Common Council

SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COMMON COUNCIL MIDDLETOWN CONNECTICUT FEBRUARY 22, 2016 WORKSHOP REGARDING THE SEGAL WATERS STUDY The Special meeting of the Common Council of the City of Middletown was held in the Council Chamber of the Municipal Building on Monday, February 22, 2016 at 7 p.m. Present Deputy Mayor Robert P. Santangelo and Council Members Eugene Nocera, Mary A. Bartolotta, Gerald E. Daley, Carl R. Chisem, Robert Blanchard, Grady L. Faulkner, Jr., Sebastian N. Giuliano, Philip J. Pessina, Deborah Kleckowski and Linda Salafia; and Common Council Clerk Marie O. Norwood. Absent Mayor Daniel T. Drew Council Members Thomas J. Serra, and Corporation Counsel Daniel B. Ryan. Also Present Kathy Morey, Human Resources Director, Brig Smith, General Counsel, Presenter: Patrick Bracken, Senior Consultant Segal Waters Consulting and 15 members of the public. 1. Mayor Calls Meeting to Order at 7 p.m. The Acting Chair calls the meeting to order at 7 p.m. and leads the public in the Pledge of Allegiance. (Council Clerk Reads the Call of the Meeting and Mayor declares call a legal call and meeting a legal meeting.) The Acting Chair declares the call a legal call and the meeting a legal meeting. 2. Workshop Opens A. Presentation by Segal Waters Consulting The Acting Chair opens the workshop at 7:02 p.m. Kathy Morey gives a summary of the classification study process since Maximus. Patrick Bracken, Senior Consultant gives an explanation of the process used by Segal Waters to perform the job study and compensation review. Segal Waters is a national human resources company serving the public sector. There are four major topics. He discusses what they did giving an overview of the process. They used JDQ's to determine FLSA status. He goes through a PowerPoint presentation. He states they met with the stakeholders to determine the cities they lost employees to or recruited from. They based it on where the City competes for talent. The contract was for ten municipalities and they sent out surveys and six responded; two did not, but Segal took additional steps by reviewing collective bargaining agreements and websites to fill out the survey; East Hartford and Milford declined. Through these efforts they found 36 job matches from East Hartford and 24 from Milford. They only had one job with zero matches and only 19 of the 67 had less than 3. All the information is shown in the appendix. Benchmarks is common practice in compensation studies. They put the survey document together they show the 67 benchmark jobs; they asked respondents to read the job summary for the jobs they were benchmarking; we didn’t just provide a job title but additional information as well as minimum qualifications so that when they are and not just the title so when they are reviewing any matches that might exist, they have a description of the job and if they do have a match it has to match at least 80% of the duties and responsibilities of their job. We recognize that jobs are rarely defined as 100% matches and have set the 80% demarcation that the peer employer has to meet. If the job exists with their organization and meets the threshold, we ask them to provide the job title, pay information, workweek, union status and FLSA status of the job. The market data in the appendix is when peer employers respond, the survey may be incomplete and have suspect data; we clarify murky data about the jobs so we feel confident that the job match is as strong as possible. That process means we have to strike data; if they couldn’t substantiate that they matched on title alone, we struck that match. For benchmarks, we believe it is the best available for the peer employer. He discusses additional information regarding the pay scales. He discusses findings and recommendations to modify and collapse some job classifications. Their consolidation collapses 36 jobs into 15 and our analysis shows the creation of a new one, Meter Reader. For Teamsters, they did FLSA tests and the report recommends six job titles from exempt to nonexempt and four titles from nonexempt to exempt. They were also asked to migrate the descriptions to a consistent format. It includes purpose of position, essential duties, minimum qualifications, knowledge skills abilities, and working conditions. All the jobs follow that format and February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 2 they created these versions in red strikeout and delivered them to the City. The job description drafting process was from the Job Description Questionnaires and the supervisors and directors comments were used to draft the updated job descriptions. He shows the recommendation of the consolidation of job descriptions and reviews them. He reviews the market study findings. They had market study information for most of the job descriptions and when they aggregated the information for all benchmark jobs on average, the City's market position at the minimum of the pay range is 79% of the market, 90% at the midpoint and 99% at the max. We categorize this as below market at the minimum and midpoint and at market at the maximum. There is a lot of below market comparison and they broke it out by Employee Groups. He discusses those findings. Given the dramatic below market salary study, they put together alternate pay schedules to close the market gap. The pay structure changes they applied was a 6% increase to AFSCME pay structure, and 0% to Teamsters