City of Englewood, Colorado Budget Advisory Committee, 25 Jan 2022

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From YouTube: Budget Advisory Committee Meeting - 25 Jan 2022

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Agenda HTML: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/129796?handle=EAE0C85F12684A3EB8D31A97A7BB2ACC
Agenda PDF: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/129795?handle=32E15E22156541C7B05F5263A2FFEE34
Minutes PDF: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/130452?handle=02DC2F66758F4E86B2DCCAB519C4E8EE

1. Call to Order

2. Approval of Minutes

a. Motion to Approve the Budget Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - December 21, 2021

3. New Business

a. Budget Advisory Committee Member Appointment Effective February 1, 2022 - Minkyu Jeon, Vice Chair James Horan, Regular Peter Eckel, Alternate

b. Department Presentations based on the Englewood Community Outcomes - Governance, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Neighborhoods, Safety, Sustainability and Transportation Governance Presentation (Part I...

c. BAC Members discuss recommended changes to the New Department Presentation Format (if any) - All Members

d. Discuss changing the BAC Meeting Day and/or Time - All Members

e. Follow-up response from City Clerk's Office regarding Records Management (Informational Only)

f. Upcoming Englewood Community Outcomes Presentations Schedule (Informational Only): Feb 22 - Sustainability - Parks, Recreation, Library and Golf Department Mar 22 - Local Economy and Neighborhoods - C...

4. Member's Choice

5. Adjournment

Agenda HTML: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/129796?handle=EAE0C85F12684A3EB8D31A97A7BB2ACC
Agenda PDF: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/129795?handle=32E15E22156541C7B05F5263A2FFEE34
Minutes PDF: https://englewoodgov.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/130452?handle=02DC2F66758F4E86B2DCCAB519C4E8EE

A

Okay, it is 5 17., go ahead and call the junior 25th budget advisory committee meeting to order tonight we are meeting in a hybrid fashion. Some of us are in person. Some of us are joining online. So thank you for making time um and I will start with mini q. John present.

B

Suzanne dirksen.

C

Jennifer nolan.

B

D

Lowe sean lewis heather drew school christine hart kevin ingles tim.

E

D

James haran.

A

Thank you um we'll then move on to approve the minutes from the last meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minute.

F

Sorry, just for the record, I'm still not voting until february 1st. So that's why I'm sitting here and not helping yeah you're totally.

A

Fine great um and then we will move on to the first business of this evening, which is um the appointment of it's kind of funny to say appointment of myself for vice chair, effective february 1., um and then james will become a regular member and then peter echol will be the alternate member.

C

And thank you just to clarify you are the vice chair. I I just put your initial your information on as to introduce the topic. So sorry, oh.

A

C

Currently, vice chair.

A

Okay um and then tonight we will be hearing from the governors again as part two of two as it continues from last meeting. So thank you for uh joining us tonight. uh Before we give the floor to them. Is there any questions from the members that you wanted to ask specifically before I have no.

B

Questions no questions.

A

All right, then, we give the floor to you.

C

All right did you want to start us off.

E

Sure so I think most of us were here last time, and so this is actually governance number two. um So basically it's the same outcome area we dealt with last time. This is a really quick refresher governance is our seventh outcome area? The way I look at it is that it's the foundation of everything else that we do um staff about a year and a half ago we spent extensive time doing focus groups.

E

We had, I think over 50 people randomly participate, and then we also did two employee satisfaction, surveys and so really at the end of the week, and then we did a similar exercise with the leadership team, so that data really led to the development of what we call the blueprint for organizational success.

E

That then became the governance section of our strategic plan, so it has 11 goals about a year and a half ago there were also five task forces that basically did a lot of the ground work that helped us kind of build out some of the structures. uh One example was a task force on employee recognition that led to some great recommendations that also ended up as part of this, um and so we do have. I think I look today and I think of the 50 or so 51 projects that we had for 2021.

E

We finished about half of them and so we'll think about which ones, you know are more ongoing in nature, which ones we could move, and so we think we've made a lot of progress in this area, and so a lot of the departments that fit into this area are more internal and nature.

E

And so last time I believe you heard from it the city, attorney's office, city, clerk and city manager, and then this week, you'll hear from it and hr.

G

E

Sorry long day.

G

Members and council members- I just want to introduce to you the entire finance team, the divisional leaders, because they are the awesome heroes behind the scene to make things happen. So I want to start with kevin angle. Hopefully you can see him.

G

And christine christine hart accounting supervisor, heather driscoll.

G

Overseeing revenue, tax audit and licensing uh trudy, our newest member, I'm glad that she chose to join the city and jenny nolan.

G

Okay, all right.

C

So the next couple of slides we're going to briefly go over our various divisions, and so the budget administration division is responsible for delivering a draft proposed budget by working with the city department's leadership, and we present this draft budget to city council for their consideration in august, and a proposed budget is actually printed by september for the citizens to review and provide a public hearing on.

C

So that's our main focus for budget administration.

H

For the accounting division we see listed, there are a number of items that we do periodically. Some are annual. Some are monthly.

H

I won't list them all, but one of our main goals is always to help ensure the responsible stewardship of public resources. So we do that through a series of controls, systems and policies.

I

Sure so for revenue, tax, audit and licensing, our name kind of is self-explanatory, but for the licensing it includes the sales and use tax licensing, which is title four, as well as most of the title five licenses, including my favorites, like the adult entertainment establishment and the uh arbor's licenses. So we administer those as well on an annual basis.

D

And then for the procurement side, they are responsible, we're responsible for enforcing the city's procurement policy and.

B

Then ensuring the.

