Human Resources & Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

As it is 630, we can call to order the Wednesday, August 26, 2026 meeting of the Human Resources and Information Technology meeting. Please rise and pledge 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 record show that all alders are present, with the exception of alders Ferkus and Heffernan, who are excused. We can go to item number four, approval of minutes from previous meeting. Are there any questions or comments?

Move to approve.

Second. All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. All opposed? That passes 3-0. We do not have any public hearings or appearances. I did have a request to move information items 26-1116 and 26-1117 before the action items. If no one is opposed, I'd like to take those up first. All right. So I'll pass it over to the city staff.

Okay.

So if you don't mind, we'll have the chief talk about 26-1116. Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to provide an overview of a new position that we have created in the fire department called Firefighter EMT Limited Term Employee. This position is... I GUESS A NEEDED POSITION FOR THE APPLETON FIRE DEPARTMENT. HISTORICALLY WE'VE DONE VERY WELL WITH HIRING BUT OVER THIS LAST HIRING PERIOD WE WEREN'T ABLE TO FIND ENOUGH QUALIFIED CANDIDATES. SO WE ARE RUNNING TOO SHORT RIGHT NOW. SO WE DEVELOPED THIS PROCESS AND WE'VE BEEN IN DISCUSSIONS AND CONVERSATION ABOUT IT FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS TO HAVE A WAY TO HIRE an individual that we really Like that we want to have on the fire department But doesn't have paramedic so this process would allow us to hire the individual and then send them to paramedic school so this process is is THIS PROCESS MIRRORS OUR CURRENT HIRING PROCESS. SO OUR TYPICAL HIRING PROCESS STARTS IN SEPTEMBER AND THEN THOSE INDIVIDUALS WOULD START IN MAY OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR. THIS PROCESS WOULD BE UTILIZED IF WE FIND THAT WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH QUALIFIED CANDIDATES AND THEN WE WOULD RUN THIS PROCESS IN ABOUT FEBRUARY OR MARCH. And in a very condensed format, we'd go through all the exact same steps as our normal hiring process. We would bring them on usually the middle of August, and then they would immediately go into paramedic school. So during their time in paramedic school, they would be paid at a 40-hour work week. They would be paid at a rate that is 70% of what our normal firefighter EMTs are paid. If for some reason their education takes them over 40 hours, they would have to get approval to get overtime from me. What is also nice about this program is there is some built-in safeguards for the city, and that is if an individual for any reason drops out of paramedic school, flunks out of paramedic school, or DOES SOMETHING WHERE WE NEED TO TERMINATE THEM AS AN LTE, THEY ARE REQUIRED TO PAY BACK THEIR TUITION FOR PARAMEDIC SCHOOL AT A PRORATED RATE OVER A THREE-YEAR PERIOD. SO LET'S SAY THEY they flunk out of paramedic school right when it ends. And then they would be liable for the roughly $12,000 of tuition. If they work for us for a year and decide to leave and go someplace else, then they would be liable for 2 thirds of the tuition. So we have that safeguard in there as well. They are allowed to have three attempts at taking the National Registry Exam once they complete paramedic school once they finish paramedic school in May they would roll right into our recruit Academy Which is about 10 to 12 weeks? In length they would be given a seniority number based off of how many people we hire and let's say we hire five They could be number one. They could be number five. It's a sliding skill And it's determined by me based off of who we hire So if somebody has a lot more experience than them they're probably going to be a little lower on the seniority number instead of being at the top Now with these employees being LTE s they are not sworn Firefighters they are not protected employees so they can ride on the fire trucks as a student and for education purposes only, but they cannot supplement staffing. They don't count towards minimum staffing, and we would not put them in a situation where they would have to actively fight fire because they just, while they're more than trained to do that at that point, they just wouldn't be doing that for us at this juncture of their career. During their breaks from academics, like in December, they usually have about a month break over their Christmas holiday. They would come in and work a 40-hour work week. And then we can do some training with them. They can do inspections. We get them more familiar with the fire department. And they can also do their clinical side of the paramedic school at that point as well. So the last couple pages of the attached document is actually a copy of their job description that lists in great detail the hiring requirements and what is expected of them during their time with us in this role. Well, I will mention finally that once they complete paramedic school, then they just roll into our recruit academy. They don't have to go through a separate hiring process for that position.

THANK YOU, CHIEF. DOES ANYONE ON THE COMMITTEE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS? THEN I DON'T HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. I'LL DECROTE.

NEW SPEAKER NO, THIS WAS AN INFORMATION ITEM. SAFETY LICENSING. A COUPLE QUESTIONS THERE.

NEW SPEAKER DO YOU HAVE A MICROPHONE?

WHAT NUMBER IS IT?

11. I'll repeat what I said. This was an information item at Safety and Licensing, and there were no concerns expressed. Actually, there were supportive comments and a few questions. But yeah, no concerns.

