Human Resources & Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

We got some mics going live here.

I don't disagree.

Alder Wolf, are you ready?

Feel free to join us. I

would like to call tonight's meeting of the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee to order. Please join me in 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, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call of membership. Let the records please show that Alder Jones is absent and excused tonight. Moving on to item number four, item 20 five-four 81, the approval of minutes from previous meeting. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Do we have any changes, discussion, information to add? Alright, there being none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye. And that passes four-zero. We have no public hearings or appearances, so we'll move right into our action items. The first item is 20 five-four 83, request to approve Department of Public Works parking reorganization. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Who would like to address us on this one? Deputy Director Newburger, your Director three.

Thank you, Chair.

So I'd like to highlight some of the areas that are provided in the memo. So if I could emphasize some needs in the parking utility that this TOO change will help shepherd through into what we have is a vision for a more modern parking utility that's able to at the same time that we are taking advantage of improvements in technology, we're also better able to deal with some of the challenges of the expanded needs for parking resources and how best to distribute those limited resources and to help enforce associated regulations. So improved use of technology and customer engagement. We've got electronics ticketing software, mobile phone parking applications, significant written communications and productivity software, online tools such as the city website and social media. I think all of these things were not really part of the vision for what it takes to be a successful enforcement arm of the parking utility when the current table of organization was developed.

So putting us in a better position to have staffing that's able to better leverage this technology, I think, will make us a more customer friendly utility. It'll allow us to make better use of a better job of identifying changing needs within areas that can be challenging to manage such as congested downtown areas and school zone areas. In addition to that, we're looking for other changes where this staff person can help provide better support to the parking utility manager. We're really looking for the future of our parking utility manager to be more engaged in strategic decision making, marketing, and really helping our parking utility be like a Class A parking utility that does a really good job of reaching out to And we've we've the past. Of

bit before as we were we've talking about keeping tabs on needs. The ability to think strategically, to observe the behavior of our customers,

what rules are being followed, what rules are not being followed, to be able to discern why. All of that more high level observation and strategic thinking is another aspect that we're hoping to get out of this position. And finally, this position will allow us to implement cross training between enforcement and operation arms so that we can maintain better continuity of service when we have excused absences or during times of peak demand. So with all those things being the case, we think this is the right solution to help really bring our parking utility and make it a modern parking utility.

Thank you. Might I ask director Rachman, what is the dollar figure we're talking as far as generally the difference between grade three and grade five?

District four? So pay grade three, the maximum rate of pay is $24.82 Pay grade five, the maximum is $30.3

Okay, thank you. Does anyone on the committee have questions? Aldeperson Hayden.

Thank you, Chair. May I direct a question to Director Newburgh?

Please.

Or Deputy Director Newburgh.

Please. You

were talking about this brings us down to two people who are doing basically parking enforcement. Is there any concern? You did talk about as we get into the holiday season and people take off typically during the holiday season. And my expectation is that there's a lot more people coming to the shops downtown and parking enforcement is probably that's probably their busy time. Is there any concern that as you kind of dip down that we're not going to be able to keep downtown up and functioning while people are on PTO and things like that?

Right. I appreciate the question. I want to I should have emphasized this a little bit more. Even though we're creating a lead enforcement position, this position will still be boots on the ground as well. So we can kind of lean into different aspects of what this position is capable of depending on the need.

Thank you. And it's my understanding that this is a one for one, correct? We're losing a standard enforcement person but we're gaining this lead potentially?

That's correct. And that lead person will still have all the capacity that the enforcement person has but these additional capabilities as well.

For more pay, you'll do more things. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions? I did have one well, a couple of questions. I see in the memo that twenty twenty five's budget has the capability of managing this. What are we looking at moving forward? Is there a problem that we aren't are we anticipating that we won't be able to afford this move forward? And will that potentially do anything to adjust the parking rates within the city? Because obviously this as a standalone utility is going to need the ins to make the outs.

Right. So two thoughts on that. The first one has to do with the revenue side. The revenue picture is looking really good. So revenues are up after a low that was hit in the utility based mostly on COVID.

Because of development that's been occurring downtown, right, in our parking wheelhouse, we've seen increased use of the parking ramps and associated revenue increases, Not just as businesses move downtown, but also as more multifamily spaces become available downtown. So the revenue picture is up. Then the other aspect of revenue is it's quite the enforcement arm of the parking utility can be quite effective at paying for itself. The primary goal of enforcement, I want to be clear, it's compliance with the regulations. It's not to be a moneymaker.