D

Purchase orders and solicitations are completed for those purchases in a timely fashion.

G

This is our organization chart. We have four divisions, you can see the yellow's budget, the blue parts, finance accounting. The green is for licensing revenue and tax audit. The orange is the procurement. uh Currently we still have. We are not fully staffed, yet we're still hiring the tax auditor. This position has been vacant for for a year.

G

um We are in the process of hiring the budget financial analyst, which is danny's backup and one more accountant for cabins group, because the finance county is a very labor intensive, but we try to automate the process as much as possible.

G

This is just a few 2021 accomplishments. If you are interested just read through the details, will not spend too much time, and this is selected 2022 project. I want uh each division leader to mention a couple. This will be very helpful for our conversation to see how the back and help us to position ourselves for future success.

G

H

So from the finance and accounting piece or finance piece, we're required to have an annual audit, so that's an important part of our year.

H

You can also see here that there are a lot of large financing pieces coming up so they're going to be a lot of big projects going on we'll be working closely with those departments to ensure that we can provide timely and accurate information for those.

H

Christine you want to do the accounting.

D

um Sure utility billing will be going live with a new system in sometime in 2022 and so we'll be supporting that from the finance and revenue side of things and then working to revise our travel and reimbursement policy, which is long overdue and as far as procurement goes we'll be. Looking at the current procurement policy and p card policies to review and revise those as necessary.

I

My group is going to work with the city attorney's office in updating the title four with some code revisions to make it clearer for everybody's understanding this year.

C

And again, the main focus of the budget division is is to provide a balanced 2023 operating a capital budget on the third quarter or by september. 15Th is required by the charter.

C

I just wanted to mention: the finance department did did understand its 2021 budget appropriation by about 290 000.

C

This is due. This reduction is important to several positions that were were vacant during 2021.

C

they're listed there for you, as well as we were paid our financial advisory services for the issuance of the 2021 stormwater bond issuance out of those bond proceeds.

C

So typically, we can pay those financial advisory services out of our general fund budget, but because of this issuance, when you do have a bond issuance, those are usually netted from the proceeds.

C

Also in 2022 finance does not have any specific capital projects that we're going to be implementing spending money on. However, we will be supporting city departments which are financial monitoring and reporting of capital project spending.

G

Yeah I want to take some time to talk about the finance department organizational chart. The current.

F

G

And the structure in the future, you can see the current structure. If you remember the council meeting, I mentioned the finance team should not be in the back office. It should be the front office. So you can see this is actually an organizational chart from association international cpas. I'm so glad my patients actually align with the industry standard.

G

The current strategy, traditional finance structure, is we spend a lot of time focused on transactional procedure reporting, but very little effort on analytical insightful, but in the future the model should be. You need to put your top performers up from at the front office. The reason for the new model is destruction, disruptions in the world, think about technology and destruction.

G

Think about a covalent destruction. When you have this new model, um you have the organizational divisional leader to help the stakeholders to move to quickly. Then you can add added value to the organization.

G

So that's the reason for the new model. But how can we transition from this old model to the new model? How what can we do to handle the transactional activities? There are three different ways through automation. We have an enterprise uh resource planning system called tyler new world. We really need to maximize that system and also you may notice. If you read our annual report, which will be issued pretty soon, we have a lot online portals.

G

We really want to leverage all those new systems, so we can automate the process to create a more bandwidth for those divisional leaders. The second is outsource. We want to outsource repetitive or one-time projects to other professionals, but I just quickly learned it's it's very expensive to outsource to other accounting firms. Now, even I reach out to three accounting firm. Actually, even one does not did not respond to our proposal that had never happened before um then. The third one is foundational staff.

G

We want to hire foundational staff, like staff, accountant senior accountant to handle the transaction type of work, so we can free this divisional leader to provide added value to the internal customers.

A

What is your ideal timeline to get this future state in order.

G

Excellent excellent question: it's not what I want to do. This needs to be an organization-wide effort. I will tell you this is my. This is the future of the finance department. It's not just for city, it's for all the organization, but we did a human audit to see what's the perception of a finance department within the city. Now we can see this is my future. There's a current state how long the journey will take. Thank you for asking this question I'll answer your question in the next slide.

G

Yeah, this is the evolution of finance department for perceived role, uh most of people, think of accountants being counters. You are roadblock, you ask too many questions. You approach me, you slow down the decision making process. That's one comment: support staff you're, my scorekeeper just tell me: the reports account what are the numbers? What's the status by budget with no analytical review or very little?

G

Third, some people see accountants, a subject matter expert like arka funding. What's the new rule, what should we handle that? Just you are the expert. The third, the fourth level thought leader, a thought leader is original thinker, a good listener. They create different solutions. They are very creative, the next one financial advisor. They have an expertise, experience in the finance area. They can provide inside the impact influence decision, the business of partner. My definition is not. If you're, you have a title called I'm a business partner or you call me hey.

G

We are all team member and you're a team member. My definition, business partner is, does finance have a voice at the table. If we have a table, do you treat the finance department as a scorekeeper or a player? Can we play in the same sandbox?

G

This is my definition, so I did a very quick human audit to see. What's the perception of auditing in the city and my the result is bottom, three you're a roadblock. You ask too many questions. Why don't you just open this account for me? Why do you ask so many questions, support staff? Just do what I tell you to do.

G

If you have a chance to read the 2022 projects, if you can see the timeline, you can see all the timelines are competing with each other, so so a lot of times the staff just see the finance staff as the four the subject matter expert, because, like think about audit the tax audit, what's the title for what a title three was the current process? What's the code?