and 8% to Non-Bargaining. The pay structure changes do not change all the market gaps and some jobs were still below market; after doing the job study, there were still jobs falling below the market value and looked at the pay grades of those jobs; in determining compensation they also considered internal equity to the jobs. He discusses the thought process to close the market gap. He uses the custodian job description to explain their process. This shows the thought process they used to close the market gap and reconcile internal equity concerns. B. Questions from Council Members Councilman Nocera asks based on Classifications and you came up with the recommendations, I have concerns that the research took your data from surveys and then drew up recommendations and that can be misleading. Does your company do a triangulation process that is a more comprehensive look at classification that includes interviewing the individuals and observation of the sight and spending time in the field and then before recommendations to look at what is emerging from the field? Your data could be stronger. Do they do that type of approach? Mr. Bracken asks if you go to the Peer location to see if the job match is appropriate, we do not. He does not recall any. Councilman Nocera asks what the interview process is. Mr. Bracken states they work with HR and then have a dialogue if data is questionable. They had rounds of communication with the peer, but they did not spend time on sight to ensure a more robust level of job classification. Councilman Nocera states at 4:30, the interview was not in the scope of the contract. Mr. Bracken states it was a question about interviewing the employees and they did not. He states they were asked to interview stakeholders but not asked to interview employees to completing JDQ"s but sometimes they do that. Councilman Nocera asks if that strengthens their data. Mr. Bracken states it can provide a more fulsome understanding of an employee response. Councilman Daley thanks him for the presentation. First you were sent a letter from Brig Smith on January 29 with questions and concerns regarding the report that you prepared; has your firm prepared a response to that letter and the questions and if not why not. Mr. Bracken states the presentation was aimed at responding to the concerns. Councilman Daley states and you think you did that. Mr. Bracken states he did attempt to explain the process. Councilman Daley asks what jobs were benchmarks. Mr. Bracken responds 67 and contractual was 65. Councilman Daley states you were able to get 3 or more for how many of them; Mr. Bracken responds 19 have less than 3. Councilman Daley what about the remainder of the jobs not identified and you could not do market comparisons; how did you slot them in pay scale. Mr. Bracken states the Custodian is a good example because Senior Custodian is not a benchmark. Councilman Daley states your methodology would be to retain the existing internal relations with benchmark and related jobs. Mr. Bracken states they make the assumption that the skill set is below the market value. Councilman Daley states we may have jobs related to a benchmark but because of an anomaly of our classification system, there might be an improper salary relationship. Mr. Bracken replies they would not catch that or know that. Councilman Daley states my biggest concern overall is it fair to say that a broad conclusion from the market study is we are behind the market at the minimum pretty much on market at the midpoint and perhaps in certain cases above the minimum and above market at the maximum. Looking at Custodian, what you are proposing gives us market at minimum and midpoint, but above on the maximum. Would you perpetuate the pay scale in place or create a new one. Mr. Bracken states we used the one in place and when assigned market to 6A, then we have over market at the max, but still below the market at the minimum. Some jobs stay below at the minimum. Councilman Daley states it wasn't in the scope of your study to suggest that the design of the pay structures be adjusted instead of a 30% spread, you might go to a 25% spread to allow bringing up the minimum and bring down the maximum. Most employees will progress through the pay grade to the maximum and we will end up paying more at the maximum. Mr. Bracken states he is looking for a table in the report. What we thought is the structure changes that were necessary is the midpoint of the grade it was the least amount of structure requirement to make the job description changes. We tried to minimize the cost to the city. Councilman Daley states it would be possible to look at the ranges themselves and see if modification of the spread made sense. Mr. Bracken states we would have calculated the pay rates and it is between 35-55% and if it was only 10% it would have been an alarm bell when setting pay scales. Councilman Daley asks what type of progression do you expect to see. Mr. Bracken responds from 5 - 10%. Councilman Daley states he doesn't understand some of the conclusions you made regarding the market conclusions. Mr. Bracken states in the table we showed of the Custodian, the far right is the dollar difference between the midpoints between the proposed grades. Those values do not relate to where the employees are in the range. February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 3 Councilwoman Bartolotta asks about the JDQ's and would like a better understanding