Council Member Aldebol on water ecologist hiring challenges and timelines

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Aldebar.

Thank you, Chair and Speaker Menon and Commissioner for being here today.

So you said you had 23 new positions funded November of 2025.

When were the majority of those positions filled?

You said the positions are filled today, but how long did it take you to actually fill those positions?

Yep, the majority of those positions were filled before this cluster started.

We can get you the exact dates of those over the course of the several months prior to the close.

And you still have six positions that remain to be filled in this particular job title, the water ecologist title?

That's right.

And what have been the challenges in hiring for those titles?

I would say the most important challenge is the fact that these are highly specialized, highly skilled positions.

The requirements are that these folks have to have, for instance, a master's degree or potentially a BA with 24 credits plus related experience.

So these are highly skilled, highly specialized positions.

So it's not just about finding any person for these slots.

We have to find the right person for these slots.

Is it possible that...

folks could be hired in these positions and receive additional training.

To get them certified?

Does the Department of Health provide colleges, universities with

these specific criteria for these jobs.

So of course we do provide training once the staff start to be able to do the cooling tower inspections, but I think you're asking something different.

You're asking about looking to colleges to

to qualify people to be able to apply for these jobs.

And it's such an important point that we need more people going into the sciences to be able to do these jobs.

But as the commissioner said, these are the civil service requirements, either to have a master's degree in very specific areas of the sciences or a BA in those same areas with prior work experience.

So that is the challenge.

I will say we would welcome your help in getting the word out that we are recruiting.

It is a great job.

We have a mission-driven, wonderful team, and we have some more positions to fill.

Yeah, not so easy because I don't know too many water ecologists kind of running around my neighborhood who are looking for this job.

But I think...

I think it requires a discussion about the qualifications and how, you know, is the recruitment for these positions effective enough?

Because just putting something in LinkedIn is not going to get you there, right?

I think the other question that I have, if I may, Chair, what other positions are critical to the management of Legionella?

And are you seeking to expand those job positions?

And are there vacancies in those positions currently?

Yeah, I'll speak to the first, which is a new addition from last year, and then I'll hand it to Deputy Commissioner Dr.

Howard to talk a little bit about the laboratory work.

But the community health workers that we were able to deploy as part of this cluster were, from my perspective, very critical.

We had these community health workers out there within 48 hours on the Upper East Side engaging with residents, with individuals.

I was out there with them doing some of the canvassing and talking to residents.

So that was critical when it comes to managing these clusters.

Let me hand it to Dr.

Howard.

So we have epidemiologists that do the surveillance for Legionnaire's disease as well as other diseases and also do the case investigations.

And then on the laboratory side, we have a wide range of staff that do the actual testing.

testing of the cooling tower samples, which includes the PCR testing and the culture testing, and then the whole genome sequencing and analysis.