G

What's a charter, they have to refer to the finance team to give them an answer, but we are not clear near to be a thought leader to the internal stakeholder, financial advisor or business partner, there's, probably one or two departments. I can see them see us as a financial advisor, but we have a far away to go. It's a journey. It depends upon how mature the leaders work together. I have to say I'm very immature too.

G

I just joined the city a year ago, so we really need some of the leaders directors that have been with city for only a few months. So how can we create this kind of environment? Do you we need to ask ourselves in order to move the finance team from the older model to the 21st century model? We need to ask ourselves: we need to grow together.

G

First. What kind of role do you want to finance to play? We'll be very happy to be a subject matter expert, but or do you want empower finance team to challenge conventional wisdom or no? We have done this this way, we'll always do this way. I have never seen this happen, so we need to have an understanding from all the leaders from the organization before before we can move from an old model to the new model. On the other hand, what is the responsibility of finance team?

G

How can we up skill so we can really assume to become a business partner, financial advisor and thought leader, um because whenever we have quite a few professionals have specific certification like cpa, certified fraud, examiner certified professional procurement professional.

G

Whenever we take a class, I know in the 21st century, every financial professional need to have technical skills, digital skill, people, skills, leadership, skills and digital. So I told my team member, it doesn't matter if you work from the city or other places you need to know. This is what industry requires you for your future, never settle at a status quo. So thank you for asking this question. This is a journey. It's not just unique to the city. I feel a lot of time.

G

uh The internal customers love the finance team to be support staff. If you can support them, usually you can build very good rapport, but how do we move our mindset from the bottom three to the top three? It's not. What we can do is the organization need to talk about. Do you want finance which role you want finance to to assume yeah? Thank you next one.

G

The challenge we face, I want each divisional leader to tell you their pinpoint.

I

So mine is hiring and retaining employees. Obviously everybody's heard of the great resignation the city, including subject to that. Luckily, we've been on a streak recently of finding some great employees and holding on to them, so hopefully for those three vacant positions. We have we'll keep that streak going.

C

Another opportunity we have in 2022 is cross-training and providing back-up supportive positions, especially those that have one person in a role and this this one is near and dear to my heart, because I'm a person of one- I don't have anybody to back me up if I'm on vacation or by out of the office for an extended period of time. So we have in the 2022 budget a position for a budget financial analyst who will assume that backup and support role.

H

Another challenge that we're seeing this year, particularly, is the ability to maintain our day-to-day operations and also support the large number of projects that other departments have, because at some point they all need finances. Support for those projects.

D

um We've had historic levels of grants, which is fantastic, but monitoring, reporting, keeping track of handling the single audit, for those is an additional challenge that we're facing um this year and in the coming few years.

J

Jackie one quick question on the the previous slide on the bullet number. Three, I would tie you know. Obviously, there's there's an impact there to our tie into the hire and retain employees. You know you don't have enough staff, it's hard to kind of keep up and maintain those responsibilities, but I I'm assuming there's probably other layers there. That is, you know, um causing the ability to keep up those, I'm sure, automation and some things like you mentioned earlier, but is there any other layers there or anything that that would be noteworthy to the back.

G

Excellent observation: um that's exactly what, when we talk about how bacc can help us hiring more people is just one part of the solution.

H

G

The better question is: how can we work as a team to determine what projects we're going to take on uh what's the estimated timeline, so we do not have competing deadlines.

G

It is a communication, like I said, do you treat a finance department as a staff, support staff or your business or partner or advisor your mentality in a mindset, will determine um different competing deadlines or reasonable deadlines. So thank you for asking this question. That's why, uh when asking for how to solve this problem, I did not add more staff more resources, because, if that's our mentality, it doesn't matter how many staff we have we're still in the same position.

J

G

Thanks, thank you. This is what that can help us. I forgot to tell you when I created the organizational chart. I want to elevate my staff to be the divisional leader, because this isn't my philosophy. I want to use the strength of my staff. I feel that's great for morel, can you imagine you use each person's strength in their best capacity? I feel as a leader, it's my job, to to remove the roadblock for us, so they can run and their ankles will not twist.

G

So I feel that's my goal, but we also need to back help us, so we you can help us to remove the roadblock, so we can run without any any concerns. So this is the first thing we need from back.

H

So as you've seen in a couple of the other slides, um the amount of financing and federal funding that we're going to be receiving or have received and are going to be receiving over the next couple of years is really unprecedented for the city. um So that's going to put a little more emphasis on the budget process. So I think that is an opportunity for the back to to help.

C

And in addition to that, as departments begin outlining their 2023 budget, we would appreciate bach's support and in providing their citizens perspective, as well as an objective perspective when reviewing and assessing the reasonableness of those requests.

G

Yeah, the third one we needed back to help us to prioritize operational and capital project requests and based on cost benefit analysis. We all have a strategic plan, but I believe it's a bach's responsibility to ask the question: how much will it cost us to implement a strategic plan? Is the cost benefit worthy? Is it too expensive or we can better utilize the expanded, the the resources and also we need to ask the question: what's the consequence of not implementing some of the strategies, so I just.

G

We just need to ask better questions for the future planning the next one. When your time permit, we encourage you to attend and also your insight on the 2023 budget. We have the calendar draft ready for a council meeting and also internally, we have a budget review committee. This is a creation from city manager's office with the staff to ask each department budget related question.

G

Would you submit a list of questions to um assistant city manager, todd attend, sorry, yeah everybody does it don't worry how he can help us to define the role and responsibility and budget review committee and what's the baseline question, so we can be prepared. um I know I remember suzanne mentioned some of you might be interested in attending some of the uh the meeting tentatively scheduled in july.