and leads to the job description outcomes. The JDQ, what was asked? Did you review the original job descriptions or did you ask for only new types of duties. Mr. Bracken states the last pages are the JDQ. Bracken states the full questionnaire is here and that is the actual document that employees completed. Our instruction during the presentations is that job descriptions were being provided to refer to; as they went about completing our document, they were provided the document from their job descriptions and if there were accurate information. He told employees not to just wholesale the information from their job into the JDQ. We were told the information in the job descriptions were out of date and didn't reflect their current job descriptions. Councilwoman Bartolotta states they were given their actual job description and JDQ given out and they were told to put what they were doing above and beyond the job description. Mr. Bracken states no; we stated to take the current information and if you still did it to include it and include any new information. Bracken states we can walk through the JDQ. They were to take the sections of the job description they were doing and then add in any other duties. The Acting Chair states there is no public comment; it is a workshop. Councilwoman Bartolotta states did you refer every employee to their job description. Kathy Morey states the employees were told not to directly copy their current job description into the JDQ but to answer the questions to the best of their ability. Employees who asked for job descriptions were given the job description and we encouraged them to go through their director and for those who did not obtain the job description, they provided them. Councilwoman Bartolotta asks the purpose of the JDQ, if you are not reviewing the original job description then what would they put in the JDQ. Mr. Bracken states we tried that approach that have job descriptions that are up to date, they didn't think it was appropriate to start from scratch. They asked for a process that they were reacting to instead of creating the responses. We were told that job descriptions were out of date and our recommendations were to embark on this process to have the job description as a resource. Councilwoman Bartolotta states she doesn't understand the thought process if they have a job description and that is what they were doing then looking at what they are doing beyond the job description. That is what we were looking for and you were recommended. We wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to have their jobs reviewed. With that being said what we were looking for was the Maximus study and it was past its due and could not be used any longer. When the request for the study, we asked to make sure that all job descriptions were up to date, but the JDQ's should have been how is the job outdated and tell us how to have the jobs reviewed and to have everyone reviewed and the outcome, we will have to deal with finance. Who requested for the job descriptions to be collapsed into one another and they should not be collapsed. We went from trying to clear up what people are doing and giving duties to others. Mr. Bracken states there was not a request to collapse titles and one of the tasks is to ensure there is sufficient difference in work to have different titles; there is overlap in classifications and we keep an eye for opportunities for cleaning up jobs if there isn't a distinction of job duties. We did that for some because there was not enough distinction to warrant a separate job and they looked at a new job description to cover those that were collapsed. Councilwoman Bartolotta states she understands and thought it should have been a recommendation and that is what is not sitting well, I look at the employees and now I have to go to someone else to get the work done because duties were removed. We needed something to use to see that every employee is reviewed properly every year and that is my understanding of the study. I refused to vote on upgrades because people are left out of the process and now I have 1-1/2 employees under one title and we are a Union based employer. If you weren't asked to collapse them, that is my concern. We can't put it forth in the condition it is. Mr. Bracken states one in terms of having all employees in the process, Middletown was interested in having transparency, education requirements and skills and we believe having the same questionnaire going to every employee is how to do that. Our report is recommendations and the City is welcome to adopt in whole or in part the report. We utilize our expertise all over the country and those changes are warranted and the City can move forward in pieces or not. For internal reasons they can accept pieces of what we found and in other fronts they don't. Councilwoman Bartolotta hopes she can look at the report and see if anything is salvageable or we can't use it at all. She asks she doesn't remember the collapsing; the recommendation was to update the job descriptions and that we fit in the market correctly. MS Morey responds that was the ultimate goal; regarding the collapsing, they were not requested to do that, it was a recommendation to do that and they asked if we would be open to that and we looked at some of the positions; we gave the go ahead to make their recommendations if they thought it was worthy to do. We were looking for the report in full. This is