Submitted Photo The Portal Port of Entry is one of the busier ports along the North Dakota and Canada border, but recruiting staff has been difficult.

PORTAL – A generous pay incentive meant to be a recruitment tool is also hammering away at employee morale at area border ports of entry.

Employees with Customs and Border Patrol say they are troubled by a 21 percent pay increase granted to officers at the Portal port and Williston and Minot airports but not to officers doing the same work at smaller out-ports in the Portal jurisdiction. Those ports include Ambrose, Antler, Fortuna, Noonan, Northgate and Sherwood.

Having heard from a number of employees, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-ND, raised the pay incentive issue with acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan last week during discussion of border-related issues, including recruitment difficulties in the Portal region. She said she asked McAleenan to look into the pay issues as part of his examination of staffing challenges.

“I share the concerns. I don’t think it’s ever fair that you are recruiting new people, and the new people come in and you disadvantage people who have been loyal and true blue and have hung in there with you,” she said.

According to employees, the practice has been to fill permanent job vacancies at the out-ports with experienced staff from Portal. Employees say 14 officers have moved from Portal to the other ports in the last five years, helping create the staffing shortage in Portal.

Also, officers from Portal and the out-ports often work side by side when necessary to fill shifts within the jurisdiction that are outside their main port assignments. Veteran employees working alongside other, often less experienced, employees doing the same work for 21 percent more pay hurts morale, employees said.

“It’s tough to swallow. It’s almost a slap in the face,” one employee said.

“Everyone’s complaint is that there’s clearly a violation of the Equal Pay Act if you are doing the same job,” another employee added.

The smaller ports may offer jobs closer to where an employee lives or may offer better hours, but those advantages don’t outweigh the significant pay difference, employees said. With the salary incentive in Portal, employees will not be interested in taking positions in the smaller ports, they said.

The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it had completed a comprehensive review of challenges along the Northern Border and plans to draft a new strategic plan. Heitkamp’s Strong & Safe Communities Initiative, passed unanimously by the Senate and House, called for the review in its Northern Border Security Review Act.

Heitkamp said by requiring the review and prompting the new strategic plan, the door now is open to be able to address issues like the pay incentive and recruitment challenges.

“If they actually increase the wages to a level that provides opportunity, a lot of people will come. In the meantime, you don’t disadvantage people who are here,” she said.

CBP spokeswoman Kristi Lakefield said the special salary rate, which took effect June 25 through the Office of Personnel Management, “will hopefully be an excellent recruiting tool to assist in filling the remaining vacancies in Portal.”

Dale Symington, local president for the National Treasury Employees Union, Fargo, said the union lobbied for and would have preferred pay adjustments for all western North Dakota border workers due to the higher cost of living. However, the union supports the incentive program, he said.

“Some of the areas that are upset, and potentially rightfully, are areas that are not clearly understaffed. I don’t believe that the special salary rate is designed for those locations,” Symington said. “I understand the employees’ frustration, but I think what the agency or OPM authorized in implementing this special salary rate was specifically for those very hard-to-fill locations that are woefully understaffed.”

Although disappointed in their union’s position, employees said they are encouraged that Heitkamp is raising their concern in Washington.

“When a senator recognizes there may be an issue and (is) willing to address it, I think it is very positive for everyone on the northern border,” one officer said.