G

Once we finalize the budget, calendar you're welcome to be part of the voice.

G

Any questions for finance deal.

A

Not for me, I thought that was great.

I

B

You well, I guess my only question point of clarification, so your objective is not to increase your number of staff, but that said, it's still important to attain a new, an additional tax auditor and somebody to support the journey.

G

Correct and there's yeah there's an accountant, we're thinking about rent, because all those positions are self-funded think about one sales auditor: how much money we can bring in. When we have analysts, we can adjust our rate structure and also with uh pro with the staff accountants, with all the federal funding received. Those positions are basically pretty self-paid.

I

And with that we do have the auditor built into the budget, it's been there for the last couple years. We just haven't been able to fill it, and so but prime example, our one auditor has brought in close to a million dollars. So if we can get another.

K

L

I

At that rate, obviously yeah, it definitely is beneficial.

B

Wow, that's impressive. Yes, she does an excellent job.

A

How long has that spot been vacant.

I

uh We had somebody in it for six weeks from middle of january until middle of march last year, and then it's been vacant the rest of year, we've posted it multiple times and unfortunately the candidates we have when we interview them either they've taken other positions or we get to them too late.

I

So we're actually hosting the colorado tax audit coalition meeting here next friday, so we're hoping um by showing off the city that maybe we'll get a candidate um via that. So we're reposting it this upcoming monday and so we're hoping to fill that sooner than later,.

B

So was it: last month we were talking about some risk that the city is facing. Is that many of the positions not.

J

B

In finance, but they're, not at fair market value, is that right. Do you find that might be the case with this one or no.

I

uh Honestly, the reason why I lost my auditor after six weeks is she got a job offer for thirty thousand dollars more than what I hired her at, and um so that was the situation with that and the person before her left to go to the irs, because it had more growth potential over time.

F

I think suzanne we were told I'm looking at my notes here. That inglewood is at about 25 of midpoint was how it was characterized and that was compared to longmont. For instance, it's at 105.

M

Well- and I should mention that that was a guess to me- I know longmont's goal. I think it's yeah between 101.

K

M

And mark midpoint market midway, we just did the analysis and I'm sure sean will get into this um in his presentation, but we're a little bit better than the 25. We have.

L

M

Many people more than you know, ten percent below so okay.

C

So sean, are you ready.

K

I am, I just wanted to wait until I was called upon so.

C

I can't see you on the screen, so I'm not sure.

K

I'll go no.

C

I'll move the slides forward.

K

All right, so I want to uh thank everybody. I don't have my whole team here, but I do want to recognize the other members of the hr staff. So, in addition to myself sean weiske, the director, I have rhonda tucker dickerson, who is my senior hr vp, who focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion, alexa, han dunn who's, also a senior hr vp who focuses on classification and compensation.

K

We just hired her last week, we're very excited uh katie fowler uh hrbp, who is responsible for the city's recruiting and gene bordewick, who is the department assistant for human resources.

G

Michelle sorry, what does bp stand for.

K

uh Business partner.

C

Thank you. What.

K

About that so hr business partner is the hrbp so department overview. We have multiple divisions, um as I just alluded to. We have recruitment classification and compensation, diversity, equity and inclusion, training and development benefits and retirement, and then business partnerships and I'm going to go over each one of those so recruitment.

K

uh It is your uh what you would think recruitment is we coordinate with departments, we post those positions, uh we source talent um from the market, and we assist with developing recruitment plans in identifying talent pipelines, uh different colleges, universities that may be conducive to having that public service mindset focusing on those areas collect applications screen for the minimum qualifications, help with succession planning and identifying strong internal candidates overall, recruiting is really the marketing department for the city in order to become the employer of choice, we have to get our brand out there, um and that is something that I am currently working with uh katie balor on uh developing that plan and uh getting that up and running classification and compensation.

K

I just mentioned uh we hired a class and comp professional last week. It is the city's first classification compensation professional that that we've hired uh we're very excited uh about the work that we're going to be doing around classic.

K

As sean uh mentioned, we have a lot of uh employees who are below 10 percent of midpoint um so that it's something that we are going to work uh feverishly to correct. uh We want to be competitive in the market. um Midpoint is not something that uh set us up for success on recruiting best uh in nebraska's talent out there, so classic comp. Essentially, they establish and approve job descriptions in conjunction with departments, conduct an equal job in compensation surveys.

K

This is where we want to make sure that we're consistently being competitive market rates, and we need to be able to have that flexibility to modify the compensation plan as needed uh based on different economic factors uh right now. It is definitely a applicant uh market. It's not an employer's market right now. um You know we may be in a situation where we are in an employer's market, and we want to make sure that we have that flexibility to remain competitive and we are not unnecessarily um increasing our costs uh if it's not eat it.

K

Based on the market rates, we want to ensure internal equity, making sure that we have clear hiring guidelines, consistent job evaluation processes, it's something I really want to get a handle on me being here for four months. um I've put a lot of our different uh job. Descriptions are not accurate, um and so that means that the pay grade that is associated with that job description is not an accurate reflection of the complexity uh that that job entails and that person may not be getting compensated correctly.

K

So that's something that alexa and with the assistance of a third-party administrator, we are going to be tackling, uh hopefully, by the second quarter of this year. um The class and comp also review and establish job descriptions for accuracy, legal compliance and inclusionary verbiage.

K

We want to make sure that we're not being exclusionary not using gender pronouns in our job descriptions. We want to make it as inclusive as possible, so we're not um artificially borrowing, people or making people feel like they are not welcomed at the city.

