Supporting a strong state workforce
Like many state jobs, being a CPS investigator is rewarding, yet not easy
Sometimes Erin Mountin lies awake at night wondering if she missed something important that could affect a child’s safety.
“I think, ‘I should have done this, or this, during the day, or I should have asked this,’” said Mountin, a Child Protective Services investigator for the state of Washington. “Sometimes you just have a feeling, but you don’t have the information or the smoking gun to go get them (the children). So sometimes that’s hard.”
Mountin has worked as a CPS investigator for two years and is already the second most-senior member on her team. On average, investigators stay only about 18 months because of the toll it takes on their personal lives, said Kui Hug, the CPS area administrator for Thurston and Mason counties.
The job requires a willingness to work long, unpredictable hours collaborating with law enforcement, the courts and attorneys to help protect children. A lot of stress comes with the job and “some of the stuff they see, they can’t erase,” Hug said.
Mountin is one of 319 CPS investigators in the state. Their primary duty is to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect. The governor’s proposed two-year budget sets aside money to provide an extra bump in pay to CPS investigators due to the high rate of turnover.
CPS isn’t the only part of state government that’s having trouble keeping trained employees. Western State Hospital has had severe staffing issues partly because employees there could make more money at other hospitals. The same situation was true for the Washington State Patrol, which was losing troopers to city and county law enforcement agencies that pay more.
State lawmakers last year pushed through special pay increases for commissioned officers that have helped stem the outflow of workers. Temporary increases were also given to critical medical positions.
Pay increases for state employees, such as those proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee, are critical to attracting and retaining capable staff, said David Schumacher, the governor’s budget director.
“If we want qualified nurses to care for family members with mental health issues, experienced patrol officers to keep us safe and capable employees to do all the other critical state jobs — from inspecting the food we eat to safeguarding our children — we need to pay them a competitive wage,” Schumacher said.
Inslee, as part of collective bargaining agreements with state employees, has proposed a 6 percent general wage increase for most state employees in the 2017–19 budget, starting with a 2 percent increase later this year, followed by an additional 4 percent phased in over the remainder of the biennium. Under state law, the Legislature can accept or reject the contracts. (Teacher pay is covered under a different proposal.)
Hug said it is getting harder to find people who want to become CPS investigators. With the rebounding economy, they can find jobs in the private sector that pay more and have less stress. “There used to be a time when we’d have 20 plus people apply,” he said. “Now we’re lucky to get a third of that.”
Ending years of lost ground
State employees, like many workers in Washington, lost ground during the Great Recession. Wages were cut through reductions in hours worked. Workloads grew as the workforce shrank from layoffs and attrition.
Lawmakers approved a 4.8 percent general wage increase for most employees in the current 2015–17 budget. It was the first general wage increase since 2008. Those intervening years were the longest stretch since the early 1960s that state employees went without one. And, in recent years, state employees were required to pay more for health care and other benefits, further eroding their purchasing power.
In the meantime, the state’s economy has recovered. While some counties in the state still struggle with high unemployment, overall personal income in Washington is growing at one of the fastest clips in the country.
An aging workforce compounds the problem. National research indicates Washington state employees are older on average than those in other states: A 2014 study by the Congressional Research Service found 49.7 percent of state employees nationally were between the ages of 45 and 64, compared to 42 percent of private sector employees. In Washington, 56 percent of state employees fell into that age category.
‘Gut response of anxiety’
Hug, the CPS area administrator, said he hopes the proposed pay increase for CPS workers will help his office attract more applicants and keep the staff they have.
“Our staff does this because they are passionate about keeping kids safe. They want to keep them from being abused, to have a safe place to live, to be able to go to school — to have a safe life,” he said.
But it takes a special person to handle the daily stress, he said. “There aren’t a lot of people who want to do this job.”
Part of the stress comes from making surprise visits to homes they’ve never visited before to assess if children living there are safe.
Mountin said that when she approaches homes alone, and unannounced, “I often get a gut response of anxiety. I never really know what I’m going to show up to,” she said. “In this job, you’re told to trust your gut. But then you’re also ignoring it. So it can be stressful.”
This past Friday, Mountin assessed a child’s safety at an Olympia-area home.
She walked up to the door, knocked and waited, not sure what to expect.
“Sometimes people are just angry that I’m there. They are not necessarily angry at me, but they are angry that someone called them in and are focused on who made the call,” she said. “So I have to do a lot of calming and reassuring.”
This time, she was greeted with a smile and invited inside the home.
Mountin was there to see a young woman whose boyfriend had attacked her while she was holding her baby. The boyfriend was now in jail.
Mountin asked a number of questions about what happened, what her plans are and if she felt safe. There were side discussions with her family, an inspection of the baby’s sleeping area and sharing of educational material about caring for the child.
The woman seemed grateful for the guidance. The visit took about an hour and Mountin was on her way again. “They’re not normally like that,” Mountin said of the visit.
Although her job is stressful, Mountin said she enjoys the works. “I like the variety. No day is ever the same. I like to say I’m making a difference in the community,” she said.
Mountin said she frequently works with disenfranchised families who’ve lived in poverty for generations and sometimes struggle with drugs or alcohol. She wants to help guide them to a better life.
“I have rewarding experiences. The parents who are most upset and angry at me when I remove their children have come back and they still like me,” she said, sounding surprised. “They end up appreciating where they are at. But it’s hard at the moment and stressful.”
The most difficult part of the job, Mountin said, is the hours. Removing children from unsafe homes and placing them in safe ones requires working with attorneys to draft a court order and then getting an order from the court. Then the children must be removed and a safe placement home found.
It’s not unusual for her and her co-workers to be caring for children at night in their offices, waiting for all the pieces to fall into place. “We miss dinner plans and it impacts our personal lives in unpredictable ways,” she said. “I’m flexible and don’t mind working late if I can plan for it, but it impacts my whole family.”
Mountin sees herself remaining a CPS investigator for a couple more years. Then she hopes to find another line of work, given the demands of this job.
“I could definitely see myself working for the Department of Social and Health Services,” she said. “But not in this capacity.”