their recommendation. Councilwoman Bartolotta asks who moved forward with moving forward with the recommendations. General Counsel Smith states it is based on the HR Director but it was my approval. Councilwoman Bartolotta asks this was decided from committee to agree to something that was not part of the committee to allow recommendations to collapse job descriptions we can't use, it is frustrating. Attorney Smith responds if we went through the committee process to make all the decisions, we would still be meeting in committee. Councilwoman Bartolotta states a significant part of the report is the recommendation to collapse and now the descriptions don't fit the employees. She asks about the JDQ's and if it went to the Department Director; Mr. Bracken responds it went to the Supervisor first and then Director. Councilwoman Bartolotta states they had to sign and did you make sure they all signed them. Mr. Bracken states they did not reconcile that Directors reviewed them. Ms. Morey states they did not when they were receiving them and she found that some director's didn't sign off and they allowed the supervisor to sign off instead of the director and that occurred at the BOE and the principals were designated as that authority. Councilwoman Bartolotta states if the director gave the responsibility to the supervisor it should have been signed and noted on the JDQ’s if they were inaccurate, we handed it off. Mr. Bracken states they use the JDQs. Councilwoman Bartolotta states February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 4 you don't have anything in place to see if it is filled out accurately. Mr. Bracken responds there is no failsafe for what the employee filled out; that would come from two additional layers the supervisor and the director. Councilwoman Bartolotta states if it wasn't done, then the failsafe was not in place. Mr. Bracken replies we had some robust information provided by supervisor and directors; they did have layers of review to add to the clarity when we put together our recommendations. Councilwoman Bartolotta asks if they can separate the collapsing and send those job descriptions to the City or that is something they no longer can do. Mr. Bracken states anything in the job is subject to impact bargaining. Councilwoman Bartolotta asks if they can separate the collapsing of jobs made by your recommendation and instead have a job description for those individuals. Mr. Bracken replies our recommendation is based on our review and based on the information you provided maintaining those jobs is not necessary. My perspective from what we know, those classifications should be collapsed. Councilwoman Bartolotta states in the new job description, do you have a value for that part to clean up and separate the job descriptions again to know what to take out and the worth in the market. Mr. Bracken replies what one duty in a job description and market pricing we didn't do that. Our market pricing is based on the whole job and not one duty. I suppose if you accepted the edited job descriptions and which to accept or reject, it could cull out the duties that are resident in a JD to accomplish a revised job description. Based on the information we were given, the job should be encapsulated into one job. Councilwoman Bartolotta we could not utilize that. Ms. Morey clarifies the question about directors and some who did not sign off and she clarifies that no JDQ’s were submitted unless they came through the Director’s office and forwarded electronically through the Department. Councilwoman Bartolotta states they all went through the director, but it doesn’t mean they were reviewed and signed by the director. Councilman Pessina states he is perplexed with this whole issue and he was not on the Council for two years and knows what they did and based on the comments from Council Members Nocera and Bartolotta, if the City stuck with what the Council requested, they would not be having these issues. This report is a systematic analysis of positions, but without the key element of review by the employees. You have supervisors and directors and are only good as the workforce and they know the jobs they have to get done. That is the weak point of this. You had some people you spoke to, but you didn’t sit down to see what each employee does. As part of the process and some of the recommendations, labor in the City has a lot to do as representatives of the employees; were they part of the stakeholder process, the Union Leadership. Were they brought into the process at all. Attorney Smith states that is when the unions would be notified. First it was the experts coming in to tell us what compensation should be from the information employees provided to us. Depending on that, then we impact bargaining. Councilman Pessina asks if they got the best input from the employees, the best information and some had to send in the JDQ’s and employees not spoken to, but it would seem to him, in his department, I would have had some kind of open meeting to go through the employees so when they filled out the JDQ’s that our employees had a voice and now we have to vote on this. Attorney Smith states they tried our best; the process put in place was a JDQ, the same, getting job descriptions out trying to hear from everyone. He had two days with Segal Waters; was it the best, it was the best for $90,000. In the past, we had something more robust and bigger than this. We wanted to get everyone’s