K

We want to have a wide and broad net and get as many people interested in working for the city as possible so that we can pick from the best and the brightest, and we also want to make sure that there's meaningful organizational structures in place throughout the departments, uh class and comp is not just about classification and compensation. It's making sure that the department has the right people um the right structure and that we're paying people according to the structure that they're in that we don't have compression issues with supervisors and and staff.

K

So um it it all ties in with compensation. But the organizational structure is extremely important and it's an extremely important part of the classification.

K

Next, we have the diversity, equity and inclusion, so this is uh kind of in its infancy here at the at the city. We're still developing that um that area, but as of right now we're promoting training and events that bring awareness to dei in the workplace. um One of the things is uh developing a uh dei uh focused reading uh group, so book club uh we engage coworkers in dei conversations and trainings, uh making sure that people feel that they are included.

K

That's part of the choose people as well um initiative that we have going on is to make sure that inclusion is a focus of the city uh reviewing and developing policies and procedures that promote workplace dei. Again, it's all about inclusion, making sure that we are treating people equitably and that we're making sure that we understand different perspectives um to be able to develop a more inclusion. Inclusive city identify organizational hot spots.

K

um So you know there are certain departments throughout the city that we are working with, that have had some employee relations issues. Some of them are grounded in uh issues that relate to title vii protections, um which is uh part of discrimination, harassment, complaints.

K

So we want to make sure that we're going in to those departments we're utilizing the training and the expertise that we have to try to turn down the proverbial heat and ensure that everyone has a nice, safe and effective um nice, safe and effective working environment and then also champion the city's efforts with the employee workforce in the community making sure again. This is about branding getting our brand out there um so that we can attract first workforce and get the best and brightest training and development.

K

uh This is an area where we're currently hiring uh for the subject matter: expert for this uh area. um Obviously this is incredibly important um to the organization structure um uh or excuse me organization's culture, not structured organizations, culture. We want to make sure that we're assessing and identifying training gaps.

K

One thing that I've heard over and over is that we want to have a robust supervisory uh leadership academy to equip our frontline supervisors with those tools to make sure that they they have everything they need to manage their staff um and and get the best out of their staff, as as jackie was talking about, remove that red tape um allow people to run um their their own.

K

Their people have their own personal genius and we want to make sure that they're able to utilize that um and contribute to the city um making sure that any training is aligned with the city's goals and meeting departmental needs.

K

This is part of uh getting comprehensive, metrics put in place uh with hr as well that we're not just creating training for the sake of training. What's the impact of the training, we want a good return on investment, um so we want to get metrics in place um so that we can ensure that we are aligning our training to the city's goals.

K

Developing those training programs reviewing uh utilizing different vendors um training materials from different vendors. If the issue that we have goes beyond our internal staff, expertise we'll utilize an outside vendor to bring in that expertise, do some train-to-trainer programs that way we can save money in the long run and still continue to provide that type of training to our staff.

K

I want to make sure our training is updated uh and, as I mentioned, evaluating the effectiveness of our training, including annual performance evaluation process uh and having something that is very beneficial for employees to be able to reflect on um and grow and further develop their careers.

K

And so then, the last two sections are the benefits and retirement piece so benefits. um This is the uh retirement plan, your health insurance leave policies. Workers come for wellness programs. uh This is what the division administers. um We oversee the overall enrollment renewal delivery effectiveness. uh We have, we monitor the regulations and the market trends ensure that we have competitive benefits out uh compared to the market. um That's something I'm going to be uh focused on this year, because our uh health insurance is up for renegotiation this year.

K

So that is something that we're going to be taking a look at ensuring that our benefits are still meeting the needs of our students and also managed to contract with our outside partners have benefits: vendors insurance brokers and investment managers that help to manage our retirement plans, assets and so that division helps to manage those relationships and, finally, the business partners.

K

So we have a a host of business partners that are responsible for specific centers or specific divisions and centers of excellence, which are the areas that I just went through right now, but in addition to being subject matter, experts in those particular areas of hr, they also help, as jackie was talking about wanting to get to with finance, to be that strategic partner for the business for the different departments.

K

um So we help with strategic planning related to all types of people, resources making sure that this the financial implications are considered even long-term identifications, cultural considerations, but the market forces are out there a lot of times. uh You know managers and department heads uh where this isn't their area of expertise. They may want to do something. um It may not make sense uh financially or in the long term, so we'll find alternative ways to be able to get to where they want to go, um but uh maybe in a more efficient manner.

K

There are the business partners also responsible for investigating claims of misconduct, discrimination and harassment and uh recommend mitigating actions, uh I.e, disciplinary uh matters or uh training, and then they also assess with labor negotiations and labor relations. Matters on a daily basis on an ad hoc basis, and so uh this is a overview of the uh org chart. uh As you'll see um the majority of the uh employees in the hr department report directly into me.

K

uh It's very flat uh structure of the department right now we have nine ftes um and as of right now we have uh four vacant seeds so about fifty percent of my department is vacant right now, but we are recruiting for all of these vacancies uh right now and uh we're holding interviews for the trinity and performance uh business partner next week. So hopefully we'll have somebody uh coming on board uh relatively soon for that position.

K

um We did not have any funds returned uh to the balance this year uh to to the general fund. um I I not 100 sure as to whether I'm going to be over uh this year I'll get to that on. My next slide and challenges faced um oops.

C

K

G

Can you about budget.

C

Okay, now I don't, I don't know what I do.

K

Oh, it's the previous one. Now.

C

There we go there, we go.

K

C

Sorry about that.