However, as we do enforce and achieve compliance with that regulation, we do see the parking revenue increase through the form of tickets. And the

more

efficiently and effectively we operate on the enforcement side, we do consider that that revenue picture is going to hold steady or increase. We love to have perfect compliance and not even need enforcement. That's just not the case.

Thank you. And then the other question I had is we, as a council approved me exempted approved a consultancy in regards to the parking utility. Why are we jumping the gun on this potentially as far as not knowing what that to result in as far as recommendations for the utility?

That's a really good question. I considered myself what's the right timing on this. And I would say part of what's driving the timing on this is as we onboard a new parking utility manager that has a tool set available with some training and experience more geared towards strategic thinking, marketing, the financial side of things. We really felt like now was the right time to give our new parking utility manager those tools needed to be able to hit the ground running and be successful and immediately begin implementing positive changes in terms of our operations. So I don't consider this as a one way street.

I think we're very much open to the recommendations that are going to come out of the Walker strategic planning study. And we are going to make sure that Walker gets a fair shake at doing an analysis of our needs and we will respond accordingly.

Thank you. Director Ashman, do you have anything else to add?

I guess, Chair, what I would add is that our discussions with DPW started back in March. We asked that they really take a step back and think about the overall organizational structure, which included the parking manager position, which they did. I think they did a great job. It's what we ask each time we have a reorg that we're considering is to step back, think about the organization, think about how positions are structured, and think about the financial impact. And all those things happen. So I'm 100% in support of what they're doing.

Thank you. Anyone else on the committee have any questions, concerns? All right. There being none, all those in favor of this change, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes four to zero. Thank you very much. All right. We will move then to item number 20 five-four 84, request the approval of finance department reorganization. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Do we have a motion?

Second. Okay. Second.

And one of them is seconded. Which of you would like the privilege?

Alderwolf. I'll take it.

Alder Woolf. All right. Director Ohman, would you like to speak on this?

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair. We have seen significant staffing turnovers on our front line, our account clerk positions, and it's required a lot more time of our supervisor on the 1st Floor and working on daily schedules, revamping that or whether someone's absent or we're dealing with vacancies. The training issues come into play. So what we're trying to do is really revamp the responsibilities of that supervisor to make the other items that they they need to complete more of a flexible nature.

They still have other work to do, but if it's more flexible versus rigid and needs to be done day to day, it'll help that position out. So this is really just taking items between two positions and flipping them around to put the flexibility where we need it.

Thank you. But I see that it does come with changes in pay grade. Are we looking at almost like a net zero? I mean, it's four different grades, nine, eight, six, seven. But are we looking close to a net zero potentially, Director Raschmann or Director Roman?

So if we take worst case scenario, like we're paying top wage, this would actually be a decrease in budget. So going from pay grade nine down to eight is about a $5.25 per hour decrease. Going from pay grade six to seven is about a $3.31 increase. So there's a reduction.

Thank you. That's helpful. Anyone have any questions on the committee? All right. There being none. Oh, I apologize. Sorry, was late. Was late.

Thank you, chair. So I just wanted to touch base on some of the potential difficulties the finance department is facing down there. I know that for a long time we had a due to retirements, this is when we started to have more turnover. But is there anything specifically that's happening that's causing more turnover down there that you might want to mention?

Director Oman? You. There's I think there's a combination of things happening here. We because this is that front line is on the lower end of the pay scale within the city we have staff who start in that position and then they grow into other positions whether it's within our department or in other departments. So we see turnover from that. We also see turnover of individuals who didn't understand exactly what the position entailed. So it's not quite what they thought. It's not the right fit for them. So it's just kind of all over the board with what we're seeing down there.

Thank you. I'd like to be careful about straying away from the particular item at hand, but thank you for that information. Did you have another question in that regard, Polder Wolf?

I'm just kind of making sure that, like, part of it was, out of curiosity, was to see if potentially there were mental health issues going on, that maybe like expanding and making sure that we're talking to people more and making sure that they're all right was part of the issue. I guess I don't really know if that's part of what we do on this committee, but I do think that it's important, especially in the month of May, to make sure that the people who are dealing with our people, our citizens, are being looked after the same way, say, our police department does, because we spend a lot of time making sure they're Okay and they deal with unruly people. So, like, people giving their money to us might be upset sometimes, and we you know, that's more or less where I was looking at.

