Fresno County workers say they live ‘paycheck to paycheck,’ receive public benefits
Many of the workers who help keep Fresno County’s poorest and most vulnerable residents from slipping through the cracks say they’re in need of the same kind of aid.
These workers help connect their clients with services to help them pay their bills, put food on the table and see a doctor when they need to, but can’t afford one. This is mainly done by determining people’s eligibility for benefits, such as food stamps, cash assistance and Medi-Cal, among others, based on federal poverty guidelines.
But Fresno County eligibility workers who spoke with The Bee say their wages are so low, many receive public assistance in order to stay afloat.
Workers like Elisa Delgado, who says she’s one of many Fresno County eligibility workers who’s had to apply for public benefits. She is raising her 17 year-old son, her 15-year-old grandson and her 12-year-old granddaughter on her own.
Delgado says her annual take-home income now is around $32, 760 — the same as it was in 2009. She receives cash assistance for her two grandkids, but even with that help, it’s just enough to get by.
“It’s paycheck to paycheck, pretty much,” she says. “That’s what it is.”
She started working at the county as an office assistant in 2006, and she’s been in her current position since 2013. Delgado says when she started working, she paid $7 per paycheck for health benefits, and today, she pays $220 per paycheck.
Ocean Beverly, also an eligibility worker, finds herself in a similar situation as a single mother of a 12-year-old son. Last year, her take-home income after deductions was around $28,000, though she says it was lower than previous years because she had to take an unpaid leave of absence. She had no child care for her son during the pandemic.
Beverly’s son is on Medi-Cal because she can’t afford to pay private insurance for him. The fact that her income is below the federal poverty limit to qualify for Medi-Cal says a lot about workers’ wages, she says.
“We are like the working poor. It’s sad but it’s true,” she told The Bee. “We’re only literally one paycheck or two...from being our clients.”
Beverly says many of her coworkers and herself take on part-time jobs. She’s a Mary Kay consultant and sells the brand’s makeup on her time off, and works odd jobs here and there.
“One job should be enough,” Beverly says, “but in our situation, most of the times it’s not.”
Delfino Neira, the outgoing director for the Fresno County Department of Social Services, says this is not a unique issue to Fresno County.
“Counties have had to deal with underfunding of all programs administered on behalf of the State,” he told The Bee in an email. “Counties have not received an increase from the State for the cost for an individual employee for over 20 years.”
Neira says officials have expressed concerns to management of the California Department of Social Services, but have “yet to receive adequate funding to add sufficient positions.”
“Valley Counties are especially reliant on this funding to adequately staff and compensate employees,” he wrote. “The Valley Counties do not have sufficient local funds to compensate for the state shortfall.”
Jason Montiel, a spokesman with the California Department of Social Services, said counties receive funding increases based on caseloads. Several improvements and technological advances, he said, have also simplified the verification process.
Additionally, he said, “funding decisions are not solely in the hands of California.”
“The caseload has dramatically increased in the last 20 years,” he told The Bee in an email. “This increase is assumed to bring some economies of scale.”
Statewide, the number of people applying for food stamps during the pandemic skyrocketed. Advocates say county social service departments are “understaffed and overwhelmed.”
Fresno County can’t retain workers
Over the last four years, the turnover rate for eligibility workers is 106%, similar to that of social workers, according to data requested by the SEIU 521 local labor union, said Estevan Gutierrez, a communications specialist with the union.
The county budgeted for 172 new eligibility workers level I in the last four years, but of those, 159 have resigned. There are 121 vacancies for eligibility workers, he said.
Ninety-two percent of eligibility workers leave within a year of being hired, he said. For eligibility workers I, II and III combined, 35% resigned in 2021, Gutierrez said.
“That’s more than 1 out of every 3 workers who leave the County,” he told The Bee in an email. “This is huge because per EWs (eligibility workers) it can take up to a full year to properly train new hires and then for them to leave, this further prevents the community from receiving quality, responsive assistance to life saving programs.”
Delgado says workload is a critical issue. Eligibility workers are given a time limit to spend with clients. Sometimes workers will get pressured to limit the time even further.
“They’ll say, ‘OK, push for 12 minutes.’... In other words, cut them off,” she says. “We feel like robots.”
When cases are rushed, there could be problems.
“I’ve heard clients come in and say that, ‘You know, I had a surgery scheduled and they canceled it because my Medi-Cal wasn’t right or whatever,’” Delgado says.
A lack of bilingual or multilingual workers further compounds the issue because cases take longer to process when workers have to use a phone line to interpret.
Beverly said it makes a difference when workers are able to help clients.
“We don’t want to take angry phone calls all day because that can be depressing,” she says. “If you are able to have the time to fix the clients’ problem, give them their food, give them their medicine, or whatever it is ... and they get off the phone happy, it makes you happy.”
To get better results, the county needs to be able to retain workers. Workers are leaving in droves, and many of those who stay are “suffering.”
“You’ll see them one day, and they’re gone the next,” Delgado says. “They don’t make enough to get enticed to stay.”
A supervisor who spoke with The Bee, who asked not to be named to avoid being treated differently by management, said it’s “a revolving door” with workers coming and going.
There’s inadequate training and a “huge” workload. The supervisor is required to start putting expectations on workers before they’re even done with training.
“They come into a workload that’s just crazy,” the supervisor told The Bee. “Our workload has always been high. It’s that vicious cycle. Upper management are deaf to the problem.”
Delgado said she’s speaking up for herself and her coworkers who are afraid to speak publicly.
“Enough is enough,” she says. “When does enough become enough?”
Neira said the workers’ union representatives are working with the county’s negotiation team. He said he’s tried to address other issues the best he could during the pandemic, but these times have made it “problematic” to finding simple solutions.
“We are (hopeful) that there will be a resolution soon,” he said.
This story was originally published November 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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