CALIFORNIA—The City of California hosted a meeting of aldermen Wednesday evening, where members discussed the retention and recruitment of city employees.

During the meeting, several municipal utility employers discussed how best to compete with other utility companies to retain their workers.

Several public services in the city are currently short several employees.

To combat this, the city’s utilities have considered a few possible solutions, including increasing benefits, allowing employees to use medical marijuana and reducing requirements for some positions.

But by far the most important issue raised was that of salaries.

“When you talk about retention, that’s dollars an hour. I mean, that’s what it’s going to take,” said a utility worker who worked for the city.

Some aldermen rejected this request.

Ward 1 Alderman Steve Hickman asked how the city would generate the revenue.

“We can’t continue to give more without receiving revenue. I see we’ll be in real trouble if we do that.”

Another city utility worker noted the urgency of hiring more workers before winter because they need more snow plow operators.

The California Board of Aldermen plans to respond to the department’s request at its first meeting in November.