Thank you for your concern, Elder Woolf. I think if you have further questions in that regard, if you could talk offline with Director Rachman, that would be helpful because that will show you that there's some support within the city. Any other questions on the committee? Alright. There being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes four-zero. Thank you very much, Director Roman. Moving on to item number 20 five-four 85, request the approval of side letter agreement with the Teamsters Local Union number six sixty two. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

We have a motion and? Second. And a second. Director Rachman.

Great. Thank you, Chair. So, as outlined in the memo, this is a union position. The master mechanic is represented by Teamsters. We have a three year contract that goes through the 2026.

General manager Mcdonald and I started approaching the union back in December expressing concerns. Generally, management comes forward with concerns, it's not about increasing wages, it's about holding wages down. In this case, we expressed a concern that the wages that we are paying our master mechanic are not keeping up with the market. The market has changed significantly, and that is one of the downsides to having an agreement that's three years in term. This is not only with external data that we're looking at, but even internally.

For example, we have a master mechanic position at DPW that pays over $3 more per hour. And both are very complicated positions that require advanced skills. To put this in perspective, Valley Transit has four mechanic positions, three that can be either at the mechanic or master mechanic level, and one that is a lead position. So when you're down one position for nearly twelve months, that's a big deal. It's not like we have 15 staff.

So in looking at comparable data internally as well as externally, we'd like to do a few things. One, we'd like to raise the rate of the master mechanic. It doesn't mean that we're going to hire someone at that rate, but having the ability to be competitive and hire someone at that rate if they have the experience is something that we're seeking approval on. We'd also like to remove as part of the side letter the ASC certification. That is specific to transit.

And the way you get to the higher rates of pay for the master mechanic is you have to have that transit mass or I'm sorry, that transit ASC certification. Our general manager does not feel that that is a good indicator of someone's skills for transit. So by removing that, that kind of removes a barrier for us hiring because very few people are actually gonna come in with that certification. In addition, we have a lead mechanic position. And for all intentional purposes, it's really a shop for a person.

So even though I've included the job description, for the most part, that's not new. It's what that position has grown to. So that position would pay $3 above the master mechanic hourly rate of pay. So we got the union. It actually took quite a bit of work, which is why it took this long to get to committee to agree to a side letter, which means it's really a temporary agreement to the contract when the contract expires in 2026, which will be at the table next summer.

Then we'll be talking about wages in general for all positions and modifying the contract or getting approval for a new contract. I can tell you that this is necessary for transit to be or to be competitive. I'm also concerned about not only filling the one open master mechanic position, but I'm also concerned about retention of existing staff, because we have two staff members that would have options as well. So that's what this is all about.

Thank you. I wouldn't see the union saying no to something like this. So what can you explain more about what might have been the holdups in that regard? I mean,

I'm sure

that a change to a contract is never an easy thing.

So there was a few things. One, we wanted to redo the entire scale for the mechanics. They felt like that was better at the bargaining table. So they were more comfortable just raising the top rate and then going back at overall rates when we get to the bargain. We also wanted to add language that the general manager has the ability to negotiate vacation. That's a really important tool. Police and fire have it with their union contract. You only use it if someone has experience. We had a candidate who turned us down because we had no ability to negotiate vacation. So fifteen years experience, you get to start it with five days. That's a tough recruit, right? That will come up at the bargaining table. That's not something the union was looking at doing as a side letter.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Alder Woolf.

So two questions, one on the overtime and the other on the max wage. So are we potentially hurting ourselves by only capping it at $35 an hour? And the second question is, are we looking to be able to negotiate the vacation time in the future?

Yes. So the maximum rate would be up to the 35. Are we limiting ourselves? I think we're being very competitive with the market.

By no means you don't think we're under asking us, for example, for that position. Right?

I do not. I feel like that's that's fair. In fact, full disclosure with the union, we show the DPW wages. We showed external data. I feel like that's a fair wage for both parties. Okay. In regards to you having language that allows the general manager to negotiate vacation, that will be coming up at the bargain next year. Okay. Thank

you. You. Alder Hayden.

May I direct a question?

You may.

