Falls Church officials say they are making process changes that are helping to reduce vacant positions in the city government, although retention challenges have persisted.
Efforts to address both issues are “moving in the right direction,” City Manager Seth Hendler-Voss said at the Oct. 28 meeting of the City Council’s government operations committee.
Of the city government’s 270-member workforce, 19 positions are currently unstaffed, and the average number of days positions have been vacant is now 139, human resources director Sharon Gibson said at the meeting.
“It’s an improvement from where we were,” Gibson said, pointing to a Council briefing held in the spring of 2025.
As of the Oct. 28 meeting, the public-works department had nine vacancies and there were three in public safety, she said. No other departments within the city government had more than two vacancies.
This year’s staff attrition rate has been running at about 8.6%, which Gibson said was “pretty steady” compared to recent years and below the national average for local governments. Still, Gibson said, not all is rosy.
“Where we are seeing attrition is in those critical positions,” she said, pointing to police and public-works personnel. “Not only do we want to get that [vacancy] number lower, we want to see retention.”
Mayor Letty Hardi zeroed in on public-works personnel, noting the number was still high but the situation seemed to be trending in the right direction.
“Several years ago, we were at critical levels,” the mayor said of vacancies.
To ease stress in the department, the city government is bringing in temporary help for public works, and on Oct. 29, it held a job fair for open positions.
Some employees hired for city jobs in recent years have left after a short time on the job. In exit interviews, human-resources personnel determined “one of the main motivating factors [for departures] was salary.”
Council member Arthur Agin pressed for creative solutions to address the matter.
“We may be hiring people, but if they’re not sticking around, we’ve got a problem,” he said.
Falls Church is facing competition from the private sector as well as federal, state and local governments. The region also has seen a decline in its total workforce in recent years, as some residents have left the workforce or departed Northern Virginia completely.
A key to recruiting personnel who might be looking for — or already holding — private-sector jobs is showing them the features of a government job, including a pension.
“Long-term, the benefits here are far greater than what they can get in the private sector,” Hendler-Voss said.
The city manager himself is a product of a recent hiring process, having been selected as city manager over the summer. Coming from the Prince William County government, he succeeded City Manager Wyatt Shields in September.
City HR personnel also are taking steps to streamline public-safety hiring without lowering standards, officials said.
In comments during the meeting, Hardi requested that, going forward, HR staff could break down vacancy percentages and average days to fill positions by department, so Council members could see where stress points were.
