset, but we want to continue to fully implement the food and nutrition health guidelines,” Brabrand said.

Anderson said knowing about the supply chain issues could help families better understand the situation that FCPS is facing.