Horry’s churn: Why do so many county employees leave their jobs? These records offer some clues
It’s no secret that Horry County is growing rapidly: Newcomers for decades now have been attracted to the Grand Strand by the miles of beaches, balmy climate and low taxes, and have made Horry the fastest-growing county in South Carolina, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
But as the county has grown, residents old and new have complained about shortfalls in funding and public services, be it a lack of police officers, firefighters or 911 call-takers, and manpower to fix stormwater issues, or congested roads.
Emerging from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, Horry County leaders landed on one solution to address that problem: Raising taxes. The budget county leaders passed in June included a 7.6 total millage increase — or a $60 tax increase on a $200,000 home — with more than half going directly toward hiring new county employees. A doubling of the county’s stormwater fee — from $44.40 to $89.40 annually — also went toward hiring new employees.
But the county faces a more serious challenge than hiring more employees to address resident needs: Horry County is also grappling with significant employee turnover.
Over the past four years, The Sun News found, employee turnover among county government staff averaged 13%. Partly because the county is growing so rapidly and residents are demanding more, some former county employees said they were overworked and burning out, a problem that leads to turnover. County leaders have acknowledged the compounding issues of trying to grow their departments but also retain the employees they have now.
And while federal labor data shows that Horry County’s turnover rate is on par for the public sector, that turnover in Horry County has contributed to tax increases for residents.
In May, for example, when county officials were making their cases to County Council members for this year’s budget, some argued that a lack of staff responding to an increased population was leading to high turnover rates and that their departments needed more money to prevent that from happening.
Renee Hardwick, the county’s director of its 911 service, was one such official who made that argument. At a May County Council committee meeting, she said a lack of workers in her department led to other employees being overworked which led to some of them burning out and leaving.
“We’re working our people to death over there and that’s one reason they’re leaving is they’re tired,” she said.
County Police Chief Joe Hill made a similar argument, that his department needed more funding to hire more officers “so that we don’t burn out our folks and that we can meet the needs of our visitors and the folks who are moving in.”
Because the combined factors of population growth and employee turnover have already resulted in a tax increase for residents, a serious question emerges: Why are Horry County employees leaving their jobs?
To help answer that question, The Sun News analyzed exit interviews completed by county employees who left their jobs between 2018 and now. The records are incomplete — only about 10% of departing employees completed the surveys — but they provide a window into why, specifically, workers leave Horry County government. The records contain testimony from employees who said they left their jobs because they were overworked, underpaid, both, or could find better jobs in the private sector or with another government agency.
“I hope that (Horry County) realizes how fast they are slipping behind the 8-ball with necessary resources,” one county police officer, who left in 2019, wrote in their survey. “With the population increase, the agencies should be increasing. They aren’t.”
Of the 134 employees who completed the exit surveys, the departures were concentrated in the public safety department, namely Horry County Fire Rescue, E-911, the sheriff’s department and the county police department. Employees being overworked, paid too little and subject to dysfunctional departments were common complaints. But employees in other departments, like planning and zoning, were represented in records, too, and echoed those concerns.
“With the sheer volume of work in development review, it’s difficult to take time to hone the sword of efficiency,” one county planner, who left their job in 2018, wrote. “They need more review people immediately.”
How many workers leave county jobs?
In each of the last four years, more than 300 employees have left their jobs with Horry County, totaling more than 1,300 departures since the start of 2018. Between 2018 and 2020, Horry County averaged around 2,500 total employees, though that figure jumped to nearly 2,900 in 2021. Comparing those departures to the county’s number of positions it budgets for year reveals the turnover rate. The numbers break down like this:
In 2018, 375 employees left their jobs, meaning the county had 14.8% turnover rate that year.
In 2019, 349 employees left, resulting in a 13.7% turnover rate that year.
In 2020, 308 employees left, a 12% turnover rate that year.
And as of October 2021, 317 employees have left their positions, meaning the county has an 11.7% turnover rate so far.
Because the county may not have every position it budgets for filled, the turnover rates are conservative estimates. If, for example, there was a significant gap in the number of employees working in a given year and the number of budgeted positions, the turnover rate would be much higher.
To put those figures in perspective, federal labor data shows that the employee turnover rate in public sector jobs over the past two decades has averaged around 18.5%. And while Horry County’s turnover rate is lower, employees who have left said the disparity between an increasing population and limited staffing caused them to become exhausted.
Such situations are not uncommon in South Carolina, said Timothy Winslow, an attorney and the head of the South Carolina Association of Counties.
“That has been going on for at least 22 years, as long as I’ve been with the association,” he said.
But, Winslow added, even if such turnover has become normal, it can still set a county government back.
“There are significant risks to turnover, first of all you lose the training. You lose historical knowledge …when you replace them with someone with less knowledge,” Winslow said. “No employer wants a high turnover rate.”
Why do employees depart?
The county’s 911 department is particularly susceptible to turnover, Hardwick, the county 911 director, has said. Employee testimony in the exit interviews attests to that. One employee, who left that department last year, said employees often had to switch between working day shifts and night shifts, a rotation the person described as “horrible” leading them to become “completely overworked.” The employee went as far to say that they worried dysfunction in the department could lead to someone getting hurt.
“When working a radio you still have to answer 911 calls no matter what. Seems like bodies to answer phones is more important than the quality of service given to citizens,” the former employee wrote. “In order for changes to be made, I was afraid someone, either citizen, visitor and/or responder would have to be hurt or even worse. I did not want to be a part of that.”
Another 911 employee who left in 2020 said they left their job because the department made 60-hour-per-week shifts mandatory.
