CITY
ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE
CITY
HALL,
WEDNESDAY,
MAY 4, 2011
REGULAR
MEETING AGENDA
6:30 P.M.
1. ROLL CALL. Mr. Wisniewski called the meeting to order at 6:30 P.M., with roll call as follows: Mrs. Hammond, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mr. Barletta were present. No members were absent. Others present were Bill Vance, Lynda Yartin, Mayor O’Brien, Brian Sauer, Gavin Blair, Jeff Fix, Trisha Sanders, Lynn Miller, Ed Drobina, Greg Bachman, Chris Schornack, Nate Ellis, and others.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF April 6, 2011, Regular Meeting. Mr. Barletta moved to approve; Mrs. Hammond seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Barletta, Mrs. Hammond, and Mr. Wisniewski voting “Yes.” Motion passed, 3-0.
3. SCHEDULED MATTERS: NONE.
4. HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT.
A. Human Resource Director’s Report. Mrs. Miller stated she had provided a written report to the Committee and she would answer any questions. Mrs. Miller stated she had nothing to add to her report, but would be happy to answer any questions.
(1) Discussion on
Mayor O’Brien inquired if we were going down the road of performance management or performance measurement, and Mrs. Miller stated we are moving toward a performance pay system with respect to all employees and we do have a tool in place that is being utilized. Mayor O’Brien clarified that performance management was when letters are sent throughout the year and that suffices as an appraisal while performance measurement is a set of standards you rate employees against. He questioned if we would use the same tool for all employees. Mrs. Miller stated right now we have one tool in place and she felt that positive feedback throughout the year is wonderful and that could be utilized at the end of the year and added to a performance appraisal tool. Mrs. Miller stated right now in HR circles performance evaluations are a touchy subject because more times than not they work against the organization if an opportunity comes up where you do wish to sever ties. She stated more times than not supervisors are not entirely honest when they give appraisals and they tend to gloss over some things and later on when some behavior surfaces and you do want to address it, you have to go back and look at the performance evaluations that were maybe if not glowing, acceptable. Mr. Vance stated his experience has been that everyone has a job description and if you are meeting your job description you are doing your job and your performance evaluation comes every couple of weeks when you get a paycheck. He stated if you have situations where you get ten years of glowing good news and then for whatever reason something goes haywire in someone’s life and they cannot function as a responsible employee from that point forward, it is hard at times to coordinate change when change is in the best interest of the organization. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt it was the duty of the supervisors to provide accurate feedback to their employees as to what their performance actually is and not just say you got a paycheck so you’re doing good. Mayor O’Brien stated he wasn’t sure his question was answered, were we going to have a numeric scale that a person would be rated on. Mrs. Miller stated she felt the main thing was that the employee feels they meet their performance goals based on their evaluation and that meaningful dialogue takes place. She stated that is the most important part of the evaluation, that on-going communication and dialogue and that there is agreement as to what the expectation is and what the performance is. Mr. Vance stated at this point in time our concentration is on job descriptions themselves because he is not convinced that we have up to date job descriptions that accurately reflect what our employees are supposed to do.
5. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.
A. IT
Proposals Update. Mr. Vance stated three
resumes had been received from potentially qualified candidates that could
provide this community with the IT services that some of our requests would
demand. Mr. Wisniewski inquired if Mr.
Vance had a recommendation and Mr. Vance stated he had the information to pass
on to the Committee. Mr. Wisniewski
inquired if Mr. Vance would recommend we use a company or an individual and put
it in the budget. Mr. Vance stated we do
not have an IT director and it has become quite clear to him that we need
one. Mrs. Hammond inquired if we needed
a full time individual and Mr. Vance stated if we had the resources to obtain a
full time person their efforts would not be wasted. Mr. Vance stated he did feel an organization
of this size needs a full-time IT person.