K

Oh, no, it's all right all right, so um challenges face similar to every other department in the city, staffing levels, as you just saw, I have about 50 vacancy rate right now in hr, um so it has been a challenge. I've had in the four months that I've been here, I've had two resignations, um and so it it's been. It's been difficult um to say the least. uh Hiring during her resignation is, uh I we see it every day, I'm trying to source talent from various areas.

K

It's just a lack of people out there right now. Trying to get people interested in the city is is somewhat of a challenge. The impact of covet 19 has definitely challenged me, and my staff um having to pivot seems like on a daily basis, with the different developments that are happening, um the infection rates. So uh it's definitely been a challenge. It's also um shuffled in this different approach to work. Remote work has become something that is uh a challenge as well uh with sourcing talent.

K

There's a lot of uh people out there that prefer to work remotely um and we're seeing that in interviews, uh people asking these questions about remote work, flexible, work options, so that's also something that we're trying to be responsive to competitive benefits and salaries. As sean mentioned, uh we do have a significant portion of our employee population that is about 10 or more below the midpoint of their salary range uh part of that may be uh salary grade issues that they weren't placed in in the right salary grade and now they're in a different one.

K

It they started at the very bottom of the salary grade and 10 years later, they're still 10 uh low. So um it's something that we're working on uh and that we are hopefully going to be remedying here very soon and then, as I mentioned earlier, with the classic comp, a new class and comp professional that we just hired alexa we're going to be conducting a comprehensive classification and compensation study um to uh with the anticipated completion date at the end of quarter. Two.

K

uh When I came in four months ago, there was a lack of historical information. A lot of this uh for the department for the hr department, specifically, which has been a challenge um just trying to find basic things, has been difficult uh at times and so um having uh such a high turnover and staff.

K

All of that institutional knowledge also left, and so we're kind of rebuilding uh from the ground up on some things and part of that, as I mentioned the budget not having anything to return to the fund, um we discovered the department after I came in and had some time to assess. We had a lot of unpaid invoices lack of vendor documentation of who we owed money to uh we're still trying to suss that out. um I think we have a handle on it.

K

Now I don't think there's anything outstanding, um but uh because of that, um we we did have a challenge with the budget this year, um not that we went necessarily uh over, um but there was nothing left over uh after we uh exhausted uh pain. Everything.

K

And so uh we do not have any capital project priorities, um but I will echo what uh jackie talked about as far as prioritization um and partnering with hr as far as capital project initiatives. A lot of that requires sourcing talent sometimes uh requires seasonal hires. So um it definitely is helpful if hr is a part of those discussions early on.

K

And so because we don't have anything, um I don't anticipate any any assistance or help from the committee. um But uh if, if there is anything um I will uh definitely be uh reaching out and thank you very much um for your uh time tonight.

A

That's good. Thank you. Any questions from the group.

A

Well, thank you. Sean appreciate you coming on and explaining a lot of the stuff that you covered here.

B

You know I do have a question. You had a bullet point on invoicing.

G

B

So, to be clear that was, accounts payable or accounts receivable is that lost revenue, or we were in deficit.

K

Yeah these these were um that we had to pay. These were bills that were unpaid bills, that we discovered that we had um that took up a lot of staff time to be able to assess through and ensure that we were paying, who we needed to pay um and that we got those payments in before uh things were escalated. I should just.

C

A

Cool um moving on to the next business agenda item here to discuss changes to new department, presentation format if any any feedback from the members on what's been working. What's not working.

A

I personally feel like it's been going well, I like hearing the overviews and I like hearing the different segments of what each department heads need help from back in general. I think that's really helpful to nail down like one of three things.

A

um I that's my opinion on how it's been going.

J

Yeah, I feel I feel the same. I mean other than I I saw pulled up some of the older presentations from previous years, but you know being new to the committee um kind of it's.

J

It's straightforward and easy to kind of take in um still so appreciate the time that folks are putting into it and the time that tim spent on you know getting getting the format set up and and working with folks on it.

F

I have to say I really appreciate it and I commend um jackie for sharing some of her vision for her department, not only kind of the nuts and bolts and operational pieces of things, because I know we've asked people to share their challenges, but I also like to hear kind of the optimistic view of where's that department going. So thank you for that, and I think sean alluded to some of that, as well with some of the things hr is addressing.

B

I agree I I agree. I like the way these are going. um The presentations.

B

I guess the only thing I I would like to see and it might be a challenge to present it. This way is, you know, each meeting is aligned with.

B

The strategic plan and specific outcomes of the strategic plan- and I would like to see how departments either have symbiotic relationships and achieving these outcomes, or maybe antagonistic relationships and achieving these outcomes.

G

We have one 2021 accomplishments.

M

Yeah, that's a great question or comment: um what would that look like for you? Can you think of a format or a.

B

Question yeah um I'll continue to think about it. I think one example of how the more symbiotic relationship is what we were talking about earlier is the competitive nature of benefits and the great resignation. And what have you I mean: that's very much, a financial objective and a human resources objective um and also getting the staff that you need to do your job, so your department can best support the city and collaborate with the city, but at the same time you don't need more warm bodies. You just need efficiency.

C

B

I don't know that I've answered your question, but.

M

Well, it's I mean it's a question that you know I think tim and I ask all the time is: where do we have? um You know true cooperation? Where do we have conflict? How can we avoid not avoid conflict but deal with conflict? You know positively and productively, and you know I think, in terms of structure.

