The administration of Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz has reached a successful conclusion in discussions with CSEA Local 815 on personnel and salary adjustments for Department of Social Services (“DSS”) employees in the Child Protective Services (“CPS”), Children Services (“CS”) and Adult Protective Services (“APS”) units.  The agreement does not alter any proposal contained in the resolution proposed by the Poloncarz administration on March 29 to increase the wages of approximately 250 DSS employees in order to reduce turnover and bring salaries closer to comparable counties.

“Our employees in protective services divisions have some of the most difficult jobs in Erie County, and the work they do is critical to families and to our community. Turnover in these demanding positions has been an issue and I thank CSEA President Denise Szymura and other union leaders for coming to the table with my social services and labor relations teams and me to have a constructive dialogue on how best to address that,” said Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz. “Ultimately, as we have seen before, open and honest discussions conducted through the proper channels were able to produce good results that weeks of unnecessary and distracting drama could not. This agreement is good for our workforce, will help to retain quality workers while attracting even more to this important job, and will be beneficial to the families our CPS, CS, and APS teams work with.”

All provisions of the Poloncarz Administration’s March 29 proposal will be implemented and all of the following CPS positions will receive an additional $1.75 per hour “CPS retention pay differential” for hours worked if they were not previously receiving an upgrade in the March 29 Poloncarz Administration proposal and have at least three (3) years of experience in CPS: Senior Child Protective Worker or Social Caseworker II (Job Group 10), Child Protective Team Leaders (Job Group 11), Child Protective Coordinators (Job Group 12), and Administrator Director-Services and Director of Child Protective Services (Job Group 13).  

Acting Social Services Commissioner Marie Cannon added, “This agreement will have a very positive effect on our ability to retain CPS workers and will aid our department in building a team with longer years of service and more experience in helping families. Our preventive and protective services units of CPS, APS and CS are on the front lines of helping families every day in Erie County and we are committed to supporting them fully in their task.”

This will affect approximately 48 Senior Child Protective Workers or Social Caseworker IIs (who will all be Social Caseworker IIs as a result of this resolution), 25 Child Protective Team Leaders, 6 Child Protective Coordinators, and 3 Administrative Director – Services and 1 Director Child Protective Services.

The CPS Retention Pay will not go to workers in the same job title in which their position is not within CPS or providing oversight to CPS workers. An employee will only receive the CPS retention pay differential if they work in CPS; if they leave CPS to go to another division in DSS or county government they will not continue to receive the CPS retention pay differential.

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