State announces pay raises and bonuses for health facility employees

The Gianforte administration is offering retention bonuses, incentives for new hires and hourly pay raises for a swath of health care employees at the Montana State Hospital and other public facilities, the state’s most pronounced effort yet to reduce its tens of millions of dollars in annual spending on contract workers.

New employees of five state health facilities who are hired as registered nurses, certified nurse aides, direct support professionals, psychiatric technicians, and forensic mental health technicians will receive up to $7,500 if they remain in their positions for one year, according to a state health department press release distributed Wednesday. The payments are funded in part by a $300,000 allocation from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. 

The eligible facilities include the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, the Intensive Behavior Center in Boulder, the Montana Chemical Dependency Center in Butte, the Montana Mental Health Nursing Care Center in Lewistown, and the Montana Veterans’ Home in Columbia Falls. Two additional veteran homes in Glendive and Butte are privately contracted and not subject to the incentives, according to the state health department.

Currently employed registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, psychiatric technicians, forensic mental health technicians, and direct support professionals at the state psychiatric hospital and the Boulder behavior center will receive a one-time $7,500 retention bonus, the press release said. Those employees will also receive hourly pay raises ranging from $1.75 and $4.00, depending on their position.

State health department director Charlie Brereton described the pay raises and bonuses as part of a campaign to decrease the state’s reliance on a traveling workforce. He added that the details had been set “following recent and successful discussions” with labor union representatives. 

“The reliance on contracted clinical staff, commonly referred to as ‘travelers,’ continues to impact our budget in a way that is not sustainable, and it must be addressed,” Brereton said. “Through a new incentive program, bonuses, and historic pay increases, we aim to continue strengthening operations at our state-run health care facilities by hiring and retaining staff dedicated to providing our valued patients with safe, high-quality care.”

The struggle to retain nurses, certified nurse aides, psychiatric professionals and other direct care workers has intensified since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last state fiscal year, spanning from July 2022 to June 2023, the employee vacancy rate at the state psychiatric hospital in Warm Springs was 42%, on average, with 224 positions empty. Those figures had improved slightly in October and November of last year, according to the most recently available staffing report, with a vacancy rate of about 32%. 

But filling those positions with temporary contract workers costs the state a hefty sum. In a January presentation, state health officials said Montana paid travelers more than $46.5 million to work at the state hospital in the prior fiscal year. That price tag represented most of the total payments for contract health workers at all state facilities, with travelers costing the state between $2.8 and $4.7 million at other locations in the same period. The state’s projected expenses for paying travelers in the current fiscal year exceeded $54.8 million.

The announcement of pay boosts and retention bonuses was endorsed by at least one union representing workers at the state hospital. In a statement to Montana Free Press Wednesday, Montana Federation of Public Employees President Amanda Curtis indicated the health department’s campaign was a welcome step in the right direction.

“For years now we’ve pushed the department to prioritize the retention and recruitment of local, permanent employees — not travelers,” Curtis said. “Today’s announcement marks a start, and all MFPE members at MSH, the patients they care for, and the Deer Lodge Valley are counting on the department to do more.”

The health department has launched a website touting the cash incentives and other benefits associated with working for its state-run facilities. In the Wednesday release, the agency also said it had formed a “recruitment and retention workgroup” to focus on outreach to colleges and universities, online marketing and increasing additional training and apprenticeship options.