feedback and we tried hard. Councilman Pessina states Council gave you a road map to answer questions that they needed to make decisions and he believes the roadmap was deviated from. Was there any feedback from the Council that you were taking a detour. Attorney Smith would not say it was a detour. They have 187 job classifications. For a city of our size, they get outdated and part of that the consultant tells us we have jobs that are alike and so alike they should be a single job and a single title. I don’t see anything wrong with that because we should be doing things efficiently and standardized. Councilman Pessina states he thinks the human element is missing. The Analysis did what they did but missed an opportunity to hear from employees and make sure it is the best practice. With due respect, It doesn’t give me a good feeling to support this. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks to address questions to Attorney Smith. She asks about how they decided on the ten municipalities and are they in our genre. Attorney Smith responds part of what we did is we have the former CCM labor analyst and he is on staff and worked with Patrick on this. Mr. Bracken when he interfaced with directors and other stakeholders, we asked where they recruit from, where they lose employees to, what employers are you bumping up against in hiring decisions and we passed the information to the team to round out that list. Councilwoman Kleckowski states the study came about because Maximum was antiquated and the HR department complained they couldn’t make promotions because they had nothing to judge from because Maximus is outdated. That is how it came to be. There was no rubric to make decisions from. This is a redirection of job descriptions but not a rubric to upgrade jobs. My second point is, who gave the direction to the City directors. There seems to be disagreement how directions were presented. We have the study, did you have face to face meetings and how did it trickle down to the employees. Attorney Smith discusses Maximus and part of the problem is it is an old study and a point factor system and it wasn’t doing what it needed to do. With dissemination of information, there was a taped training and there were sessions with the employees and we worked with the directors. Mr. Bracken states with regard to Maximus, one of the items brought to their attention is that the City did not fully utilize external market comparisons in advising what pay grades be assigned to job titles; one of the tasks was to help the city devise a more market sensitive classification compensation system. It provides the City our recommendations based on external comparisons as well as internal equity concerns. What the City had before was much more focused on the internal equity process. The reclassification process, the City was experiencing a lot of these and their experience is when clients are dealing with that event it is symptomatic on how the classifications are described or disconnects with what employees are doing and their job description. With that information, we then devised a plan which February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 5 was the job analysis. Councilwoman Kleckowski states the HR director spoke about signoffs and if employees wrote something and the supervisor did not agree, did it go on to you. Mr. Bracken responds it did; supervisors were instructed not to modify what the employee wrote; they had an area to provide feedback and the directors had their own discrete area as well. In no instance was a JDQ not to be forwarded if no one reviewed the JDQ. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks if the employee saw what the supervisor wrote. Mr. Bracken responds that came up in the sessions and they told supervisors if there was a difference of opinion, the supervisor should reach out to the employee and collaborate and work to come up with a mutually agreed upon response before it was being submitted to us. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks how the employees know. Mr. Bracken states they told supervisors if they had contradictory responses, they should reach out to employees. Councilwoman Kleckowski responds from the shaking of heads, it looks like that wasn’t done. She states there is some concern about how this was actually done; my understanding is you sent out the survey and employees were told not to cut and paste but to add what was different. Mr. Bracken responds he will clarify; they were to review their job description and copy and paste only the accurate information into the job questionnaire and if it is not a full response, they would add to it. Our perspective is there is valuable information in the job description and not appropriate to retype if the job description is accurate. They needed to add additional information if it was not sufficient. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks how it was communicated. Mr. Bracken states the same presentation was given to employee groups of all departments and same information provided at every session. