Human Resources & Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

And let her happen. All right. Good evening, everyone. We'll call this meeting of the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee to order on Wednesday, May 27th, 2026 at 712 p.m. Let's rise for a Pledge of Allegiance. Roll call of membership. Let the record show that all members are in attendance with the exception of Alder Heffernan, who is excused. Approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. Move to approve. All right, we have a motion and a second. That's item 260715. Are there any comments or 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 jump right into our action item for the evening, 26-0716, request to approve of the updates to the salary administration policy.

Move to approve. Second.

All right, a motion, a second. And Director Ashman, you want to kind of give us a brief overview of what we have before us? So a microphone. District 4. District 4.

All right, go ahead, please. Great. Thank you, Chair. So this is a policy that this committee reviews periodically, just because it's probably... I'd say it's the policy that departments in hr referred to most frequently as you read it through it's it's kind of complicated at times because it represents such a wide array of employees and departments from monday through friday eight to four thirty all the way to twenty four seven operations emergency call-ins like snow removal or storm urgencies et cetera so that is why you'll see this policy come in front of you frequently most of the changes that you will see are administrative or just trying to clarify some of the language. But there's a few areas that I do want to highlight. So on page six, it's under K assigned shift change for utilities about a year and a half. The utilities wastewater division or department went through a pretty significant reorganization and that came in front of this committee and also went in front of council. WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO CLARIFY IS THAT WATER EMPLOYEES REMAIN ELIGIBLE FOR A SHIFT, BASICALLY CHANGE PREMIUM, BUT WASTEWATER EMPLOYEES DO NOT, BECAUSE THAT JUST NO LONGER APPLIES WITH THAT REORGANIZATION. SO THAT WAS AN OVERSIGHT BY THE DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR AND MYSELF TO NOT CATCH THAT WHEN WE DID THE REORGANIZATION. Wastewater employees still are eligible for if there's a shift change to $50, but not for the dollar or $2 per hour. So that's the only change on page six that I wanted to highlight. On page seven, there's a few highlights that I want to go through. One is N, which is lead worker pay. This is not new pay. We've had this for a very long time. but we're trying to make sure that all the exceptions that we have to regular hourly rate of pay is reflected in this policy. And I think how this got highlighted is we have a lot of new staff in our office, a lot of new employees throughout the organization. And when that question gets asked, then you go over to the policy and you're like, we need to reflect that better. So lead workers, not real common, but we do have some departments that will have lead workers. And in recognition for taking on that lead work, like, assigning a schedule or making sure that the assignments for the day are distributed out. They fall short of being the supervisor, but there's a $1 per hour added on to their hourly base rate. The advantage of that is it's a nice recognition for the employee, but it is also something at some point if they don't want to be the lead, the dollar can be removed and then it can be reassigned to other employees. So we're just trying to reflect that in the policy that is a current practice. What would be new to the policy, and this is really the area that I would say this is why it makes this an action item, is page 7, OCDL trainer. And this really applies to our public works department. Public works has a lot of CDL positions, and they also need an endorsement. We strive to try to hire those who already have the CDL with the endorsement, but there's times where we're unable to. And so they have in-house trainers that can work with the employee to put them through the program to obtain their CDL. And this is a fairly cost neutral option right now when we hire an employee in public work. So let's say it's an operator or an operator too. They basically get $1 less per hour, and that's right in their offer letter, until they obtain their CDL. So essentially what we're doing is we're trying to recognize our trainers for training those employees. And where it's cost neutral is I'm told that's about 480 hours to train that employee. So this is a very creative way for Public Works to recognize good trainers who also at times can't sign up for other overtime because they're working one-on-one with those employees. Just to give you a little perspective on this, why I think this is really good for the organization. One, we're recognizing our employee for doing this type of work. But if we were to send our employee out to get their CV out, let's just say through Fox Valley Tech or NWTC or some other private resource. I looked up the prices again today. The prices range anywhere from about $2,000. to over six thousand five hundred depending on the resource that that you pick and then you're also subject to when they're offering that training so right now we're able to do the training in house recognize our employees and keep it fairly cost neutral so so that's really what I'm always about and that's that's why we've we're we're asking for the committee to approve that all right thank you sounds good are there any comments or questions

All right. Go ahead. Just a clarification.

Oh, nope. No clarification. This is it. All right.

Then we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes four to zero. One information item tonight, 26-0717, recruitment status report through May 21st of 26. Any questions or comments on this? I'll make one comment. Okay, go ahead, Director.

So I know I'm getting a lot of questions on the Director of Parks and Recreation, and we should have that wrapped up really quickly, I would think, within the next few days. Hopefully you'll hear something come forward from the Mayor. So final stages are just about complete.

Good to hear. All right, anyone else? Seeing none, then we can go to Item 8. Move to adjourn. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. That's four ayes. We're adjourned.