Fund the people already creating safer communities.
This page shows the wage assumptions, employer expenses, positions, hours and arithmetic openly — so a practitioner can see how a proposed rate was reached, and a funder can question an assumption without reverse-engineering a model.
Not awarded, not approved, and not a commitment from any named partner or funder. Rates, employment structure and benefits would be finalized through implementation agreements, budget review and applicable employment requirements.
Current source model · the proposal being revised
$15M / 3 years
The structure the current proposal sets out. It is being revised in a separate workstream, and the arithmetic further down this page is part of why.
Practitioner Workforce Fund
Training, Certification & Learning
Volunteer & Emerging-Practitioner Pathways
Community Innovation & Organizational Stabilization
Resilient Infrastructure, Measurement, Communications & Stewardship
Independent Evaluation & Fund Administration
Inside the $10M Practitioner Workforce Fund
What people earn for doing the work, plus the cost of employing them.
Reflective supervision, process consultation, specialist support, peer learning and quality development.
Payroll administration, insurance, workspace, equipment, transportation, communications and the organizational support needed to employ people responsibly.
Working community allocation example
One possible three-year community practice budget.
Where would the people actually be? This is the same question the source model asks by practitioner-year category, pictured instead as places and teams in Fresno.
Elder Justice Fresno
Elder justice practitioners, family support, advocacy, navigation, education, community response, and restorative options where safe and voluntary.
Southwest Fresno
Neighborhood practitioners, community mediation, restorative practice, violence intervention, trusted messengers, local access, and hub staffing.
Community Justice Center
Community mediators, restorative facilitators, CJN PeaceMakers, additional neighborhood hubs, citywide practitioner support, shared practice capacity, and supervision.
School sites
School restorative practitioners, climate staff, peer mediation, reentry conferences, youth leadership, family engagement, staff support, and conflict response.
RCS / victim services
Victim-centered coordination, advocacy, referral pathways, community education, response support, and cross-system connection.
Rural Fresno County
Rural practitioners, community access points, mediation, trusted local connectors, field access and transportation, regional coordination, and hubs where useful.
Approved community practitioners
Modest case-based payment for approved community practitioners doing documented work, so trained people can practice without a full-time post.
Across the system
Hub leads, practice supervisors, mentors, specialist consultation, project leadership, training, quality support, and flexible implementation needs.
Total
$10,000,000
over three years
This example shows how a practitioner-focused investment could translate into real Fresno capacity. Final allocations would require partner agreement, governance, scope, readiness and funding. It is not an award, an approved allocation, a contract, or a commitment by any named organization.
This is a new planning example, not the source proposal’s practitioner-year split. The two have not been reconciled — that is work for the proposal itself, not for this page.
Illustrative hub team · not a required staffing pattern
What a community hub team could look like.
Coordination, relationships, supervision, and local partnership development.
Mediation, restorative processes, mentoring, and more complex matters.
Mediation, preparation, response, outreach, and follow-through.
Approved practitioners taking individual matters, paid per case.
The practical costs that let people take part at all.
Reflective supervision, specialist help, and quality support.
More than one way to take part
Not every trained practitioner needs a full-time post.
A healthy community-practice system can combine full-time and part-time roles, hub and school-site positions, specialists, supervisors, practitioners paid per case, and volunteer-to-paid pathways — so capacity can grow without forcing everyone into the same employment model.
- Hub lead
- A regular paid role.
- Senior practitioner
- A regular or part-time role.
- Community practitioner
- A regular or part-time role.
- Approved community practitioner
- May take part through individual paid cases, without a salaried post.
Community practitioner case payment
Paid for responsible practice, not for a particular result.
Approved community practitioners may receive modest case-based compensation for documented work. A matter pays one of the two amounts below.
Standard matter
$100
When an approved community practitioner accepts and works the matter.
Completed process · total
$150
When a matter advances through the fuller process to an appropriate completed endpoint.
$150 is the total for that matter, not an addition to the $100. A practitioner receives one amount or the other.
A completed endpoint can be
- An agreement is reached
- No agreement is reached after the process
- The process is appropriately concluded
- A participant declines after meaningful preparation
- Another legitimate closing outcome
Completion does not require an agreement.
Payment compensates
- Time
- Preparation
- Response
- Documentation
- Follow-through
- Process completion
Payment never rewards
- Reaching an agreement
- An admission
- A particular participant decision
- A specific punitive outcome
- Any preferred case result
No payment should ever depend on producing an agreement.
Mathematical example only
A blended $1,000,000 pool could support thousands of practitioner case payments, depending on the mix. If it were entirely one kind, it would be about 10,000 standard payments or about 6,666 completed-process payments — it will not be all one kind, and no volume is being committed to.
New planning assumption · working compensation framework
What a practitioner would be paid.
Planning rates for discussion. Not existing employment contracts and not guaranteed wages. Annual equivalents assume 2,080 hours — 40 hours across 52 weeks.