Thank you so much. Then I think we can move on to the next information item. Item 26-1117. I'll pass it over to city staff as well.

So again, I think if we could have our finance director start out, I can certainly answer questions as well.

So this is kind of a three-part request. It went through Finance Committee last night, Monday night. I don't know what day of the week it is. What year it is, I don't know. Finance is looking to, we've had an open position in finance since February of this year with the transition of the finance director position. That position hasn't been filled, not knowing what the long-term plans were going to be. So we did have quite a substantial amount of salary savings. And after being here for three, four months now, I had a chance to be with each and every one of our staff and kind of do a triage of what our department is lacking and why we're having such a tremendous amount of turnover. And so part of that, I would like to engage Baker Tilly to work with the finance team to determine a couple of things. One, I have a very, very capable staff that's being used at its very limited use. So, again, I'd like to triage. And then we have tasks that are just not with the right positions. And until I need, until someone can dig in and kind of start asking a lot of those questions to get that reorganized within the department, and then also to, while doing that in tandem, they will be evaluating our processes and how we utilize or underutilize our ERP system. So that's the two pieces for finance. And then Jay's got the, and part of my salary savings was to cover Jay's part for the comp and class plan.

Yeah, please. Director Reichman.

Great, thank you, Chair. So the compensation update, we did a full-blown compensation study in 2022, implemented in 2023. And it's actually solved a lot of problems for the organization. And if you go back to the memo that I provided at that time, I put in there that you want to do a reevaluation about every three years. And as the market kind of warms up or cools down, you can look at that timeline to accelerate it or stretch it out. So I had planned on putting a supplemental in the 2027 budget to do the update, to stay with Baker Tilly. This is not to do a compensation study. It is really to do a reevaluation, make sure positions are in the correct grades, make sure that the pay grades are correct, et cetera. We've invested as an organization with council support a lot of time and a lot of money to have our compensation plan where it's at and And don't get me wrong, HR, we do reevaluate positions as needed, but this is bigger picture. This is to keep that plan relevant. So I would have brought this forward regardless of having vacant salary dollars as a proposal. This just helps us get there quicker.

Thank you.

Are there any questions? Yes, please. Thank you, Chair. One question is, when you're looking at compensation, are we looking at salary plus benefits? Are we just looking at salary? What are we looking at when we're asking Baker Tilly to kind of come in and give us an idea about how we stack up for these different jobs?

That's a great question. So the role of Baker Tilly is to look at wages only. And so we also use a company called USI. They're our benefits consultant. They do the benefits side. They will look at how do we compare to other municipalities, both locally as well as on a national level, as well as how do we compare to the private sector. So we do have that data. We do have a total rewards philosophy. So for example, we might not be the highest paid employer with wages, but we'll look at what our employees pay for health insurance, what sort of pensions do they have, et cetera. But we have two consultants that we get that data from.

So at any time, are we peanut butter and jelly and the two together? Because I know there's a lot of places, municipalities out there, where the salary is a little lacking. But the benefits are helping them out. Or are the pensions decent? So it's one of the things where you want to look at that salary and have it be apples to apples comparison.

I don't think we're piecing it together. I think we're taking the big picture approach, but employees do value wages as well, and so we have to keep those competitive. I think where we do stand out is on the benefits side. I'm sorry, there's a little bit of back feet here. I hope that answers your question.

It did, thank you.

Okay. Shut off. There we go. All right, well, thank you. Apologies for that. Alder Lambrecht, do you have any questions? Alder Crote? Perfect. Well, I don't have any questions, so we can circle back around to the action items if there is no objection to that. So we'll head to action item 26-1111. Request the approval to overhire at the fire administrative and financial services manager, former title ASSISTANT TO THE FIRE CHIEF POSITION. A LITTLE BLUE PROOF. SECOND.

YES. THANK YOU, CHAIR. THIS IS A REQUEST TO OVERHIRE FOR A POSITION FORMERLY CALLED ASSISTANT TO FIRE CHIEF. WE NOW HAVE RENAMED IT TO ADMINISTRATIVE AND FINANCE MANAGER, WHICH MORE ACCURATELY REFLECTS THAT POSITION. WE ARE LOOKING TO REPLACE A LONG-TERM EMPLOYEE 34 YEARS WITH THE CITY. That will be retiring in January first so our goal with this Over hire request is to pass on some of that institutional knowledge some of the to get some education on how all of our systems work, especially if we hire from the outside, whether it's software systems, financial administrative systems, and procedures, and records management, and a whole host of things that we'd benefit for some of that transfer of knowledge so we don't have to start from scratch. So the cost associated with this position would be covered by unused salary dollars for those two open firefighter positions that I mentioned previously that we have. So we're looking for your support to do that, not more than 10 weeks. So that over hire request will allow us to hire basically any time after the first week in November. So if we find someone we like right away in the process, you know, we don't want to lose them because we have to wait a month to hire them. But, you know, all things being told, we may not hire that person until the middle of December if we can't find somebody right away.

