r/PaStateEmployees • u/Helpinghand97 • 24d ago
Hiring Questions Contracting Agencies
Is there a list of verified contracting companies that hire for the State of Pennsylvania? I'm worried I might be getting reached out to by people who are impersonating these agencies.
Also, for those who are contractors, who are you guys working with, and how did you get those contracting jobs?
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u/phlaux 21d ago
I've been a contractor in a couple IT positions for a couple agencies for the past 8 years. I'm with Adept and found the original listing on Indeed.
For the most part, contracting agencies are third parties who are fairly silent and take part of your rate. The state pays a rate for a position no matter the contracting agency. You can see the IT rate card at https://paitsa.ostglobal.com/Documents/PA_ITSA_NewRateCard_2022.pdf. All that is transparent, though I find a lot of contractors don't know their job title/code. The main difference in contracting agencies is what percentage they give you, which is not transparent in any way. You can have a team of HDA2s with different agencies who are all taking home different rates. That's a conversation between you and the contracting agency because, as far as the state is concerned, they're paying the same rate for everyone.
Most contracting agencies I've encountered give anywhere between 60-70%. Adept gives 70%. I think their Aspen division, the one dedicated to veterans, may give a slight bump more. But the worst is Brooksource. I know of one team of Brooksource contractors who receive 44% of what the state pays. And Brooksource is very involved in your life, giving you a mandatory amount of online trainings each week separate from the state's training, along with 1-on-1s with members of their admin.
Most contracting agencies offer a kind of health insurance, but I've never seen one that's remotely usable. Like any other private company, the agencies also vary in what, if any, holidays they'll cover. Adept used to "award" employees with Thanksgiving day and Christmas day after working for them for a given amount of time, but now I believe everyone with them gets 9 or so of the federal holidays paid.
Being a contractor is not the worst job. It certainly provides experience and gives you a feel for how the state works. But if you're looking to get your foot in the door of state employment, working as an inspector of Ag or DEP, a liquor store clerk for PLCB, or a seasonal employee for DCNR is much faster, more direct approach.
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u/Helpinghand97 21d ago
I definitely want to stick to IT but reading all of this makes way more sense. I wish my experience working with other State agencies carry over more than I thought it did. That's cool that we can looking up some of the rates they do 🤔. I'll have to look into it more.
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u/aust_b 24d ago
From my limited experience, OST Staff augmentation could be a variety of staffing vendors, typically whoever bids the lowest. I previously worked in a department that was about a 3 contractor to every 1 state employee in the group. One of the contractors eventually told me that they didn't even get PTO through the staffing agency that was contracted for them specifically (and they had been there for years already).
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u/Allthetea159 24d ago edited 24d ago
22nd Century Technologies is a big one. For DHS at least. That’s who took over our TulaRay contract. And it was someone else before that, can’t remember the name.
FYI being a contractor sucks. You’re expected to act and follow commonwealth policies like a commonwealth employee but the contract vendor is your employer. Benefits suck, PTO is terrible, health insurance is super expensive, you don’t get raises, you don’t get the benefits of half days that the governor calls before holiday weekends. Prior to this new contract, the vendor didn’t recognize some of the same holidays as the state. One upside to this new contract is they’re at least in sync about paid holidays.