1 year
$72,800 / year base
≈ $94,640 employer cost
3 years
$83,200 / year base
≈ $108,160 employer cost
5 years
$104,000 / year base
≈ $135,200 employer cost
10 years
$135,200 / year base
≈ $175,760 employer cost
15+ years
$166,400 / year base
≈ $216,320 employer cost
Leadership, specialist, consultation or project-direction time
≈ $162.50/hr employer cost
Not assumed to be a full-time position
Years are a guidepost, not a gate
Nobody becomes valuable only after sitting in a job for a set number of years. The 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 / 15+ structure exists to make the scale readable. Placement can also reflect:
- Practice competence
- Training
- Certification
- Scope of responsibility
- Complexity
- Supervision responsibility
- Lived experience
- Cultural knowledge
- Community trust
- Language
- Relationship capital
- Demonstrated field experience
Illustrative employment expense · 30%
An hourly wage is not what it costs to employ someone. A flat 30% is used here to make that concept visible. It is not a benefits guarantee and not an actuarial or tax calculation.
- Employer payroll taxes
- Health / retirement contributions where offered
- Workers compensation
- Unemployment costs
- Paid leave
- Payroll / HR administration
- Employment-related overhead
$35 → $45.50
$40 → $52
$50 → $65
$65 → $84.50
$80 → $104
$125 → $162.50
The new wage floor does not fit the old practitioner-year target.
This is worth saying plainly rather than quietly reconciling. The source proposal targets 120 practitioner-years against an $8.25M compensation envelope. At the proposed $35/hour entry floor, that does not add up.
- $35/hour × 2,080 hours$72,800 base wages per FTE-year
- + 30% illustrative employment expense≈ $94,640 employer cost per FTE-year
- × 120 practitioner-years≈ $11,356,800
That is before the separately allocated $1M supervision and quality allocation and $750K host and field allocation.
The current $10M / 120-practitioner-year model does not fit the $35/hour floor as currently structured.
What the envelope supports at the floor
≈ 87FTE practitioner-years
$8.25M at ≈ $94,640 fully loaded, if everyone were paid at the entry floor. A real mix with $40, $50, $65 and $80 roles would support fewer. A planning illustration, not a new target.
Decisions this opens — for CJC, not for this page
- Increase the workforce capitalization
- Reduce the practitioner-year target
- Change the mix of roles and hours
- Revise other allocations
- Redesign the employment model
This is exactly why the planning numbers are under review.
Worked examples
Position, hours, rate, math, result.
Full-time entry practitioner
40 hrs / week
× $35 / hour
× 52 weeks
$72,800wages
≈ $94,640 employer cost
With the illustrative 30% employment expense, before separately allocated supervision and host support where applicable.
Half-time entry practitioner
20 hrs / week
× $35 / hour
× 52 weeks
$36,400wages
≈ $47,320 employer cost
With the illustrative 30% employment expense, before separately allocated supervision and host support where applicable.
20-hour experienced practitioner
20 hrs / week
× $50 / hour
× 52 weeks
$52,000wages
≈ $67,600 employer cost
With the illustrative 30% employment expense, before separately allocated supervision and host support where applicable.
Pay for all of the work
Pay for the work around the session, not only the session.
A budget that pays only for the meeting quietly asks someone to donate everything that makes the meeting possible.
Mediation, restorative process, intervention, meeting, circle.
Separate conversations, readiness, safety planning, process design.
Notes, agreements, reporting.
Partner calls, scheduling, referrals, handoffs.
Check-ins, commitments, agreement support.
Reflective supervision, quality support, specialist consultation.
Where required by the role.
When part of the paid role.
Current source model · old illustrative distribution
What kinds of work are we trying to resource?
Because the compensation model changes the overall arithmetic, treat these as a description of the work rather than funded positions. No organization has been awarded a number of positions or an amount of money.
Community mediation + restorative facilitation
Schools + school climate
Youth intervention / credible messengers
Reentry / reintegration
Elder justice / victim advocacy / family stabilization
Community organizers / trainers / network support
CJC / CJN PeaceMakers
- Community mediators
- Restorative facilitators
- Preparation
- Conferences
- Circles
- Agreements
- Follow-through
Schools
- School restorative practitioners
- Climate coordinators
- Reentry conferences
- Peer mediation
- Youth leadership
- Staff and family support
Community hubs
- Community mediators
- Credible messengers
- Youth interventionists
- Trusted connectors
- Local office hours
- Neighborhood access
ARC / reentry
- Reintegration
- Accountability
- Family preparation
- Community connection
- Follow-through
EASI / Elder Justice Fresno
- Elder safety
- Education
- Advocacy
- Navigation
- Family stabilization
- Restorative options where safe and voluntary
Training / community capacity
- Academy
- Trainers
- Practitioner development
- Supervision
- Volunteer-to-paid pathways
- Community learning
Local public-service context
People doing difficult community work should not be treated as cheap labor by default.
These professions are not equivalent to community-justice practice and are not being claimed as such. They are here so the scale of the proposed rates can be read against published local pay.
$6,760–$7,097 / month
≈ $81,120–$85,164 / year
$7,451–$9,990 / month
≈ $89,412–$119,880 / year
2026–27 salary range
≈ $62,302–$110,898 / year
≈ $43.97–$59.74 / hour
Published local postings
≈ $54.54–$100.72 / hour
Published local postings
Context only. Work year, education, licensure, overtime, retirement, benefits and job responsibilities differ substantially between these roles. Published local pay context, reviewed September 2026.