Human Resources & Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

Turned on right. Good evening, everyone. We'll call this meeting of the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee to order on Wednesday, 04/29/2026 at 06:30PM. Let's rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Roll call of membership. Let the record show that all members of the committee are present with the exception of Alder Heffernan, who is excused. Since this is our first time meeting, we'll just go ahead and do the announcements. Staring at my left, please.

Adrian Stansel Martin, District 11 Josh Lambert, District 1

Brad Furcus, District 3 Patrick Haydon, District 7. All right. Thank you. First item up, approval of the minutes from the previous meeting, twenty six-five thirty six, minutes from 02/25/2026.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. Have a motion and a second. Any comments, corrections? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes. Four to zero. There are no public hearings or appearances tonight, so we'll move into our next item under action items 26 dash zero five three seven, request to elect a vice chair. Just for record, you just make the nomination. There's no seconds. There's no just if you're nominated, you can accept, and that's pretty much it. So I saw Alder Hayden first, so please go ahead.

Yeah. I'd like to nominate Alder Stancil Martin.

Do you accept? I'd accept. All right. Any other nominations? All right. Seeing none, we can go ahead and vote by acclamation. So all in favor of Alder Stansal Martin as vice chair, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? All right. Congratulations. Congratulations. Next, request and to set meeting date and time. So as long as no one has any problems with this date of the week and this time of day, we'll just keep it at 06:30 on Wednesdays.

No objections.

All right. Good. All right. We've discussed that. Next item is to sorry. I should be saying the number to these. 260539, request to designate contact person, which I have here is Cassie Lemran. So director Rachman you look like you're about to say something. Can you mic number, please? District three. Alright. Please go ahead.

Yeah. So it's Casey. Casey is the administrative assistant for human resources and IT and was the previous contact person.

All right. Thank you. Any questions?

No questions?

Right. Just one. Could we just get could you email us that email? Yep. Appreciate it.

Yep. I'll share that with the committee. Okay. Thank you. All right. There's nothing Attorney Berwind, there's nothing to vote on this one, correct? We just discuss it, say yep, we're good. Correct. Okay, thank you. All right, next item up is 20 six -five 40, Request for Approval to Update the General Safety Policy and Subsequently Eliminate the Aerial Bucket and Forklift Policies.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. A motion is second, and we'll send it back over to you, Director Asher.

So we review about 10% of our safety and HR policies annually. Sometimes it's just administrative changes. Other times, we bring those changes forward as information. But if it's of substance then we bring it forward as action and one of the things that we've been trying to do over the last three years is de policy a bit that if we don't have to have as many policies but we can consolidate them we've done so. So there's no OSHA or our agency is the Department of Safety and Public Instruction I think I said that wrong, but there's no legal requirement to have either policy, Okay?

And there's really no reason to have them as a standalone policy. So what you'll see, our proposal, and this actually was put together by our risk manager, is to eliminate the forklift policy, eliminate the aerial bucket policy, and just insert language in the general safety policy that would address it and with any policy it's it's what we do with the policy from a procedure standpoint and training that that's where the substance is anyhow This just makes it easier for supervisors and employees to find information versus searching truly a policy manual that's about that thick. We're going to continue that effort.

All right. Sounds good. Nothing wrong with condensing the number of documents that people have to go back to. Are there any questions? Comments? Seeing none, the committee will vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes. 40260541, request to approve participation in state of Wisconsin wireless contact contract. Move to approve. Second. Alright. We have a motion and a second. Director Popp, did you wanna, add some remarks to this? Microphone number. Microphone number, please. District two. Thank you.

All right. Just a little bit of background summary on the memo. Know it's a little longer than I typically submit for IT. We are coming to the end of a five year agreement with the incumbent carrier for the city who's CELMCOM. That agreement officially ends on August 5, I believe.

We need to provide them with sixty days notice to avoid a automatic renewal on that, thus the timing of this. Looking at joining the Verizon state of Wisconsin contract rather than renewing with CELCOM. We've had some service and reliability issues with the incumbent, primarily at Appleton Police Department with the police force out and around the city, MSB, and others who are out in the city using cell phones to communicate with one another. So this is an increase. There is a net increase in the cost of the agreement versus the incumbent.

And it is an increase of $2,075 a month or $24,900 a year. Now, to help offset that increase, the state of Wisconsin agreement includes a credit, a device credit. And based on the number of devices the city would be acquiring, we would get a device credit of $128,000 That helps offset that $2,000 monthly increase. Now the credit just I I explained it in the memo, but just to explain it verbally because to avoid any confusion, the credit is upfront. So the credit hits, we'll say day one for the sake of example, dollars 128,000 on the very first invoice.

