SONOMA COUNTY (BCN) — Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to approve a “living wage” of $15 an hour to employees of for-profit contractors that have a contract with the county.
About 737 non-profit employees are currently exempt from the living wage ordinance that is scheduled for final approval on June 23, but they are to be included in the provisions of the ordinance in the future, Deputy County Administrator Rebecca Wachsberg said.
Many of those who attended the hearing in the Board’s packed chambers Tuesday asked the supervisors to include in the living wage ordinance the 4,884 In-Home Supportive Services workers who make $11.65 an hour.
Board members excluded those in-home care workers however, because they are members of a branch of the Service Employees International Union that currently engages in collective bargaining with the county, Wachsberg said.
To include the nearly 5,000 in-home health care workers in the $15 hourly living wage ordinance would cost about $9.7 million during the first year the ordinance is in effect and $10 million the following year, Wachsberg said.
Each of the for-profit contractors that are included in the living wage ordinance must have at least 20 employees and provide at least $25,000 in contracted services to the county. About 182 for-profit contractors are included in the living wage ordinance.
The provisions of the ordinance agreed to on first reading Tuesday will cost the county about $351,000 a year, Wachsberg said.
The county hired the Emeryville-based Blue Sky Consulting Group to recommend ways to reduce the poverty that affects more than one in 10 county residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The living wage ordinance was among the recommendations.
Blue Sky also recommended developing affordable housing, increasing access to early childhood education, helping low-income families save for college, expanding enrollment in the earned income tax credit and in the Cal Fresh (food stamps) program and expanding home visiting programs.
In response, the county identified $1 million in poverty reduction strategies.