In Recent Legislation, States Shore Up Public Sector Workforce

In Recent Legislation, States Shore Up Public Sector Workforce

Efforts include reducing barriers to public employment, easing a return to service from retirement and enhancing employee benefits.

State Legislatures NewsPolicyLabor and Employment

Policymakers have expanded the types of recently retired public employees who can be recruited for short-term service to include justices and judges, educational personnel and first responders.

Many states struggle with public sector workforce challenges, including filling state and local government positions. NCSL's Public Sector Workforce Legislation Database, created earlier this year and updated quarterly, features introduced legislation on various public workforce topics, including recruitment, retention, benefits, position requirements and more.

Tracked bills often combine categories to fill a specific need. For example, a bill to increase paid leave benefits may be intended to keep employees interested in working with their public employer. On the other hand, removing college degree requirements for administrative roles might rapidly grow the potential recruitment pool. Common pairings such as these have shed light on new tactics legislators are using to bolster the public sector.

Related: Public Sector Workforce Legislation Database

As of July 1, states have enacted legislation primarily aimed at reducing barriers to public employment, easing a return to public service from retirement and enhancing public employee benefits. Here's a look at what's trending.

Position Requirements and Qualifications

At least 20 states enacted legislation related to public employees' position requirements or qualifications, up from 18 in 2023. Positions targeted by states ranged from judicial branch employees and public safety personnel to teachers and even conservation employees.

States are altering prerequisites for public sector employment by reducing previous experience required, reevaluating or removing degree requirements, and convening work groups or task forces to make administrative recommendations. Other strategies include examining citizenship requirements and increasing the accessibility of positions to people with disabilities.

For example, Georgia required the Department of Administrative Services to "regularly assess … educational, experiential, and training requirements" for public job postings. The department must identify positions where existing requirements could be reduced. The legislation also aims to reduce the number of positions requiring a four-year degree if possible.

Washington state enacted legislation to identify and reduce unnecessary degree requirements in the civil service classification system. Moving forward, positions may "not require a two-year or four-year college degree as the only way to demonstrate qualifications for the role." Exceptions are made for positions required by law to have a specialized degree to perform the job.

Changing position requirements with an emphasis on alternatives to college degrees mirrors nationwide trends in the workforce. NCSL outlines some of these approaches, challenges and successes in its Nondegree Credential State Policy Framework.

Employee Benefits

At least 34 states enacted changes to public employee benefits in 2024, up from 33 states in 2023.

One area of increasingly bipartisan action includes access to mental health resources for public employees who experience job-related traumatic events. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut and Virginia all enacted legislation to provide access to mental health care, offer mental health leave or expand workers' compensation to include post-traumatic stress. These programs tend to be geared toward public safety personnel, but Connecticut expanded its program for all public employees.

States also are exploring paid leave policies as a benefit, including expanding its availability for the bereavement, birth, care or adoption of a child. Alabama, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., passed such legislation in 2023.

Many states also have expanded paid leave to cover unique circumstances that may temporarily take an employee out of work. Wyoming passed a bill with the goal of boosting its volunteer emergency response services. Under the new law, state employees have up to 24 hours of paid leave for service or training with a volunteer fire department, ambulance service or county search and rescue organization.

Utah granted access to "safe leave," giving state employees up to one week of paid leave if they fall victim to domestic or sexual violence, stalking or human trafficking. This program also allows the employee to use safe leave if an immediate family member was a victim.

States also have leveraged employer-sponsored health insurance. Just this year, Delaware removed the 90-day waiting period for employees to receive health insurance. New hires will now be immediately covered in public state employee health plans. Tennessee will allow public hospitals to waive out-of-pocket health care costs for state employees. And in Maryland, licensed professional counselors may now sign sick notes to allow employees to use paid sick leave.

Financial Strategies

States continue to pursue financial strategies to recruit, train and retain employees. Of the 34 states that enacted such policies in 2023, trending approaches include utilizing reimbursement programs, setting or raising retention pay incentives, and removing or reducing penalties for retirees returning to public service positions.

Reimbursement programs typically fall into two categories: training reimbursements or administrative reimbursements. Training reimbursements are designed to reduce the financial impact of recently trained employees leaving to work elsewhere. This pertains particularly to law enforcement, where many agencies subsidize the cost of new recruits to attend a training academy. Since 2023, states including Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky and Michigan passed legislation allowing law enforcement agencies to seek reimbursement if an officer leaves within a specified period.

Administrative reimbursements typically allow agencies, local boards and commissions to seek payment from the state for the costs of implementing certain programs. States enacting related legislation include Maryland, South Dakota and Utah, for everything from moving allowances to reimbursing volunteer victim advocates.

Mississippi bundled these approaches into one bill, allowing the state to award grants to health centers to care for the uninsured and indigent. Grants may also be used to provide one-time salary supplements for physicians recruited to these centers. The state renewed the program through 2027.

Some states are giving state and local agencies the flexibility to classify some positions as "full-time employees." Virginia, for example, authorized the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to classify certain health positions as "full time," provided the employees work at least 36 hours per week. The bill also required a study the rollout of this policy change to determine if it might apply to other executive branch agencies.

Another trend: Changing retirement penalties for returning workers. Retired public employees who began receiving their pension often would experience benefit reductions or pauses if they returned to work, even at the request of their employer. But now that retired public employees have been identified as a short-term recruitment pool, policymakers have taken steps to ease their return to public service. Used first as a tool to reengage retired police officers, states have now begun applying the concept to justices and judges, educational personnel and first responders.

The public sector workforce is among the slowest sectors to recover the COVID-19 pandemic. The policy trends NCSL has tracked in recent years exist across the nation, regardless of a state's partisan control, size or geographic location.

While these trends may signal a growing awareness among state legislatures of the need to act quickly, only time and further analysis will tell which methods prove effective. In the meantime, NCSL will continue tracking these issues the Public Sector Workforce Legislation Database.

Zaakary Barnes is a senior policy specialist in NCSL's Employment, Labor and Retirement Program.

The research included in this report was made possible in part through funding by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. The findings, conclusions and recommendations presented in this report are those of NCSL alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ASTHO.