All of the future bills come off of that credit until the credit's used up. And then we start incurring the actual cost of the product, of the service. That would occur in 2028. So we'd be clear for 2026, 2027, and 2028. We'd have to actually start budgeting for that increase.

I think it's worth noting, if we could model this, take that $128,000 credit and spread it out using the monthly increase, the break even would be month 61. It's important we don't look at it that way because we have to have it in the budget in 2028. But if we could somehow squish that curve down, this would take us to sixty one months. We do have an exception on this, and that is Valley Transit. And the explanation is here on the back page. But basically, Valley Transit will, at this point, continue to stay with CELCOM for the purposes of this memo. And what they choose to do will be up to Valley Transit and general manager McDonald.

All right. Thank you. Perfect explanation. Definitely appreciate the detail in the memo. It really did explain what the impetus of this option is. With that, any questions or comments? Alder Hayden?

Yeah. You've kind of hinted at this, but I'd like to make sure I'm not assuming anything. You talked about the current contract ending in August. Is the assumption that we will get to the end of the contract, or are we looking at terminating that contract early to start up with Verizon? Or what is the expectation with kind of starting that Verizon contract?

Sure. That's a good question. It's one of the other reasons we're here now, not waiting to get right up to that sixty day mark. There'll be some overlap. There just has to be with a 500 device or 400 device replacement. I forget the exact math on that. But we're going to play it as close as we can so that we're not absorbing both costs at the same time. In all likelihood, I would say July, half of July or the majority of July, will incur both costs. And then August 5, we'll just let that contract run out.

And is there any time that we're required to be with Verizon? Like, I know we had a five year contract with Cellcom. What's the requirement when we go over to Verizon? Because you mentioned $1.61 would be our kind of breakeven with the extra cost that we're incurring. So I'm I'm I'm curious if we're getting into a ten year contract where the back five are gonna be significantly more expensive or or is it another five year contract?

So the way this agreement works is you sign on to the state contract. So you're with you're on the state contract terms, whatever those might be. And those change and are negotiated by the state. So we'll sign on to that contract with basically just a one sheet. So we won't sign our own agreement with Verizon. We assign a we sign a one sheet to get on to that agreement. There's no term to that agreement directly for the city. That said, this $128,000 credit requires two years of maintaining service with Verizon. If we don't maintain that two years, we've to pay that credit back. So it's it's it's not a term in the true sense of a contractual term.

It's and it's an it's an incentive to stay with Verizon for two years in order to run that, to receive that credit for the devices. It's basically free devices, right? So it's, if you don't stick with us for two years, you've got to pay the devices back, is really what it comes down to. Is that helpful? Very. Thank you. Sure.

Alright. Thank you. Anyone else? I'm seeing not seeing any. So alright. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Extensions? That passes four to zero. That's all we have for action items, so we'll move on to information items starting with 2042, community partnership position changes. So Director Roarkvind, do you want to give us a little bit on this one? Microphone number, please. 1. All right. I was like, Okay, 23.

So sounds don't that way. Hear this very often, so. I can

guess what. That one was like, we don't have any halves.

Yes. So it's basically self explanatory after you read the memo, but we have had a position of a halftime clerk in community partnerships for a long time, and we are changing it to a library assistant sub position. So I think there aren't a lot of departments that have halftime folks like we do. So as a halftime staff member, that clerk was eligible for a small amount of benefits, and their pay rate was at a different rate. So we are planning on a change with no budget impact, reducing it to a non benefited sub position at the library assistant rate.

So that reduces it to about fifteen hours per week. This gives us more flexibility to use that position on service desks as well as actually executing programs rather than the more restricted clerk role.

Sounds good. Any questions? All right. Seeing none, we'll and last information item is 2043. So I don't know if you have anything to share with us, Director Rachman, on this particular item?

Nothing really stands out that I would want to proactively address. I mean, continues to be steady. No real problem areas. Sometimes I've addressed those proactively at committee. But I'm more than happy to answer your questions if you have a position or two that you'd like to talk about.

All right. Alder Reid. Yeah.

I know it's a hot topic that we've always talked about in HR and IT, but how is our bus driver situation right now?

So right now our bus driver position is really strong. I would anticipate that transit is going to want to advertise a position again to I guess get a few more people in the pools particularly with part time the reason they decided to you kind of pull back at this point is there are so many people so many employees that were in training and we had to get those employees through training and up and running but staffing right now is in a very good place. So knock on wood, but it's good.

More good news for Valley Transit, so we'll take it. Anyone else? All right. With that, item number eight. Move to adjourn. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. That's four ayes. We're adjourned. Thank you.