City Council - Finance Committee

CHICOPEE CITY COUNCIL FINANCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS John Vieau, Chairman Shane Brooks, Vice Chairman Fred Krampits Frank Laflamme James Tillotson William Zaskey Approved MINUTES March 22, 2017 The following are the minutes of a public hearing held Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at 6:30 PM in the City Council Chambers, Fourth Floor, City Hall Annex, 274 Front Street, Chicopee, MA 01013. Members Present Vieau, Brooks, Laflamme, Tillotson, Zaskey Absent McLellan, Krampits Also Present Daniel Garvey, (Associate City Solicitor), Councilor Zygarowski, Councilor Courchesne, Mary Aicardi (Collins Center), Raisa Riggott (HR Director) The meeting was called to order at 6:30 PM In compliance with the Open Meeting Law the Chairman asked if anyone in the audience was recording the meeting. ITEM #1 ORDERED THAT THE SUM OF SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND AND 00/100 DOLLARS ($75,000.00) BE AND HEREBY IS APPROPRIATED TO THE FOLLOWING ACCOUNT: HUMAN RESOURES SPECIAL ACCOUNT FOR UFCW ADMIN. & LABORERS CLASSIFICATION AND COMPENSATION STUDY SAID AMOUNT IS TO BE TAKEN FROM AVAILABLE FUNDS IN THE UNDESIGNATED FUND BALANCE “FREE CASH” ACCOUNT. Raisa Riggott stated that this was presented by the Mayor’s office and I’ve provided Mary with some preliminary information that she needs for this study. Mary Aicardi stated that we have worked with the City of Chicopee before and right now we are also doing a Human Resource feasibility study under the Community Compact Program. The Collins Center’s mission is to 1 help cities and towns. She stated we do classification studies, training; executive recruitment and we do a lot of work with the regional governments. Mary Aicardi stated that your people that are working here are your most valuable assets. They have not had accurate job descriptions, a review of their compensation and classification for quite some time. The most important thing in a job study is to get the job descriptions accurate. We would hold orientation sessions for everyone in the study. What a heavy equipment operator does in this city can be very different than it is in another city. An Administrative Assistant has many different meanings across cities and towns. We just don’t do a salary survey on a title, we wait until we get the interviews done before we send out that survey. We are going to classify positions and look at the market. Having seen some of the salaries in this city I would guess some people’s pay ranges would move. It is really impossible to have an internal system on such a large project you would never get it done and it would really be difficult to be objective. Once we complete this we will recommend pay ranges for the grades. The end result is; recommended job descriptions and classification system with steps and grades. We don’t look at the pay issues before we’ve actually done the interviews. It’s comparability and it’s market. It’s not just whose truly comparable, It’s who you’re going to draw your employee’s from and where are your employee’s going to go if you don’t compensate them sufficiently. Councilor Tillotson asked why you need to interview everyone if the jobs are the same. I would think one general description would fit most of them. Mary Aicardi stated we only interview by title. Everybody views things differently, five laborers have five different perspectives and in a unionized environment to pick and choose who gets to speak as a group that is a problem for us. Councilor Brooks stated why aren’t we managing our own job descriptions in a real time basis so we’re not faced with evaluating one hundred and fifty positions that are unique. He stated that casino is opening next year and if I have to get a five thousand dollar license to work in DPW or I could make seventeen dollars an hour at the casino pushing a broom? He stated that we could have a study that really looks at surrounding communities to really set value to our work force. Raisa Riggott stated when someone retires or vacates a job those job descriptions are reviewed for accuracy and changes are made at that time when the position is posted. There is a process that we go through to upgrade those job descriptions. Councilor Brooks stated If we’re looking to adapt to the industry changes why does it take this study to ignite this process. Mary Aicardi stated that it should have been done. Whether it’s staffing capacity or bargaining history, you don’t have an up to date system, now you will have the tools and the foundation. Councilor Brooks asked what compensation entails. Mary Aicardi stated we don’t calculate total compensations, we would have to study union contract for every city municipality. We don’t include Police and Fire Departments or shift differential. For us to calculate by title what the total compensation is; we will get the health insurance rates from the other municipalities and look at their pays and benefit costs. When we see the total cost we can evaluate that. Councilor Brooks stated how do you measure the data collected to give an accurate reflection of what Chicopee has. Mary Aicardi stated that we are more likely to pull individual titles out than a municipality. Some towns have Assistant Treasurers or Assistant Accountants, sometimes they’re high level clerical or mid-level professional, it depends on size and scope of job. In the DPW we do less of changing of their titles because they are pretty true to form where in the administrative series where you could have a; senior clerk, principal clerk, a head clerk. Councilor Brooks asked what best practices to you have to help us facilitate that the employees can talk to you about what they do on a day to day basis in a reasonable amount of time. 2 Mary Aicardi stated that we provide a schedule for enough slots for everybody. We will have additional staff interviewing for several days a week. We do make this as flexible as possible. It’s important to have the Department Heads have the support and direction to allow people to participate in this. Councilor Laflamme stated I think you’re going to get the support because the Mayor wants this done. We are spending seventy thousand dollars on this. Councilor Laflamme stated how long will this study take. Mary Aicardi stated if people are diligent and we can get the draft job descriptions done in June with comments back, we could work on the survey over the summer. We are looking at a September, October finish date. Councilor Courchesne asked why we wait until someone vacates a job to change the description. Raisa Riggott stated that you cannot change a job description when there’s a person in that position because you would be adding or deleting responsibilities from someone in that position. Mary Aicardi stated that we anticipate five hundred hours and you don’t have the capacity internally to do that. Public Input Dean Eithier, Vice President of UFCW Local 1459 stated he represents the two contracts that we’re talking about; Administrative and Laborers. The contract that we’re working under, the scale is horrible. When you have a 10L making more that an 11L and you have people leaving the city to go work in East Longmeadow to make three dollars an hour more or the plow guys who have been here six years and they’re hiring guys at the same rate, there is a problem. I’d say the majority of people in this room are working outside their classification. The Mayor wanted this study to go through but nothings getting done. Human Resource can’t do a job this big. The people have been patient. This wage scale is absolutely horrible and it has to be fixed Councilor Laflamme motion to approve – Councilor Vieau 2nd the motion – motion passed Committee vote 5 – 0 favorable ITEM #2 Minutes for January 11, 2017 were not approved Meeting adjourned at 7:38 PM. 3