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks why unions were not part of the stakeholder discussions to begin with. Attorney Smith responds that Justin reminded me that a session was recorded so you can see what was said. Regarding the union issue, the place for that was for impact bargaining and not the front end. Councilwoman Kleckowski wants to reiterate that their impression was to add only what is different. This is some of the contentiousness and how the information was disseminate and that doesn’t seem to match what you are saying. Councilwoman Faulkner states I would like to know if we have a percentage of employees that asked for the job description. Justin Richardson responds those employees that asked were given them; no one was denied their job description. We directed them through their department heads. I do not know the percentage. Councilwoman Faulkner asks in terms of pay, nothing here deals with contract particulars. That is not evaluated. Mr. Bracken states it is not; we were asked to do salary comparisons. Councilman Faulkner asks compared jobs between departments did you look at that. Mr. Bracken asks the salary side. Councilman Faulkner responds the job descriptions. Mr. Bracken states we were not asked to evaluate department structure, but we did look at job title; they did collapse some jobs and it would reflect one title. Councilman Faulkner states did they have similar union representation in the towns. Mr. Bracken states it varied; with the two they did the comparisons, they could only get it through contracts. Councilman Faulkner states a lot was made by the choice of the cities; is there something about the comparables. Mr. Bracken states they put together a summary table like population, number of employees and geographic proximity to Middletown. Acting Chair Santangelo states we have ten minutes more time on the DVD; we will take a recess and come back after that. Councilman Giuliano states you sent the same questionnaire to every employee and you did not go by the job description. Mr. Bracken responds we did not use the job descriptions to validate whether information was accurate but did use the job descriptions; they edited current job descriptions. Councilman Giuliano asks if they had them before or after the questionnaire. Mr. Bracken they had the job description. Councilman Giuliano states did you have the questionnaire exist before the job descriptions were given to you. Mr. Bracken replies they have a template. Councilman Giuliano asks if they are aware of the legal significance of them and accepted by the Council. Mr. Bracken responds they were not aware of the process. Councilman Giuliano states why would you not send them to edit a job description and then add in any new duties. Mr. Bracken replies they have used the process with entities across the country. Councilman Giuliano states would the process be better as he described. Mr. Bracken states he doesn't think it would have been better. Councilman Giuliano states the same questionnaire to the water treatment person and a director. Mr. Bracken yes. Councilman Giuliano states without the job description you have no frame of reference. You have the employees perception of what they are doing without regard what they should be doing. Mr. Bracken disagrees because of the supervisors and directors. Councilman Giuliano states he doesn't know how you don't start with what they are legally required to do and he doesn't see how you get an idea of what they are doing. Councilman Giuliano states, looking at the ten municipalities, who picked that list. Mr. Bracken states it is a collaborative effort. Councilman Giuliano asks if it is a reference group by CCM. Mr. Bracken replies he doesn't know. Councilman Giuliano asks on your presentation on page 11 methodology, the deputy fire chief, is that representative for every job. Mr. Bracken responds all benchmark jobs were treated the same. Councilman Giuliano states when you describe it, above the 3 lines in grey, you averaged it and then compared them. Why not include Middletown. Mr. Bracken responds because your labor market would exclude you. Councilman Giuliano states doesn't our figures affect the averages. Mr. Bracken replies mathematically, yes but conceptually it is outward facing markets, where you draw or lose employees. Councilman Giuliano states based on the assumption we are trying to hire or retain, they are looking at these communities. You are assuming they won't come from a community outside the ten. Mr. Bracken states the study was for ten and these ten were deemed comparable. Councilman Giuliano states if they were doing Wallingford, we would be there but not Wallingford. Mr. Bracken explains yes. Councilman Giuliano states a recruitment is not the same as seeing how our pay grades match a pool of communities. Mr. Bracken replies recruitment is only one factor and he lists many more. Councilman Giuliano states in my world our salary parameters influence the other ten just as they influence us. Mr. Bracken responds and it is a different analytical approach. You would not generate a bell curve; you would need many more. Councilman Giuliano states you are putting February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 6 me into a set of statistics but being compared from the outside and he is not sure of the reasons. There are other factors that affect recruitment so why do it that way. What use is the report at all? Mr. Bracken advises the full council and we have always used this methodology and we are asked to use a different type of analysis but 95 -98 of our reports and competitors would give you this type of structure. Motion to Recess The Acting Chair states there is five minutes left on the DVD; he asks for a motion to recess. Councilwoman Kleckowski moves to recess and is seconded by