M

You know that's one of the reasons why um you know tim is over the three departments that I think have the almost the most need to work, symbiotically to use your term between I.t, finance and hr, because if there's any conflict between those three departments, everything falls apart, I mean we cannot function as an organization if those three departments are not working well together and what I'll say about the leadership that we have you know at all levels of those three departments is that I think we absolutely have you know, are getting the right people on the bus to make sure that you know that those relationships are working, that the processes and procedures that we have in place, ensure that you know that coordination, um and so I really think we have.

M

You know the people at the table, the people on the call- and I would include you- know I.t- that presented with us at the last meeting in that too, that we're really trying to you know build those teams make sure we've got the right folks and then you know just have the right structure and the right. You know communication avenues to make sure that that coordination is there and also to jackie's point making sure that you know none.

L

M

You know, departments are considered solely a support service. You know that they are leaders, you know at all levels of the organization. I really appreciate that um that comment um so yeah, just that's just a little commentary on your point, but if there's a way that you, we could kind of, explain that or kind of give light to that I'd, love to hear it. Yeah.

B

One possibility might be hearing so meeting like tonight, hearing from um both departments saying here's one thing that can benefit all of us here are two things because with budget development you can.

L

Do anything but.

B

You can't do everything right, so, in contrast, it might be beneficial for the back to here. You know if we accommodate or make this recommendation on behalf of finance. That's a sacrifice in this way for hr.

M

Might be another question that we add to the future presentations.

E

M

E

You know we're going through revision process the strategic plan, so one of the things city council will do this saturday is set priorities as part of the plan, and so um you know, we've tried kind of internally to do matrices to basically track projects that map into the street to plan the most that have the biggest priorities and also cut across a variety of different departments.

E

So, potentially, once those priorities said and we've kind of finished the mapping of projects, maybe that could be something that you know for the departments that present maybe after february or so um you know they were able to maybe highlight a few kind of interdisciplinary projects that tied to strategic plan priorities and they're working on together. They cut across a lot of departments.

A

Okay, moving on to the next item is discussing the change of back meeting day and or time. I know the last meeting there were discussions about what, if we did second week, what if we did like a wednesday or a different day so- and I know that jenny has um a few slides or a few things- I should put together to kind of take a look at it together here for us tonight.

C

So typically, there aren't any meetings scheduled on mondays, because those are council meeting nights because many of the boards and commissions have a council liaison to.

L

F

C

And commissions, so in friday's doesn't mean that we couldn't meet on a friday, but I don't know how many people are interested in meeting on friday. So basically, our the days of the week that we could meet are tuesdays, wednesdays or thursdays.

L

B

Will say I'm strongly opposed to meeting on friday.

A

Yeah, I would agree. I actually like the time that we have. um I think it works great, but I think if I'm seeing this right and if others agree um second week wednesday, I think 5, 15 or around that time seems open for third week on tuesday. That time seems open.

A

I know that you said that, like with work uh the first and the last week are sometimes pretty hard to kind of make that adjust, and I mean obviously with holidays too, um and I think I had heard that you also have commitments with code index.

B

Yeah, so the easy way to look at that is wherever you see pnc most likely right before that. So but that's also that has you know an end point. um I worry about either staff or council burnout on that second wednesday. I would, um I don't know the overlap between back and board of adjustments and appeals. Would there be any overlap with manager, lewis or.

C

On wednesdays, that second wednesday.

B

Yeah, did I hear you correctly? Did you say second wednesday.

A

B

That would be my only hesitation with that day is. I don't want to create any staff burnout by having a full day in the office and then having a back meeting and then a board of adjustment and appeal meeting?

B

Am I making sense you.

C

Are okay? I don't know who's all on the board. Sorry.

L

B

L

E

Otherwise, I don't.

L

C

J

Believe on thursdays.

C

And thursday.

J

Yeah, I believe on wednesdays, where it's only um temporary, I'm looking, but I and and john can correct me, but I I think that's elevated englewood, my wife's in that um I know it's on wednesdays as well. um So that's another activity, that's kind of going on within the city.

E

It's a great point.

J

E

It's running anything for about three more months uh through april and that's two wednesdays a month at six yeah yeah, that's two usually about two hours.

B

Yeah I mean my concern with anything we see on the screen there is I just don't I don't. I don't want the back to be the reason that staff council end up getting burnt out on any given night or so.

A

Yeah, no, that makes sense, um but.

F

Either of those thursdays work first or third, thursdays.

A

Are fine, I think, that's third third thursday, I think that seems doable.

G

I have a business meeting thursday yeah.

A

B

Well so let's get.

J

Restorative, I think we we're again it's out kind of outside of this. I think restorative justice has been on thursdays, if I recall as well, but I I don't know if that's a standard diet for them um again, not necessarily conflicting with us, but just keeping in mind other activities and folks. You know part of this that may be joining.

B

So I'm not trying to be resistant to change. I just want to throw this out there. Are we trying to fix something? That's not broken or is. This are, are our fourth tuesdays the best of all options right now.

A

A

So if hypothetically, we did change the time when would it go into effect, or is it up to us to it's up to us? Okay got it.

B

Well, another thing is we have a new member joining in february so that new member is expecting to join us, the fourth tuesday, and if we change I'm making this up, we.

L

B

It to the second wednesday and that person has a conflict, then we're back at score. One maybe.

F

We could table this until he joins us yeah.

B

I agree: okay, yeah and tr. Please trust me when I say I'm not trying to be resistant to change. I really want to do what's best for everybody. I just try to think of other reasons. I I don't know I don't want to jump the gun at making change. If this is the best scenario.

A

Right now, yeah that makes sense all right. Then next up is the follow-up response from cityclick's office regarding records management.

C

This is a pretty lengthy response, so I.

F

C

There are any follow-up questions.

A

Yeah, it seems like this is more informative.

