Dec. 2: Committee of the Whole, Cleveland City Council
Covered by Documenter Dan McLaughlin (notes)
With additional details from the regular meeting on Dec. 2 covered by Documenter Tucker Handley (notes)
Cleveland City Council sizes up Snider-Blake
‘Tis the season for seasonal workers — or planning for their hiring, that is.
Amid the flurry of legislation Cleveland City Council passed Dec. 2 — its last regular meeting scheduled for the year — was a piece allowing the City of Cleveland to contract with one or more temporary employment staffing firms.
The request comes to council annually, according to Assistant Director of Public Works John Laird. It allows the city to pay a staffing agency to hire temporary and seasonal workers. The workers cut grass, maintain and clean up vacant lots, and tend to city streets, parks, cemeteries and golf courses.
The legislation lets the Cleveland Board of Control (BOC) select the staffing agency. The BOC also will set the price of the new contract. Each contract lasts up to a year. They typically start in late March, Laird said.
The BOC has yet to approve the staffing firm for 2025. But some council members used a Dec. 2 committee meeting to focus on wages paid to the workers and on the agency routinely chosen by the city, Independence-based Snider-Blake Personnel.
What is the Cleveland Board of Control? The mayor and various city department heads sit on the board. It votes on vendors and contract amounts for services as recommended by administration officials. Learn more from Signal Cleveland’s explainer.
Wages for Cleveland’s temporary workers
Ward 12 Council Member Rebecca Maurer returned to a theme from recent years. She asked about the wage Cleveland’s temporary and seasonal workers are set to receive in 2025, wanting assurances that they will receive the minimum pay required by Cleveland’s fair wage law. As of Oct. 1, 2023, all employees working for the city should be paid at least $15.33 per hour, the law states.
Temporary and seasonal workers in 2025 are set to make at least $15.85 per hour, according to Laird.
A Signal Cleveland analysis found that some workers placed by Snider-Blake were paid $13 to $14 an hour in 2022 and 2023. City Council didn’t approve the $15.33/hour requirement until October 2023. But the city did have a commitment to paying workers at least $15/hour dating back to 2018.
And even with the $15.33/hour requirement in effect, council members flagged job ads for seasonal workers in April 2024 touting lower pay.
Laird confirmed to Maurer that there would not be any such surprises this time around.
‘Quality is just not there’
Some council members also scrutinized the performance of the workers Snider-Blake has placed.
Ward 16 Council Member Brian Kazy said Snider-Blake and the workers it has hired have not lived up to expectations. Stephanie Howse-Jones, council’s Ward 7 representative, said, “The quality is just not there.”
Laird said the agency is not necessarily at fault for the lack of quality but rather individual workers are.
Howse-Jones suggested hiring local teenagers for the work. She said people connected to the community who may not yet be dealing with major life expenses might produce better results.
“It’s hard to even get an adult to think about seasonal work when you have full-time life expenses,” Howse-Jones said. “So you only gonna attract a certain person, or a profile, a lot of times that’s just trying to get that quick money, not vested in the care that we need.”
Council voted to approve the legislation regarding hiring a staffing firm later that night. Kazy cast the lone opposing vote.
Cleveland City Council reviewed 30-plus pieces of legislation during this marathon meeting. Read the full notes from Documenter Dan McLaughlin:
Catch the full discussion of this legislation on City Council’s YouTube.
Read more about Snider-Blake
Cleveland council members flag low-pay on help-wanted ad for seasonal workers
Several members of Cleveland City Council have been paying close attention to the help wanted ads. They are not looking for new jobs, but they are looking out for people who are. Council Members Charles Slife and Rebecca Maurer complained recently to Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration about its ad for summer park maintenance and landscape…
Does Cleveland pay temporary and seasonal workers a living wage?
The current living wage for a single person with no children living in Cuyahoga County is $15.61. The city pays some temporary workers $13.
Cleveland paid $17 million to one company for temporary workers in recent years
Cleveland’s Public Works Department, which includes maintenance and seasonal recreation staff, employed between 35 and 394 temporary workers a month in 2022.