DWP fears a jolt from retirements

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whose aging electrical system left thousands of residents in the dark during last month’s heat wave, is bracing for yet another looming crisis: an exodus of older skilled workers.

Half of the DWP’s 8,100 employees will be eligible to retire within a decade, many of them veteran employees in critical frontline jobs that require years of training.

Efforts to replace the departing baby boomers and to fill other vacancies, the agency’s own overseers acknowledge, are proceeding at a glacial pace.

And that troubles the DWP’s commissioners, who predict that the nation’s largest municipal utility will be unprepared once again next summer to manage the type of electricity demands that left 75,000 Los Angeles residents without power last month.

“We have to bring in an entire new generation of DWP workers. We’re nowhere near the pace we need . . . to staff up,” said H. David Nahai, president of the DWP board. “We’ve got to get these people into the pipeline.”

DWP administrators say that 10% to 20% of employees retire in the year in which they are eligible to receive full pension benefits. Higher percentages of workers in critical positions -- such as electrical mechanics and load dispatchers -- retire as soon as they qualify for their entire benefits package, DWP officials say.

The departures are expected to accelerate in a department in which the average worker is age 50.”When you get to be 50, you get pretty beat up,” said Brian D’Arcy, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, which represents most DWP workers. “People retire because they’ve had enough.”

Efforts to replace retirees and to fill vacancies created by attrition or promotions have been slowed by a number of factors, including the city’s Civil Service rules, lengthy training programs with high dropout rates and strained relations between management and labor. Competition with other utilities for qualified job applicants and the department’s own downsizing of more than 3,000 jobs a decade ago have also hampered growth.

The DWP board approved 768 new positions this year, including 558 jobs considered to be critical to its operations. But the utility’s managers acknowledged this week that it will take at least two years, and perhaps as long as four, to fill all of the most essential positions.

The DWP board received its latest hiring update Tuesday, and commissioners were not pleased with the news: After accounting for new hires, retirements and attrition in August, the department added 33 new employees, 14 of them in critical jobs. So far this month, 16 employees have been added but none in critical operations.

“I’m alarmed. It’s a crisis,” said Nick Patsaouras, a member of the DWP board who heads a special committee looking into the retirement problems. “I say, not facetiously, that I don’t want to turn off the lights.”

DWP officials believe that part of the solution may rest with fledgling recruitment programs, including one that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will unveil today at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

The L.A. Infrastructure Academy, launched in part with $1.5 million from the DWP, will funnel high school juniors and seniors from South Los Angeles and other low-income areas of the city into careers at the DWP, the Southern California Gas Co., the Metropolitan Water District and other agencies.

The academy will combine classes and hands-on learning in construction, electrical repair and other technical fields with paid internships and mentoring. Students will attend after school and during summers.

The DWP has other recruitment programs on the drawing board, including one in conjunction with the electricians union that would train potential applicants and expose them to jobs within the department, allowing them to eventually move into entry-level positions that earn as much as $31 an hour.

But the arrival of those workers will come too late for what many anticipate will be another sweltering summer next year. And that, combined with rising demands and an aging electrical system, could mean that the DWP once again will have to hire outside crews to bolster its own workers -- a contentious issue between management and labor.

Frustration over the slow pace of hiring was evident at Tuesday’s meeting. A discussion of hiring turned into a round of finger-pointing among DWP management, the electricians union and city officials. No one seemed to be able to articulate the causes of the department’s inability to replenish its workforce, angering board members.

“We have to do everything in our power to accelerate the hiring,” Nahai told the staff, adding that the agency must justify a proposed rate increase that is expected next year. “Whatever the roadblocks, we have to remove them. None of this will be acceptable next summer.”

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duke.helfand@latimes.com