Thank you. Regarding the certification, have you looked at alternatives to increasing pay such as helping people get that ASE certification or dropping that requirement and saying, we'll help you get these certifications. So it's kind of like almost like an apprenticeship to help them go turn this into a career that has legs where their pay comes later. But we're kind of giving them a leg up on the competition further on in their career. Have you looked at alternatives like that?

So right now, the contract, Valley Transit is supportive of those who want to get the certification. How they move up by getting that certification, it's actually on the pay scale already. So that incentive is already there. The difficulty with that is to get to that higher rate of pay, they have to have the certification. The market is now saying, we will pay the higher wages without ASC certification. I believe once we redo the pay scale ASC certification, if individuals are interested in, there will be support for them to do so, if that helps.

That does. And are there different pay scales for the different levels of AESC, certification? So if they continue to advance in their knowledge around, around being a mechanic, are we compensating them in in kind? So to give you

an example today, if I can flip to that page quickly for you, we have the ability to hire mechanics. No certifications required. If they get certification and they're just a mechanic, it's based on years of experience, they can add $0.10 to their base wage, hourly wage. Once they get to the master mechanic level, if they achieve four certifications and there's eight in total, they go up higher in the pay scale. If they get eight, they go all the way to the top of the pay scale.

But again, I think those are that was really great to have. Unfortunately, with or without the certifications, the wage is something we'll have to address. But I believe we'll likely include I don't know if it'll be an incentive as much as support for folks to get that education.

Excellent. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Do you have any questions? All right. The other question I did have was I'm seeing the estimated fiscal impact for this year. What effect will this have for the balance of this contract? Looking at any kind of substantial shortfalls in future year well, in the future year, '26, in regards to this?

I believe no. And the only reason I'm saying that is transit has reduced the number of drivers. And their goal still is to get back to that service level at some point. So I'm not aware that they've reduced their budget.

So we've a big pile of unfilled position wages. Right. Thank you. Any other questions from anybody? All right. There being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And that passes four-zero. We'll move on then because Director Popp has been anxiously awaiting item number 20 Five-four86 requests the approval of a backup internet circuit. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. Motion and a second. Director Popp.

Thank you, chair. So this backup Internet connection is something that's been on my mind since I came to the city, so a little over three years ago. We just had other priorities in the meantime. This has risen to the top, not in regards to bandwidth or not in regards to circuits going down, but proactively now that we have the RingCentral telephone application. So we lose this we lose our only circuit right now, which would become our primary circuit. We lose phones. In a lot of ways, it's not that big a deal because we could send people home. It works over any Internet connection. We don't wanna send people home. So it's a backup Internet connection for the primary that's already there.

The amounts and and stuff are are on the memo. I can I'll summarize it. We've went out. We bid this to three different Internet providers. You see them there on your memo. We chose the least expensive one. An Internet connection in some regards is an Internet connection. It's a wire out to the Internet. Certainly, things can go wrong. We'd get them on breach if something went wrong. There's really no issue here with taking the lowest bidder. And the lowest bidder's also got a a good name in as far as this type of service. So we're looking at $8.00 5 per month or $96.60 annually. This was in the 2025 budget approved by the common council, excuse me, last November at $14,000. So we're quite a bit under budget on this.

I am requesting a 10% contingency. That's not to float at all on the the monthly cost or the annual cost. We have that agreement in hand. The agreement is the agreement. The attorneys have reviewed it already. This would be just a contingency for any third party installation that we might have to do with the wire. So I call it a wire, but it's fiber optics. I'm sorry. Typically, they come in in a in a facility like this. They'd come into the basement, or it might be the 2nd Floor.

They have a point of entry in the basement. Sometimes we have to get that up to the computer room. Sometimes we have to go third party to get that done. It would not cost this 10%. We have lines and chases in the building to bring that up, but we might need a little bit of money to to go third party to bring the service into the computer room.

This is a backup Internet connection, but we do have we're fortunate in that we have technology on the firewall called software defined wide area network software. And this allows the software to manage both connections almost to the degree of peers in which if one is has a particularly heavy usage load on it, it can roll some of that traffic over to the other and vice versa. So it'll do load balancing on these circuits as well. It's not as if it's not used until something breaks. They'll both be used at the same time.

We're looking at about ninety days to install following contract signing, which would take place if this is recommended for approval tonight and approved next Wednesday, we would start on Thursday.

Thank you. Do I have any questions up here? Alder Hayden.

