Aspire Struggles with Low Wages; Novstrup Shrugs Again

The Aberdeen American News front-paged the troubles that Aspire has recruiting and keeping workers with its low wages:

Aspire continues its work despite staffing problems. But the nonprofit agency’s director said the shortage caused in part by meager pay is a crisis statewide.

Jennifer Gray said Aspire has a staff shortage of 25 workers with 23 of those positions being full-time….

Aspire budgeted for about 137 jobs this year.

The starting wage for a direct support professional at Aspire is $11.25 an hour. The average wage for the agency at large hovers around $12 per hour, Gray said.

The Aspire Board of Directors approved raises of 35 cents an hour last year, she said [Shannon Marvel, “For Aspire Staff, the Reward Is Caring for Clients, Not Modest Paychecks,” Aberdeen American News, 2018.07.15].

Well, at least we can see that immigrants aren’t taking jobs away from anyone in Aberdeen. There’s plenty of work available.

Alas, part of the reason Aspire can’t pay sufficient, competitive wages is our cheapskate state government:

…82 percent of the agency’s revenue comes from Medicaid, which means Aspire relies heavily on funding from the state and federal governments.

Since the 2008 recession, the federal government has tried to minimize Medicaid entitlements, Gray said. And in 2011, during Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s first year in office, he ordered across-the-board budget cuts in the state. To Aspire, the cut was 4.5 percent, she said [Marvel, 2018.07.15].

State Senator Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) voted for those budget cuts back in 2011, so he owns Aspire’s problem. Senator Novstrup tried in 2017, though not very hard, to pass a $39-million state property tax to further subsidize Aspire’s wages. He ignored Aspire’s problem in this year’s Session. Rather than taking a leadership role, Novstrup says other people need to step up and make the case for spending more on community service providers like Aspire:

“A really small group of people understand what Aspire does. Things happen in budgets because people step up and say this is a priority,” Novstrup said.

“If it gets slightly worse, we’re in deep trouble. If it stays where it is, we’re in deep trouble. Unemployment is 2 to 3 percent, which means everyone is employed and everyone is pursuing easier, better-paying jobs. And Aspire is not an easy job and it doesn’t pay enough. The work is hard and the pay is low,” he said.

Public support for raising teacher pay is what made it a budgeting priority in recent years, Novstrup said. The same thing needs to happen for Aspire.

A few years ago, more money was also allocated for a road crisis in the state. But everybody understood the problem because everybody drives on roads, Novstrup said. That’s not the case for agencies like Aspire.

“This problem is not as visible, and that makes it more of a challenge,” he said [Marvel, 2018.07.15].

Again, good to see that Novstrup acknowledges that immigrants aren’t taking jobs from anyone in Aberdeen. But bad to see that Novstrup can’t get over his Republican hump and take the lead on this spending issue.

Here’s a wild idea: if we expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (something Novstrup never supported), we’d have a truckload more Medicaid money and a stimulated economy that would make it easier to add Aspire wage subsidies to our budget priorities.