Department of Civil Service

Staff Study: Planning for the State's Workforce Needs

As of April 1, 2002, nearly 39 percent of the State’s workforce was age 50 or older. By 2007, 14 State agencies will have at least 1,000 employees eligible to retire, and between 2002 and 2007, several of these agencies are likely to lose more than one-third of their current staff through retirements. We attempted to review the actions taken by the Department of Civil Service, the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (GOER) and other State agencies in planning to meet the State’s future workforce needs in light of these likely retirements. While our study was limited by GOER officials, who expressed concern about pending union contract negotiations and instructed agencies not to cooperate with our requests for information, we were able to determine that many State agencies could be facing critical shortages of necessary personnel and therefore need to develop plans for addressing those shortages. We noted that the agencies’ progress in developing such plans is not monitored by the Department of Civil Service or GOER, and we questioned whether increased oversight of the kind provided at the federal level by the Office of Personnel Management might not be appropriate.

For a complete copy of Report 2002-D-4 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.