Thank you. This might be apples oranges, so tell me if it's crazy. But when I look at something like AWS, what they provide for services, it's a variable rate. So it's not a flat fee that you pay. So I'm wondering if for this, since we're talking about a backup connection, if there were any optionality for a variable rate depending on how much we use the Internet, so that we could theoretically pay less if we never use that backup.

Because I know with AWS, if we're using them for a backup service, we can say we wanna take the chance that our services are never gonna go down. So bill us at if we're using things at peak hours or things like that. It was there any optionality way that we could handle this to potentially have cheaper and take the risk, or was it all flat? Did everybody just come back with flat estimates?

I haven't seen that on circuits, this sort of pay for what you use, which is what AWS and Azure and all of the others do for their hosting services and whatnot. So it's still set up that you buy a you buy a bandwidth and you pay for that bandwidth. What you use and don't use is is really up to you. You try to size it accordingly. What we did here is we just matched the speed of the secondary to the primary.

The primary, which is with WiskNet, is one gigabits up and down synchronous connection, which actually means two gig, one gig up, one gig down simultaneously. We just matched that to the to the backup as well. We went with one gig just so that they're balanced. But no, I haven't seen that. Sometimes you'll you'll get it where with certain providers, you'll get like a burstable. So you might get a gig. But if you have to burst to 1.2 for a half hour or an hour or something like that, it'll burst to accommodate that. We're not there. We don't have that kind of usage. We could probably go on one gig for several years.

I would say this is really primarily a backup. We're not it's not really much of a bandwidth issue right now.

Anybody else? I just had a couple questions. First of all, anyone who's had TDS in their home knows that they take you to the cleaners after you're not a new client anymore. Are you concerned after the three year period that we'll end up with, okay, now we have to find another provider for this because we're now we've got a 200% contract raise, something like that?

No. This is different? Yeah, I don't know that it's different. We run that risk, whether it be IT or anyone else, we run that risk with any agreement that we sign. So to take one particular provider out of residential history, I don't know that that would be a consideration at the top of the list for me. What we so let's say that happens. Say that there's a 200% increase in the rate. We would just go to look to a different provider. I don't want to oversimplify it, but especially as a secondary connection, we'd be able to do that relatively easily if Absolutely, they decided yeah.

Okay. And then, secondarily, because we approved $14,000 this year in the 2025 budget and you've got some overage then to play with once this if this is approved and finally approved by counsel, are we to expect then that there will be roughly $10,000 in next year's budget because you don't have any other piece to fit into that particular line item?

Yeah. It's hard for me to say. I mean, for this particular reason, I would budget $10,000 to cover this. Right. You know, that $4,000 is earmarked for IT this year, so it'll be earmarked for IT next year. So we might have another service that goes up $4,000. So it's hard for me to sit here today and say, the city Jay can have my $4,000 next year. I don't need it. I'll still arm wrestle him for that $4 if I need it. So if I'm if I'm understanding your your question correctly, it'll be budgeted at $10. But if that 4 has to float over to soft software support for another item, that works out for us because I still come into 2026 at the same budget I had in 2026.

Thank you. I wasn't suggesting any nefariousness, but I was just curious to make sure that we would see what the actual is in your budgets.

Yep. Budget actual.

Excellent. Thank you. Any other questions? Alright. There being none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes four-zero. We'll move on to the informational item 20Five-four87. Does anyone have any questions for Director Raschmann regarding the recruitment status report?

Alder Hayden. Just the regular report on how our bus driver hiring is going.

Oh, sorry.

It's actually going really well I think what we reported at the last committee is we hit that magic number of like 24 keeping in mind however that many of those are new employees are still in training so we'd want to add additional staff to to Valley Transit staff or roster. We extended a final offer. We have a candidate who comes with experience from out of state, who has all their they have their CDL and P endorsement, and they start on the nineteenth. We have four candidates who have their background pending. So those are really good numbers right now. But we also have some retirements coming up of some of our full time drivers. But overall, it's quite steady compared to what we've seen in the past.

Excellent. Any other questions? Director Reichman, do you see anything on here that we should be concerned about that you would point out as we got a problem here? Or

no I I just would point out our parking utility manager we extended a final offer and that person will be starting also on May 19 so that's that's a big hiring process

excellent All right. There being nothing else, I'll entertain item number eight.

Move to adjourn.

Motion? Vote for a second.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye.

We

are adjourned. Thank you.