Councilwoman Salafia. The Acting Chair declares the recess at 8:57 p.m. Meeting Reconvenes The Acting Chair calls the meeting to order at 9:08 p.m. Councilman Nocera is recognized and states that this should not be based on a single survey that may or may not have been signed off by supervisors or department heads and on classification and compensation side the survey process was also, the emphasis on how you collected the data. I would support recommendations that have a more comprehensive approach to gathering data than a single survey. Mr. Bracken asks if you want a response. Councilman Nocera if that is a practice of your company, I find it hard to believe, that a single approach is used. Mr. Bracken states the methodology used is in line with the vast majority of projects they do in these areas. Boards and Councils might not feel it is a fully informed comparison and we get asked to collect benefit information as well as pay and combine them to inform about the competitiveness for compensation. Councilman Nocera states as several others have stated that by not providing our employees the job description which they may or may not have read or fully understand, by not providing that as a frame of reference to look at what they are currently doing and add what is missing, we don’t know if the data is accurate nor did he hear there was a clear plan to guide our employees through the process to be certain they understood what they had to do and the importance of the information they are providing and the compensation is also survey type data and I have concerns about; without probing further that there can be inaccuracies and nuances from town to town that surveys will not provide that information. Mr. Bracken states on the survey points you were raising, our perspective is the onsite employee training days on the JDQ most clients find that a great way to let the employees know what is expected. The JDQ is what is used to create the job descriptions; not all employees have the same ability to fill out the questionnaire which is why we suggested that supervisors and directors review the JDQ. On the compensation questions, doing a custom survey is common practice and we recognize that the job matching might cause concern and it is part art and part science and when evaluating a job match there is some subjectivity and we have done this many times and get a feel if a job is a match and if not, we go back to the peer to find a better match. Councilman Nocera is glad to hear you think it is an art and science. Councilwoman Salafia asks how many job questionnaires did you get back and were any missing. Mr. Bracken states he doesn’t have the tracking sheet. Justin Richardson made sure they had a JDQ filled out for each job to make a match. We have 40 cafeteria workers, if only 20 wanted to do it, we went with that. Councilwoman Salafia states on the website there is a new listing of the new job descriptions and it is the previous job description edited. Are you going to review them; there was discussion of duties left out. Will you review them. Mr. Bracken responds out deliverable is the redlined strikeout job descriptions to Human Resources; our proposal outlines that HR then takes responsibility to finalize them. Councilwoman Salafia asks when they were sent. Mr. Bracken replies it was so long ago, he doesn’t know. Councilwoman Salafia states if the job descriptions are part of your final report. Mr. Bracken states they are referenced and delivered to the City. Councilwoman Salafia asks the status of the report. Mr. Bracken responds it is final. Councilwoman Salafia asks if there are any changes or is it the same as the draft. Mr. Bracken responds only changes were the date and removal of the draft watermark. Councilwoman Salafia has questions on the job descriptions. Who is going to review them for accuracy of the duties performed and should be performed. Attorney Smith states that is the next step after reviewing the report. We don’t know. Councilwoman Salafia states maybe she needs the definition of impact bargaining. Attorney Smith replies it is dependent on the issue. Councilwoman Salafia states since the job descriptions are approved by Council, then each one should be addressed through impact bargaining. Attorney Smith states the job descriptions that capture what the employee is now doing does not need impact bargaining; the compensation piece does if we agree it is what they are doing for what the salary is. Councilwoman Salafia states she looked at her former job description and it is all new; you would not get your W-2 form or 1099 form and your pension is no longer being paid if you leave it as it is. Attorney Smith responds there is the language that this is not inclusive of all duties. Councilwoman Salafia replies it took out pensions completely. It just says quarterly reports. Attorney Smith responds that the job description does not list everything a person does in the job. Councilwoman Salafia states it should at least mention pension for the person who handles pension for the city. From the ones I looked at you have a problem with the job descriptions and I would be hard pressed to accept the study the way it is. From those I looked at, they all need to be adjusted. Who is going to do that. Attorney Smith states it is the next step and it would be my office working with General Counsel Commission. Councilwoman Salafia asks if the job descriptions have been dispersed to all employees. Attorney Smooth states they have not been sent individually, but they are all online. Councilwoman Salafia asks how long they were on line. Attorney Smith states for months. Councilwoman Salafia states impact bargaining we could or could not discuss every job description. Attorney Smith states the next step would not exclude the Unions. Councilwoman Salafia doesn’t want to accept this because she doesn’t want to be locked into the job descriptions. Attorney Smith states we wouldn’t do that. February 22, 2016 SPECIAL COMMON COUNCIL MEETING Page 7 Councilwoman Kleckowski states the revised job descriptions, did they go back to employees to make edits and additions. Mr. Bracken states the revised descriptions we sent to HR. