A central Illinois non-profit leader is predicting her agency being understaffed after the Joe Biden Administration issued a vaccination mandate on federal workers and contractors of the federal government. 

Alison Rumler-Gomez is the Executive Director of Community Action of Central Illinois and on the WHOW Morning Show Friday told Regional Radio News she is predicting being about 30-percent understaffed come January as her agency is considered a contractor of the federal government. 

Rumler-Gomez says there will be a workforce issue. She wonders what a vaccine mandate will mean for those individuals that are not getting vaccinated out of principle. 

One of the reasons Rumler-Gomez predicts a workforce issue for her agency is because of the self-empowerment component she has tried to generate in the agency and this mandate is counter to that environment of standing for what they believe in.

Rumler-Gomez was surprised to see when the COVID unemployment benefits expired last week they did not see an influx in applications for open positions in their organization nor did they see more folks coming in for workforce services. 

She anticipates the need for those things growing as people realize many of the jobs available will be a lower wage than what they were receiving in unemployment benefits. We'll have more on that later this week on Regional Radio News.