Staffing, supply issues lead to backlog for district workers in Lakewood Ranch

During a Lakewood Ranch Community Development District 2 meeting Nov. 16, board member Peter Bokach said some local residents have complained about slow response times from Lakewood Ranch Operations about maintenance and landscaping issues.

“People are used to a certain level of service, and we need to know what we can do to get back to that,” Bokach said.

Like most areas of services, Lakewood Ranch has fallen victim to staffing and supply issues thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lakewood Ranch Inter-District Authority Operations Director Paul Chetlain said his department is getting closer to pre-Covid staffing, but there are still openings available.

“We had a high productivity level and a department that was fully staffed,” he said. “We had folks that had been in place for long enough to get to know their jobs, and they were trusted. You could send them out on a task, and you could reliably count on them to complete their job successfully.”

Chetlain said workers were sent home during the early stages of the pandemic. That caused a series of “stacking” of projects, which Chetlain says his department is still catching up on doing as staffing levels return to normal. 

The same thing applies for vendors that work with Lakewood Ranch. Chetlain said that vendor response time has been slow with staffing and supply issues of their own.

“With outsourcing, it’s changed because for a long time we’ve always had lots of options with vendors and companies available that really wanted to do work in here. Today, you just can’t find anybody and if you do get a commitment it’s an extended period of time before they get to the work. It’s just a different reality that we’re dealing with.”

Lakewood Ranch Inter-District Authority Interim Executive Director Steve Zielinski said the district looks to outsource work as much as it can if a project is something that district staff can’t handle. With staffing issues across the board, the district has become a victim of its own past success.

“We’ve always been too quick to respond,” Zielinski said. “We’ve always had a great track record of attending to the needs of our residents in a relatively short period of time. If somebody doesn’t get a response in this community within 24 hours, they’re up in arms.”

During the meeting, Lakewood Ranch Inter-District Authority Executive Clerk/HR Generalist Marie Thompson said that she and her staff reached out to more than 400 potential workers for job openings, but only received five resumes in response. 

Chetlain said most of the complaints have been in regards to landscaping, general maintenance and cleaning. The five CDDs in Lakewood Ranch have three landscape contractors that operate under 5-year contracts that have all been started in the last three months.

“I think we're probably past the correcting of deficiency stage,” Chetlain said. “The new contractors are aware of all the nuances with all the various parcels and boundaries and specific needs requirements for various areas. I would say overall, it’s coming along very well.”

Another issue that has had Chetlain’s staff scrambling is lighting.

“We’ve got thousands of light fixtures to maintain,” he said. “All of the monuments are lit and we have landscape lighting, pathway lighting, and building lighting. There's a lot in the community.”

Zielinski said that it’s been a very difficult 18 months and asked residents to remain patient while services get back to prior levels.

“What I’ve relayed to staff is at least respond, and if you can’t give a specific answer then we’ll get back to them at a higher level, or extend that level out,” he said. “Tell them it might be 72 hours. It might be the new norm, but it’s something we have to address.”

Bokach agreed.

“We’re no different than when you go to a restaurant where they have empty tables and have people standing in line waiting to get waited on,” Bokach said. “This is the new reality and we need to live with it at least in the immediate future until things start to settle down.”