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks if they went to employees and were reviewed and sent back to you. Mr. Bracken replies there was only one review cycle and we made changes to the job descriptions and sent them to HR. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks Kathy Morey if employees had a chance to review the job descriptions or are they only online. MS Morey replies individuals were not sent their individual revised job descriptions; they were put on line and they were advised by their departments and unions they were online. Councilwoman Kleckowski states they are in the Segal report and not just online. MS Morey responds that is correct. Councilwoman Kleckowski states on General Counsel we were told there were questions brought by the Union and asked to submit to General Counsel Office and then forwarded to Segal Water for answers; is there a list of those questions and have they been specifically answered. Ms. Morey states the concerns that came through from unions, they forwarded that to our office and the Office of General Counsel forwarded to Segal Waters. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks if it was received and were they answered. Mr. Bracken states they received a packet of information and we asked the City to summarize the concerns; they did send us a letter from late January and we put together our presentation today to address those questions. Councilwoman Kleckowski would have felt better if you had presented the question and the response. Mr. Bracken states it would be easier to understand if they did a PowerPoint presentation on how the process was conducted and the methodology used. Some of the questions blended topics and would have been difficult to answer those questions. MS Morey states some of those questions were also addressed in this afternoon’s workshop; they attempted to respond to some of the questions and the Union leadership reiterated their concerns. Councilwoman Kleckowski asks if they were addressed in the report. Mr. Bracken states we feel the report explains some of the questions asked and tonight’s sessions was to provide additional information to answer the questions. Councilman Giuliano states he wants to be clear questionnaires went out and were satisfied that if you received one from each category, you were satisfied? Mr. Bracken responds they were not satisfied; they would like to have 100% employee compliance. We used information provided to us. Councilman Giuliano afterwards the relined job descriptions as part of the report, it was up to the employees to look at those and decide whether the changes were still accurate in their minds or not. Mr. Bracken responds that was not part of their process. Councilman Giuliano states it appears to me that is what happened. That job description was not forwarded to the employee and asking them if this is what they are doing; that was not done. Mr. Bracken replies that was not part of our process but the job descriptions were available to the employees. Councilman Giuliano states they were available but again unless an employee took the initiative to look and review it and determine if it is accurate and if it is not, they have to go to personnel and if they don’t do that, then what we have is what we have. Mr. Bracken states yes. Councilman Giuliano states if you were not given the proper guidance as to what the City wanted you couldn’t do it; he doesn’t know if the methodology was reviewed. Mr. Bracken states what is in the RFP is what was summarized tonight. Councilman Giuliano states no one went over our peculiarities. Mr. Bracken states they did have an initial meeting and spoke to senior leadership about what we were envisioning about this and if there were concerns about employees and disseminating the questionnaire, there was preplanning. Councilman Giuliano states there was no councilmanic input at that point. We have to determine what use to make of this or not. Councilwoman Kleckowski for those who submitted reviews, an employee looked at the job description as edited and it doesn’t work, what happened then. Mr. Bracken states some of the information was in the packet and saw a comment about inaccuracies and our request was to summarize the concerns on clarifications. Councilwoman Kleckowski states there were not changes made. Mr. Bracken states that is correct. Attorney Smith clarifies when the draft report came out, we notified the union leadership and ask for feedback from them. 3. Workshop Closes. 4. Meeting adjourned. Councilman Nocera moves for adjournment and is seconded by Councilwoman Kleckowski. The vote is unanimous and the Acting Chair adjourns the meeting at 9:34 pm ATTEST: MARIE O. NORWOOD COMMON COUNCIL CLERK