Re: Equity for California’s State Scientists

Dear Governor Newsom and California Legislators,

We write with thanks for your ongoing commitment to pay equity, and with hope that you will decide to step forward with assertive leadership to address long-standing pay equity issues for California’s State Scientists. Specifically, we ask you to direct CalHR and your staff to craft an agreement toward equitable compensation for Bargaining Unit 10 and our scientific workforce, with expression of this intent reflected in your January proposed budget.

As Californians concerned about the future of our state and our planet, we are proud of how your leadership is inspiring the nation and the world with a clear and much-needed message: California believes in science and is using best available science to craft solutions that sustain our prosperity and save our biosphere. The bold and transformative investments in your recent state budget reflect these principles, and we thank you for your visionary commitment to science-based solutions.

At the same time, we fear that glaring inequities in State Scientist compensation gives the appearance that California does not value the scientists who are most essential to realizing the vision of a resilient future driven by science.

Secretary Blumenfeld and Secretary Crowfoot expressed deep concern that shockingly low State Scientist salaries are already affecting the ability of their Agencies to perform their missions. We echo urgent concerns they expressed in letters to CalHR, and wish to elevate this message to make sure you are aware of the need and able to act. As Secretary Blumenfeld and Secretary Crowfoot make clear, unfair low compensation for State Scientists is a major threat to our shared agenda. This inequity is driving high staff turnover; challenging recruitment, retention, and vacancy rates; harming morale among our scientists; and most importantly, having a negative impact on their agencies’ ability to accomplish their vital missions. Simply stated, scientist pay inequity is already harming the ability and capacity of California to safeguard the state’s resources, products, food, and climate. This will get much worse in the months and years to come, as we turn to California’s diverse State Scientists for answers and action.

You recently signed a state budget with ambitious goals. Those goals depend on State Scientists: improving public health and advancing environmental justice; decarbonizing our economy and advancing inclusion and opportunity; coping with megafires and surviving drought; saving pollinators and rebuilding state parks. State scientists must develop the strategies and manage the initiatives. Scientists must develop and manage grant programs, write the RFPs and review the proposals. They must review plans and issue permits, all while advising California’s leaders and engaging California’s communities. They always work hard, but now we are asking them to work even harder to advance $15 billion of change in just a few short years. It is no exaggeration to say that without the hard work of dedicated State Scientists, the tremendous investments we are making will fail.

Unfortunately, our State Scientists are overworked and understaffed, and will require immediate support if they are to do all that we are asking of them. While other bargaining units have benefited from California’s commitment to pay equity, scientists have been conspicuously excluded. State scientists feel frustrated, demoralized, and underappreciated for a variety of reasons, including:

State scientist salaries are well below industry standards and are in conflict with state policy:
• Before 2005, State Scientists, environmental engineers, geologists, and other technical staff were compensated equitably for similar duties. Since 2005, other salaries have increased while scientists have not received equitable treatment. This “horizontal parity gap” means that state environmental engineers working alongside State Scientists can earn up to 49% more than their scientist peers, for doing the same or similar work.
• Salaries for most scientific supervisors and managers were increased in 2014 to align with their environmental engineer counterparts, to comply with successful “Like Pay for Like Work” litigation. In a break with precedent and against all norms of justice, rank and file staff scientists were excluded from this, creating a “vertical parity gap” –supervisors’ salaries were given a major adjustment, but those of their staff were not!
• Consequently, State Scientists are paid far less than their peers elsewhere in government. Local and Federal agencies will pay 30-60% more for the same work. Private industry scientists are paid vastly more than the State Scientists who serve the public good.

Low salaries cause turnover, harm morale, extend vacancies, and discourage qualified candidates:
• Turnover is especially high for State Scientists, as staff leave for higher paying jobs elsewhere. Currently, 57% of environmental scientists have been on the job for 5 years or less. While individual departments and programs vary, the average vacancy rate for scientist jobs in California agencies is 14.1%. In an extreme case, the California Energy Commission has vacancy rates that exceed 20% for some scientist classifications.
• Vacant positions mean that existing staff are burdened with more work and more stress. High turnover means that existing staff must spend time and resources training newcomers, and those newcomers lack the experience and relationships necessary to do their jobs well. Loss of institutional knowledge and relationship capital severely hinders the state in addressing pandemics, health inequities, restoration projects, and climate change.
• Consequently, morale is low. To support their families, scientists take gig work and slog through second and third jobs to make ends meet. A recent survey of State Scientists found that: 75% will be looking for a new job within 1-2 years due to the pay inequity issue; >90% indicated pay inequity impacts their willingness or ability to recruit others to work for their department; and 40% said that they would not have accepted their position if they had known about the continuing pay issue.

