Guilford County government is currently dealing with hundreds of vacant positions across its departments, and the staff shortage is affecting services from law enforcement to emergency medical response to social services.
While county leaders have taken steps in recent years to raise pay, improve benefits and address work conditions, the new fiscal year of 2025-2026 begins with a workforce that remains far below full strength in many critical areas.
Next month Guilford County will try something new to help: In early September, the county will hold two sweeping job fairs – one in-person and one online – to hopefully draw the needed employees to county jobs.
The Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Services Department, and the Division of Social Services from Guilford County are among the hardest hit departments – but vacancies are doing damage throughout county government. Positions ranging from detention officers to paramedics to child protective services caseworkers have proven especially difficult to fill – and many of those jobs have remained open for months and months.
The Sheriff’s Office faces one of the most persistent shortages. Operations at the Greensboro and High Point jails require a large number of detention officers to maintain safety and keep the county in compliance with state standards. Vacancy rates in those jobs have grown as competition from nearby counties and cities has increased – and as the demands of the job have led many officers to leave that work for other careers. Even with pay increases approved by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners in recent years, the office has struggled to hire enough staff to keep pace with turnover.
The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office recently overshot its personnel budget by an astonishing $3.9 million and that overage was due to a lack of staff and the soaring amount of overtime costs that’s been needed to fill in those gaps.
Emergency Services also faces persistent staffing shortages. Paramedics and EMTs have been working under increasingly heavy loads, and county leaders acknowledge that, without more responders, the county can’t consistently meet response-time goals for its most urgent medical calls. The county is adding 24 new EMS positions and financing additional ambulances; however, the department has been carrying a significant number of vacancies, which undercuts the effort of adding positions. The growth of Guilford County’s population – now about 550,000 – as well as the rising number of calls for service have made recruitment and retention more important than ever.
Social Services is also under strain. Child Protective Services caseloads have been higher than state standards, and, while new positions have been added to bring the average load closer to the target, the ability to hire and retain qualified caseworkers has remained a major challenge. Guilford County has more than 700 children in foster care, and the number is projected to do nothing but increase. Caseworkers often quit because of the stress of the job, the relatively low pay compared to the workload and the constant pressure to meet court deadlines. Vacancies mean the remaining workers carry heavier loads, which creates a cycle that can lead to further departures.
The same pattern shows itself in public health and nutrition programs. The county added eight positions to handle the higher number of applications following Medicaid expansion; however, filling those jobs hasn’t been easy. Nurses, nutritionists, and eligibility workers are in short supply statewide, and Guilford County competes with private employers as well as other governments.
Schools are another area where staffing shortages overlap with county responsibility: Guilford County government funds 66 school nurse positions, but maintaining those jobs has meant constant recruiting in the highly competitive healthcare environment.
The county has also struggled to fill positions in its inspections department, parks, planning, and even in back-office functions like IT and finance.
Information technology, in particular, requires specialized skills that are in high demand in both the public and private sectors.
Vacancies in finance and tax administration pose a risk to the county’s pocketbook since they directly affect the county’s ability to collect revenue and manage the $800 million-plus budget.
In 2022, the county adopted a new pay plan that set salaries at the 50th percentile of the market – with detention and deputy positions pushed to an even higher percentile – but, as time has passed, market wages have continued to rise.
The county has budgeted a three percent merit pool for March 2026 and set aside additional funds to help address efforts filling areas with the highest vacancy rates. Still, pay is only one part of the equation. Officials cite the stressful nature of the work in areas like child welfare, detention, and emergency response as a key factor driving turnover.
Vacancies carry direct financial costs to local governments like Guilford County. When positions remain open, departments often rely on overtime to cover shifts, leading to higher expenses and more strain on existing employees. In detention, for example, mandatory overtime has become commonplace, and staff have reported fatigue and burnout. As noted earlier, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office has been spending a fortune on overtime in recent years.
County residents feel the effects of empty county positions in different ways. Slower response times for ambulances, longer waits for inspections, backlogs in court-related social services, and waiting forever in the Maple Street building that houses DSS in Greensboro can in many cases be traced back to vacant positions.
In an attempt to help address some of these issues, Guilford County Human Resources is trying something new. The county recently announced two large upcoming “Grow with Guilford Career Expos” aimed at connecting job seekers with openings, especially in departments that are struggling hard to hire staff.
The in-person event is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1203 Maple Street in Greensboro. A second virtual expo will be held on Friday, Sept. 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Microsoft Teams. Interested applicants must register online at GuilfordCountyNC.gov/CareerExpo.
The expos will feature one-on-one networking, breakout sessions tailored to specific fields and opportunities to talk directly with department representatives. Organizers are encouraging attendees to bring an updated resume to the in-person session. County officials say they’re especially looking to fill jobs in Social Services, Public Health, Security, Juvenile Detention, Animal Services, Emergency Services, the Tax Department, the Sheriff’s Office, and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Department, which is really just a renamed version of the county’s MWBE Department.
