PEF President Wayne Spence and Vice President Randi DiAntonio, a Licensed Master Social Worker at OPWDD, held a Telephone Town Hall on June 13, 2024, to update members on the reallocation of the social worker title series.
NYS Department of Civil Service Commissioner Timothy R. Hogues joined the call along with members of his staff to walk PEF social workers through the process and how they gathered and analyzed data to make their recommendations. The call lasted about an hour, but we have provided some time codes below if members are interested in a particular speaker or topic.
00:00 — PEF President Spence introduces participants, stresses that the union advocated on behalf of ALL PEF Social Workers, but the process is discretionary and agencies must now decide
02:00 — NYS Department of Civil Service Commissioner Timothy R. Hogues introduces his staff, emphasizes the transparency of his department and says “our people are the greatest resource that we have.”
04:10 — PEF Vice President Randi DiAntonio, a Licensed Master Social Worker 2 with 28 years of State service at OPWDD, provides a timeline of the process and the actions PEF took to advocate on behalf of Social Workers. At about the 10:00 mark, she recaps what PEF has heard back from the various “O” agencies about their plans to implement the restructuring.
11:00 — PEF Director of Contract Administration Debra Greenberg outlines the four major changes included in the reallocation — title structure changes, the creation of new titles, upward reallocations, and geographic and shift salary differentials.
17:30 — PEF Vice President Randi DiAntonio summarizes the questions submitted by PEF Social Workers that staff from the Department of Civil Service will answer.
19:20 — NYS Department of Civil Service Director of Class & Compensation Abner JeanPierre discusses how his department approaches reallocation requests and the analysis involved.
25:45 — NYS Department of Civil Service Manager of Classification & Compensation KelliAnn Sardella further discusses the process specific to the Social Worker title series and answers questions from PEF members that were submitted in advance.
43:30 — PEF Vice President Randi DiAntonio asks a question to clarify the process about how State agencies will go about requesting new Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) positions in their workforce.
46:10 — NYS Department of Civil Service Director of Class & Compensation JeanPierre addresses concerns that using the NY HELPS program could result in agencies bypassing internal candidates for new LCSW positions or other promotions.
48:00 — NYS Department of Civil Service Manager of Classification & Compensation Sardella on updating classification standards for the new positions and PEF’s role in that process.
50:20 — PEF Director of Contract Administration Debra Greenberg on the impact the reallocation could have on longevity payments.
54:00 — PEF Vice President Randi DiAntonio delivers closing remarks, highlighting the options for PEF Social Workers interested in obtaining the new LCSW title, including tuition reimbursement as provided in the PEF contract.
Click to listen to the PEF Telephone Town Hall for Social Workers on June 13, 2024
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