Metropolitan Water District faces union warnings over staffing shortages threatening mega-projects

Metropolitan Water District faces union warnings over staffing shortages threatening mega-projectsAFSCME Local 1902 representatives told the MWD board that a shrinking workforce and surging overtime could jeopardize the district's infrastructure and its capacity to manage future capital programs like Pure Water Southern California.

AFSCME Local 1902 claims the district is understaffed by more than 300 positions, representing a true vacancy rate exceeding 20% when accounting for historically unfunded roles.

Union leaders warned that without increased permanent staffing, MWD will be unable to adequately oversee major upcoming infrastructure investments, including the Pure Water Southern California reuse program.

The union highlighted a growing reliance on contractors and temporary labor, arguing it drives up costs and pulls existing staff away from core operations to manage contracts.

MWD human resources staff reported an official point-in-time vacancy rate of 9% for budgeted positions, noting recent 'surge staffing' efforts to bolster the internal recruitment team and reduce hiring times.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) is facing stark warnings from its largest labor union that severe understaffing could threaten the reliability of its water systems and its capacity to execute major capital projects. During a March 10 public hearing on job vacancies and recruitment, representatives from AFSCME Local 1902—which represents more than 70% of MWD's workforce—urged the board of directors to authorize a comprehensive, risk-based staffing study. Union leaders argued that decades of headcount reductions and deferred maintenance have pushed the existing workforce to a breaking point, characterized by heavy overtime and an over-reliance on outside contractors. "If the status quo remains regarding staffing, then we will not be able to meet future needs," said Alan Shanahan, president of AFSCME Local 1902. "Projects like Pure Water, and most certainly others, will not be able to be managed, inspected, overseen, or maintained." While MWD human resources staff reported an official point-in-time vacancy rate of roughly 9% across the district's 1,966 budgeted positions, the union contested this figure. Shanahan asserted that the union is understaffed by more than 300 positions when accounting for historically unfunded roles, equating to a true vacancy rate of over 20%. The union's presentation highlighted a 13% reduction in the operational workforce since 2000, dropping from more than 1,400 AFSCME workers to nearly 1,200 today. This shrinkage has occurred even as infrastructure has aged and regulatory complexity has increased. The reduction has led to growing maintenance backlogs and lean inventory levels for critical replacement parts, according to Amparo Munoz, an MWD employee in the Maintenance Engineering Department. Shanahan also pointed to a steep escalation in the use of temporary labor and professional service contracts, noting that the union has received over 40 contract notices in the past two months alone. He argued that this trend is a false economy, as managing these contracts drains hundreds of hours from existing engineering and operations staff, pulling them away from their core duties. "We spend millions of dollars on contracts to save a few dollars on O&M, but that is not what actually happens," Shanahan told the board. "You can see by the tens of thousands of hours of overtime alone that we are in a crisis." MWD management acknowledged the ongoing challenge of filling roles and outlined steps being taken to accelerate hiring. Brandon Patrick, presenting for MWD human resources, detailed a recent "surge staffing" initiative that added 11 temporary support staff to the district's recruitment function, bringing the team to nearly 20 individuals. Patrick reported that the district filled 208 regular full-time positions in 2025, including 115 external hires. To further reduce hiring times, the district is implementing new eligibility lists—a process recently added to the union's memorandum of understanding—and prioritizing entry- to mid-level recruitments, which have the largest impact on overall vacancy rates. Despite these recruitment efforts, union representatives stressed that long-term staffing decisions must be driven by operational risk rather than budget caps. They formally requested that MWD honor its labor agreement by conducting a joint staffing study to evaluate the true capacity required to protect the system. "Infrastructure does not operate according to budget cycles," Munoz warned the board. "It operates according to physics, maintenance, and human capacity. Systems fail quietly until they don't."