A

More than anything, so maybe we just take 10 minutes of our time to just read this over yeah.

I

Instead of during.

A

This meeting okay sounds good and then just looking ahead next month, we've got sustainability, parks and parks, wreck and library and golf coming to speak that night. Then we got local economy and neighborhoods.

A

uh In april we've got safety, police department and municipal courts. Then in may we've got transportation. So just a couple of things to look forward to in the next couple months. So we.

B

Will only hear from public works for the transportation night right.

E

Yeah, so I think you heard from them right during infrastructure as well yeah. I think so. This would be their second time in front of b.

L

Yes, they'll, be they should.

B

They'll be the only department.

E

That, I guess that's what I'm trying to.

B

A

A

And members choice anything from anybody.

B

I have a question that I was supposed to ask when hr was presenting and escape my mind until now, do we still have hr? Are you guys still there.

B

um With all of the training that you were talking about, um what might be the cost of any of those trainings, and how do you measure the outcomes, the success of those various trainings?

B

How do we know completing return on investment.

K

So I think that it's um it's going to depend on what the what we're trying to resolve from that training. So, for example, let's say um I was talking about like the employee relations issues. um Let's say we have issues with uh supervisors that are not treating staff in the most professional manner. It doesn't cross any legal boundary um and we're seeing that that type of issue results in excessive absenteeism.

K

uh You know low pro low morale um where people are having to have overtime because people aren't performing their job.

K

uh So if we go in and we provide some training um supervisory training getting people, those skills that they need- and we start seeing those returns, uh we start seeing that uh that culture change, we see overtime numbers go down, we see sick leave, numbers go down, we see productivity go up by. However, that's measured in that specific department. That's how we can know that that training was effective um and so, but we need to get those metrics in place, so we need to be able to track where our employee relations issue is coming from.

K

I- and I don't know if there's employee relations issues in in this department, but, let's just say facilities, let's say: there's a lot of employee relations issues there um and we're tracking that on average we get one per week. um If we implement some type of supervisory training, we see those numbers go down, we'll know that that training uh most likely was effective and if we see even more tangible numbers with overtime or sick leave numbers going down.

K

That's how we'll know that we have that good return on investment. So it's really going to depend on what problem we're trying to solve and ensuring that we have the metrics in place to be able to measure that.

B

A

Got it well thanks everyone for joining. I think this concludes the meeting for tonight. Thanks jenny and everyone for coming. Thank.

G

You thank you for your time.

G

G

This is my future this. How do they? That's not. What I want to do is what a city they don't want to do if they just want us to be a subject. Expert. That's.

L

G

Fine, but the challenge sometimes is finance, has a fiduciary duty. I feel if we cannot be an equal partner, I don't know how we can fulfill the solution. Yeah, that's my biggest, so I want to make this very clear, you'll. You know what you want to do um we're totally fine, but you cannot ask us to have a fiduciary duty, but just.

B

Yeah and I like the pyramids too yeah.

J

B

I was thinking you know if you flip-flop it, which is your goal, you have being forward thinking and analytical that in times of um what was the word, you were using destruction, destruction or disruption.

G

Did I say these distractions they're both very correct? Actually, this destruction, because I told you this coming there's another one.

B

It's coming you're right. So when I was you know, your diagram looked like this right and this is your goal: let's have more people up here doing the analytics, but that way when you have destruction like if this is your normal state in times of destruction, these people can't shift down here and it's like I work in healthcare and I get object management, yeah, vibrate and because a lot of people cannot go there, yeah.

G

B

Can go down right, you can have your hospital administrators running vaccine.

L

B

And I mean that's the simplest example.

G

Thank you so much, because this is what I'm trying to to champion right.

B

Right like this is normal state, but it allows the flexibility.

G

B

In terms of disruption, disruption.

L

E

Noticed I mean I get the inverse, but I notice that there's fewer little people than the.

G

One on the right: yes, because you that's what, but you still have so many transactions that you can either automate process or outsource. But you don't tie your leader to doing the day-to-day man didn't work so.

E

Good then, I guess I was just saying so. You had maybe eight or nine little people on the bottom in the first one, but then on the when you flip it, when you do the inverse for the second one, there's only three people at the top, not the eight people. So what happened to all the people.

G

We want we want to have the people doing the day-to-day work we can outsource or we can automate. Then we can elevate the current you're going to count like how many people downside well.

E

That's kind of where I was going with. It was a good point, though. That's pretty drastic change. The.

G

It's very drastic, that's why yeah that's what I say is a journey. If we are not there yet or we, it will take us some time to because it's also dependent on what a city needs. If the director feel no, we don't need that kind of finance team to be thought leader.

G

um I don't want you to speak into my area or that would be fine too. It's one of the directors want yeah.

C

And we're going to have natural attrition just with the lower birth rates as we move forward, you know in future years. This isn't going to happen overnight.

G

Yeah, no, it's a journey. It's not just city, it's not for every organization, so you are going to have fewer and fewer.

C

People so, but yet the the work still has to get done. Howard howard you're best going to meet the the day-to-day needs, as well as being forward thinking.

G

Again and these people around the table too, they have the ability to become that role if they don't. I dare not to bring this up.

A

Yeah I'd be curious to know how you get to automate so much because.

G

There's so many things we want to do, but we're being busy supporting other departments yeah just like the travel reimbursement process yeah. If I cannot complete that form and I feel very embarrassed.

B

I'm just gonna ask like what challenges are you having with that, but it must be. I mean I get it, but if you're before we have to run for signatures.

L

Thank you for having me.

G

Thank you so much.

L

L

L

L