He stated the proposal presented at the last meeting of this Committee
was lacking in what they would like to see and if this Committee wants to go in
a different direction, that was fine, just let him know how he can accommodate
that. Mr. Wisniewski stated he was not
sure how what was presented could be evaluated as the best there was since
there was only one. He clarified we did
not get proposals from anyone other than the company that we use. Mr. Vance stated this is a company that we
have had an established relationship with for years and we entrusted them to do
the audit in the first place and the results of the audit were not
questioned. Mr. Wisniewski stated it
wasn’t a question of that, it was a question of what is this really going to
cost us and that was not at all clear as to final cost. He stated there were so many things that were
lacking in the proposal as to what would actually be accomplished for the
money, and that was the biggest problem he had with it. He further stated he did not see where a lot
of their recommendations or findings from the audit were being addressed in the
proposal. Mr. Vance stated basically
what we were proposing was just to expand what is already in place at the
police department. He stated we are
already getting those services and we were looking to expand those services for
an affordable price. Mr. Wisniewski
stated, however, if we are expanding something and we are still not solving the
problems in the audit, what exactly would we be solving. Mr. Vance stated as we do not have a full
time IT person to verify that position, staff used the best resources we had
available to us to put forward. He
stated he appreciated
6. CHAIRMAN:
A. Strategic Plan Goals – Update. Mr. Wisniewski stated he had no update this evening.
B. Discussion
regarding merging the Parks and Recreation Board and Tree & Beautification
Commission into one Board. Mr. Drobina stated it seems like we have trouble getting a
quorum for the Tree & Beautification Commission and so far this year we
have missed two meetings due to the lack of a quorum. He stated we have had two resignations in the
last couple of months and it seems like we are always appointing someone to one
Board or the other. He stated his
thought was we should discuss combining the two and just having one Board. Mr. Wisniewski clarified the Tree &
Beautification Commission has five members and we are down to three right
now. He further clarified that we have
received one application and one individual has indicated they will be
submitting an application. Mr. Vance
stated it is his understanding that some of the individuals who have a problem
attending the meetings may potentially resign and this would be an opportunity
to go out and see if we can attract some active members to replace those
individuals. He stated then if we had
the same experience we could discuss the combination of the two bodies. He further stated he did not know if the
Parks and Recreation Board or the Tree & Beautification Commission has
actually discussed such a possibility.
He stated the Parks and Recreation Board is extremely active at this
time and he did not know if they would be willing to assume the additional
responsibilities, although he was sure they would if they were asked to. Mr. Vance stated he would like to give the
Tree & Beautification Commission one more try. Mr. Wisniewski clarified that the meetings of
the Tree & Beautification Commission normally run anywhere from 20 minutes
to one hour each month. Mrs. Hammond
stated this has been a problem for several years and there is currently a
member on the Parks and Recreation Board, Yulanda
Hammond, who has not attended a meeting so far this year and has not notified
staff she would not be able to attend.
Mr. Wisniewski clarified that if a member misses three consecutive
meetings without providing notification, they can be removed from the
Board. Mrs. Hammond stated with four
active members on Parks and three on Tree, that would give us seven members and
we could have a quorum with four members.
She stated the
Mr. Wisniewski moved to remove Yulanda Hammond from the Parks and Recreation Board based her absence without good cause for three consecutive meetings; Mrs. Hammond seconded the motion. Roll call was taken with Mr. Wisniewski, Mrs. Hammond, and Mr. Barletta voting “Yes.” Motion passed, 3-0.
Mr. Wisniewski asked if there were thoughts on combining these two bodies and Mrs. Hammond stated the majority of the trees are in the arboretum which is technically in the park anyway. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would like to get some feedback from the Parks and Recreation Board and the Tree & Beautification Commission to see what their thoughts were about combining the two and moving the Tree & Beautification Commission over to the Parks and Recreation Board and having a Board of seven members. Mrs. Yartin stated she would add this discussion item on the next agenda for each of these meetings.
Mr. Sauer inquired what the path forward was with regard to the IT discussion and Mr. Wisniewski stated he would take that up and he would contact some other firms and get some proposals. Mr. Sauer clarified that at the next meeting Mr. Wisniewski would have some proposals for the Committee. Mayor O’Brien stated his concern was that we define the “what” and not the “how;” that we describe what we need from a provider and not how to do it.
7. OTHER BUSINESS: No other business was brought forward.
8. MOTIONS: There were no motions.
9. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, Mr. Wisniewski moved to adjourn; Mrs. Hammond seconded the motion. Mrs. Hammond, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mr. Barletta voted "Aye." Motion carried, 3-0. The City Administration Committee adjourned at 7:00 P.M, May 4, 2011.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
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