Local professionals, recent graduates, and students are all being invited to consider county careers.
The county’s latest budget funds more positions than ever – over 3,000.
For residents who can’t make it to either event, county officials note that job openings are listed year-round at GuilfordCountyNC.gov/Careers.
Why would anyone want to work for the county or city? Maybe both need to review the overall weak leadership that continues to show up in numerous departments. Most residents are familiar with the deal on how both ” operate” their promotions and hiring practices.
Don’t fill em,don’t need em. County is pretty much insolvent
Here’s an idea. Trim the plethora of overpaid “managers” and raise the pay for the people out there doing the real work. How many “assistant” or “deputy assistant” managers do you need ?
It’s the same with schools. When I was in school last at Grimsley we had a principal and an assistant principle who was a history teacher and football coach as well. The guidance vouncelor was also a teacher. There were a couple of secretaries in the office doing paperwork and we managed to get a pretty decent education.
School systems that pay the superintendent more that what the president makes is indicative of a failure for the proper allocation of resources.
City and county government have important functions such as making sure the water is safe to drink, the streets are maintained, the police are well trained and equipped and paid on a par with other departments.
We don’t “need” a lot of “non-profits” with their hands out taking resources that are needed for the really important things.
With the last tax increase of 30% and another big one on the horizon in 2026, it would behoove the “City Fathers” to trim the fat and allocate resources to those functions that help all our citizens.
Amen brother Dan, keep on preaching, well said!!!
My son-in-law has family of four. They use 4-5 units of water per month. The latest monthly tally is $67. By far the highest they have ever seem. All that padding adds up; it’s like fees squared. When I was a child in the 50s, I remember seeing our QUARTERLY water bill………..$18 for a family of five. Our local & Federal govt is responsible for this.
Our govt (in)action. By design, they want us all dependent on Big Brother.
My water bill is more than my electric bill in High Point. People need to look at all the fees that is associated with the bill. I am a single person and I do not use that much Waters and this is ridiculous.
No s**t. Name something our govt does well.
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If The Mafia gained monopoly control of a commodity vital for life and then charged obscene amounts for it, there would be uproar and outrage.
But they wouldn’t. Mafioso have more decency.
Government is more immoral, corrupt, and rapacious than The Mafia.
I am a single man who repeatedly received water bills or 4 units. No lawn watering, car washing. washing machine, just the basic kitchen sink, bathroom sink and show (with water saver) and toilet. When I called to complain about not possibly being able to use all that water I was told, “Mr. Glenn, every time you get a bill for four units you call and complain.” And then she must’ve become frustrated and transferred me to a woman who itemized my daily water usage and posted it online for me benefit. Ever since that day, I never received a water bill for more than one unit.
But whatever you do, they will NEVER waive the water fee. Their attitude is pay it or they’ll turn it off. Must be nice to have the upper hand despite being totally in the wrong.
Water fee? It’s called “padding the invoice”. Just like Duke & Piedmont nat gas (Duke). The water bills are a primer for how to apply “fees”.
You go to a hotel, say “resort fee”.
Sounds like it’s a perfect time to drain the swamp by eliminating positions and non-mandated services.
Many Positions in Greensboro and Guilford County are held by DEI hires who are not qualified to do their jobs and have no idea how to plan for the actual service needs required to run the city/county. They do not plan ahead for these serious needs of the city/county, but rather hand out to numerous non-profits and to a system that heavily supports government dependents that continue to grow in every department. Of course funds are stretched and not available when going to all these all these causes that do not support all services required by the citizens…especially the ones who pay heavily for them. It is truly a shame Greensboro has become a city of non-qualified leaders plain and simple who have no idea what is required to actually run the service needs that are absolutely basic.
Can you do a story on Avery Crump, the District Attorney. The police department often talks about arrest statistics but we never hear from the person that actually charges and jails criminals.
Until the County addresses the real issues that keep people from applying or staying in jobs, it will never have enough employees. They need to start with the problems they created during the summer of 2019, then continue through the bad decisions made during 2020 and beyond.
It’s not always about pay and benefits, so when you see one department having an especially bad hiring or retention record, perhaps you should be looking at the head of the department. Too bad he’s an elected official that we’re stuck with because of voters.
Emergency Services personnel generally will only allow themselves to get “burned” one time. They don’t return for a second round; they tend to go elsewhere and do something where they have control over their own lives. They also have great influence over their kids’ career choices. Events from 2019-now involving ES workers have especially affected this group, as it has teachers and medical personnel. Change their treatment and you’ll change the staffing.
You could hire ten thousand more of the same type as you have now, being managed by the same group of DEI hires and get the same results. Poor ones.