“I just can’t work the extended schedule,” the person wrote in their exit survey.
Another 911 employee who retired in 2020 described the job as “very demanding and unrewarding” and said there are few opportunities for promotion within the department.
“The pay and benefits don’t match the stress and sacrifice employees have to make. The schedule is unrelenting and impacts health and wellbeing,” the employee wrote. “The federal job classification does not match the level of responsibility. The pay does not match the level of responsibility.”
Other 911 employees who left in prior years had similar complaints, according to the surveys. One employee who left in 2019 described themselves and their coworkers as “extremely unhappy” and lacking proper training. Like several other former 911 employees, one who left in 2020 said they were leaving to take a job at a different public agency.
Former employees of the county’s fire department voiced similar concerns, and some complained of issues with new firefighter training and a toxic work environment. One former employee, who left in 2020, said leadership of the department had a “mentality” that workers were replaceable, which led to turnover.
“The overall attitude needs to change, they don’t care about the staff and will have the replacement mentality,” the person wrote.
Another Fire Rescue employee who left earlier this year echoed that concern, and said the department could improve if such issues were solved.
“Sometimes simply returning a phone call and having a conversation with someone is all it takes to retain an employee,” the former employee wrote. “The department is by far one of the best fire departments in the state and without a doubt the best in the area. If the ‘good ole boy system’ could be removed there is no question that (Horry County Fire Rescue) could be one of the places to work nationally.”
Another former Fire Rescue employee who left in 2018 was more blunt. They said they were taking an “$18,000 pay cut to get away from there.”
“The Fire Rescue service in Horry County is dysfunctional and the leadership encourages a complete lack of disregard for fellow employees,” the person wrote. “Pay is low and the workload is often high. Mandatory overtime is stressful and the bosses do not care.”
Employees in other county departments, like the maintenance department, parks and recreation and code enforcement also said they felt overworked and underappreciated. One former employee, who left the code enforcement department in 2019, sounded a defeated tone when asked on the exit survey to provide comments.
“What good would it do,” the person wrote. “Hasn’t changed anything since I have been there in code enforcement. People just keep leaving.”
The Sun News sought interviews with several department leaders from Horry County to respond to such concerns from former employees, but county spokesperson Kelly Moore declined the request. Moore also declined to address specific questions about county employment raised by some of the former county employees.
“...because the employee exit interview data provided in response to your SC FOIA represents feedback collected from less than ten percent of employees that left the organization, it would be inappropriate to place any degree of reliance on any commentary made as indicative of true policy or practice or to give credence to any statements made without context or recognition of the realities of any particular departure,” Moore wrote in an email.
Moore also said the county regularly addresses employee concerns, and that county leaders are regularly working to address both resident and employee issues.
“As far as addressing employee concerns, it is customary for us to do so at any point they are provided in the course of a person’s employment with the County,” Moore wrote. “Meeting the demands of our rapidly growing community requires additional personnel and competitive compensation and benefits. These challenges are continually being addressed by the County on an ongoing basis. County Council recognizes the importance of investing in County personnel.”
What can be done to help staffing concerns?
In her email, Moore pointed to a new pay scale the county implemented earlier this year as one way leaders were working to increase employee pay and keep more people in their jobs.
The scale gives annual 5% raises to employees earning $30,000 or less, a 4.17% annual raise to employees earning between $30,000 and $40,000, a 2.5% annual raise to employees earning between $40,000 and $80,000 and a 1.67% annual raise to employees earning more than $80,000. The county also authorized $2,500 bonuses for public safety employees and $1,500 bonuses for all other employees.
Moore also said the county studies other public and private employers in the region and “benchmarks” its pay and benefits, like paid leave and healthcare, to make the county competitive in attracting workers. And Moore noted that the county is close to completing a survey of employee salaries, and that the results of the survey will be released when county leaders begin discussing next year’s budget in December.
“Compensation and its components—wages, benefits, and annual leave—are benchmarked with comparable private sector positions and other local and regional governments,” she said. “We do consider the value of the more liberal annual leave and benefits that are offered to government employees that may not be available in the local private sector.”
But such benefits have dwindled in recent years. In 2012, for example, county leaders voted to do away with post-retirement health benefits for employees who were hired July 1, 2011 and later, citing rising costs of offering such a benefit. Myrtle Beach city leaders are currently facing criticism for a similar move they made this year.
And while some county leaders have begun discussing reinstating post-retirement health benefits — council members voted to reinstate post-retirement health benefits for employees who were forced into retirement because they were injured on the job earlier this year — any such change is likely years away.
Moore said that various challenges in Horry County, from its growth to COVID-19, have also put pressures on employees, and the county as an employer.
“Over the past few years, we have faced unprecedented growth, natural disasters, a global pandemic, and changing public sentiment toward government. Any one of these extraordinary events presents new difficulties for our organization, as it does for all businesses and organizations in our community,” she wrote. “While we face continuing significant challenges, we intend to rise to meet those challenges.”
For a growing county like Horry, Winslow of the South Carolina Association of Counties said a significant turnover rate can cause a conundrum: Residents want more services, but providing more services requires hiring more people, which sometimes means raising taxes. And the best ways to retain employees — pay higher wages and offer better benefits — would come at taxpayers’ expense, too.
“The best way to retain an employee is to pay them more…but there are limits on how much we can tax, there are millage caps,” Winslow said.
It’s a “real difficult” situation, he said. “(Counties have to) weigh wanting to retain employees vs wanting to be good stewards of the public money.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 12:45 PM.