Despite calls from a united community, CalHR defies calls for equity:
• A recent CalEPA analysis found dramatic vertical and horizontal parity challenges faced by their scientists. They concluded that this long-standing disparity threatens the capacity of CalEPA to implement its mission; creates high staff turnover and vacancy rates; and results in increasingly low morale. In 2020, Secretary Blumenfeld sent a letter urging CalHR “to reaffirm California’s commitment to pay equity…and reaffirm the State of California as an Employer of Choice.”
• In a 2020 letter to CalHR, Resources Secretary Crowfoot explained that Environmental Scientists are underpaid compared to their federal, private sector, and state counterparts. He said that pay equity currently impacts several departments, harms retention and recruitment of talented Environmental Scientists, and that “pay equity is urgently needed to enable high-quality science to meet our Agency's mission.”
• CalHR has received similar letters from advocates ranging from former Senator Barbara Boxer, County District Attorneys, environmental coalitions, and even representatives of regulated industries concerned about how State Scientist compensation issues are affecting timely permit and project delivery.
• The Legislative Analyst's Office 2018 "MOU Fiscal Analysis" discusses issues around rapidly expanding demand for State Scientists, and the LAO has identified the parity issue between Unit 10 and Unit 9 classifications doing similar and comparable work and has informed the legislature that appropriate differentials between supervisors and rank-and-file should be maintained.
• The "2018 California State Employee Total Compensation Report" projects an 11.8% growth in jobs for ES and Specialists, highlights a 14.4% vacancy rate for ES positions as of 2018, and demonstrates that ES positions were compensated far less than their peers.
• Laws, regulations, and policies call for action that still has not happened. California Government Code 19826 makes clear that classifications doing similar and comparable work must be paid similarly, a requirement upheld in the recent “Like Pay for Like Work” lawsuit that resulted in salary increases for supervisors. CalHR is not in compliance with their own horizontal and vertical salary relationship policies – while they maintain both vertical and horizontal salary relationships for the other 20 bargaining units, scientists in Bargaining Unit 10 are excluded.

This is why California’s State Scientists look to you for leadership and action. Governor Newsom’s inspiring inaugural speech was clear: “everyone deserves fair pay.” This is a moral issue, but it is also an unsustainable situation: State Scientists will receive the pay increase they deserve, either because their leaders choose to do the right thing; via contentious labor action; or because our scientists burn out and the programs and services we rely on simply collapse. One of these scenarios opens new pathways for greater progress, while the other two jeopardize the exceptional opportunity we all share right now.

This truth is at the heart of our plea to you. In order for any workforce to perform to their highest potential, corrosive and extreme inequities in compensation simply cannot persist. And in the case of scientists, California’s population, economy, and environment cannot risk further loss and marginalization of this essential, frontline talent.

Our hope is that you can seize this opportunity and that you will choose to make a minor investment in a grand enterprise. Your decision to do right by California State Scientists is essential to advancing your current agenda. But much more importantly, your action will show how an enlightened people come together to overcome great challenges. Today, after pandemic and in the midst of a climate catastrophe, the world is learning they must listen to scientists and California is a standard-bearer for this growing movement. Current inequities refute that message, suggesting that California values science but not the working people who deliver that science. As you remedy this problem, you will show California, and the nation and world, what it means to listen to science and to value public service scientists. As the world learns from your example, we will be closer to solving the problems we face today, building new paradigms that apply facts to lead us forward.

We ask that you please listen to the Cabinet Secretaries that oversee your scientific workforce – they made this case better than we ever could. Please ensure that the upcoming 2022 budget proposal reaffirms a commitment to science and pay equity. Please CalHR to work with Bargaining Unit 10 to resolve this longstanding inequity. We hope your actions will help demonstrate to the nation and the world what it means to listen to science and value scientists.

Respectfully yours,