Jessica Lavery starts her mornings, sometimes as early as 6 a.m., deciding if she needs to close one of the offices she manages or shift her staff to another location.
Lavery manages the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Northwest region of Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services division, which has offices across the Willamette Valley and two along the coast. On May 1, she and other agency leaders decided to close the Albany office for the day after each of the four staff members were unavailable. Two called in sick while the others had already been approved for time off, she said.
Decisions like hers are routine for DMV managers grappling with severe staffing shortages caused by outdated and limited positions within the agency, as well as a spike in employee departures following a budget crisis within the agency…