Thank you. I have a question. Ten weeks is a pretty substantial transition period. Could you please talk to us a little bit about some of the responsibilities, knowledge that you hope to be passed on during that period that might be difficult to do through written procedure?

Yeah, and it's kind of talked about in the memo, but let me also add this, is those 10 weeks are over Thanksgiving. and also over Christmas. So in that time, typically, this employee takes off the week of Thanksgiving and two weeks over Christmas. So we would like to have the new individual comfortable before we even leave on Christmas. But if you look at the memo, it does talk about fire-specific softwares that we use, like NIRS and old software niffers. This position does troubleshoot our RECORDS MANAGEMENT FOR ALL OF our reports through ImageTrend, which is all of our medical information that we put in on every patient that we touch, which is close to 8,000 a year. And then, of course, this position also deals with budgeting, so learning the budget process and does all of the reporting and management of all of our grants, so understanding where we are in those grant processes and reporting process and closing out THEN PROBABLY THE BIGGEST THING THAT THIS INDIVIDUAL WILL HAVE TO GRASP IS OUR 20-YEAR REPLACEMENT PROCESS AND PROGRAM THAT WE HAVE WE DEVELOPED PROBABLY LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO WHERE EVERY SINGLE ITEM IN THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS IN THIS REPLACEMENT PLAN SO WE KNOW WE'RE GOING TO GET A FIVE YEARS OUT OF THIS REFRIGERATOR OR TEN YEARS IT'S IN THERE SO THAT HELPS WITH OUR BUDGET PROCESS MOVING FORWARD SO JUST UNDERSTANDING THAT AND GETTING YOU KNOW It's a very robust document that has serial numbers and warranties and everything. It's kind of our capture of everything fire related.

Thank you, Chief. Are there any other? Yes, please.

I could just add one comment. So a lot of times when we bring an overhire forward, we also talk about the cost. So I just want to make sure we get that on record. If we did a 10-week overhire, obviously we're going to make some assumptions what benefits they'll enroll. We'll bring them in wage-wise. We're looking at wages about $13,979 for the 10 weeks with benefits factored in and I'm going to factor all family-type plans in to kind of get that worst-case scenario above $20,896. So to the chief's point, that is within the vacant salary dollars, but that would be the estimated cost.

Thank you, Derek. Are there any other questions or comments?

Just one comment for your knowledge. This item and the next two items were covered in safety and licensing, so if Audra Lambrick and I are asking questions, it's because we flashed it out in the matinee show.

Thank you. So there is a motion to approve. There's a second. No other comments. All in favor of this action item, please signify by saying yes. Aye. Thank you. All opposed, say nay. All right, that passes 3-0. So we can move on to action item 26-1113, the request, the approval to overhire the police communications specialist position. Move to approve. Second.

I TOLD THE CHIEF I COULD CERTAINLY HANDLE THE TWO ITEMS THAT SHE WAS BRINGING FORWARD TONIGHT. SO GENERALLY SPEAKING, DOING AN OVERHIRES IS PRETTY UNCOMMON GIVEN THE VOLUME OF POSITIONS THAT WE FILL. BUT FROM TIME TO TIME, LIKE THE CHIEF'S REQUEST, IT MAKES SENSE. When we have multiple people in a position, an overhire is scrutinized even more because you have a lot more resources to draw from. But our communications specialist position is somewhat unique in that when you're training for that position, you are really working side by side with someone. Many times they're actually on the call with you, listening in, coaching you. There's a lot that can go sideways if the questions are not answered appropriately. So the person that's leaving us in January is a very seasoned communications person. I'm very much in support of this. I would just add to the numbers, the $4,800, that's wages. But total benefits, if you add in health insurance, that would be about $6,941, but still under the vacant salary dollars, if this were approved.

Thank you, Director. No other questions, comments?

Not this time.

So all in favor of this action item, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? That passes 3-0. Now we'll go on to action item 26-1114, request the approval of changes to the police department table of organization. Move to approve. Second. Any comments on this? Sure.

When you read the memo, it's a lot to sort through. But if I were just to summarize it really quickly, it's really moving the boxes around. It's not adding to staffing. It's taking the community resources division, taking it from the investigations captain and moving it under the downtown captain. The chief feels like that's going to be more efficient for operations. The only other change, instead of moving the entire unit over, one of the officers will still stay under the investigations captain. but it will be moved down to the special investigations unit. Otherwise, all the staff move over. But it's a cost-neutral reorganization. Nonetheless, we're moving the boxes around, changing reporting structures, so it is a reorg that requires committee approval.

Thank you, Director. Any questions or comments on this item? Then all in favor of this action item, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? THAT PASSES THREE TO ZERO. I WILL MOVE ON TO ACTION ITEM 26-1115, REQUEST THE APPROVAL TO OVERHIRE AT THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPUTY DIRECTOR CITY ENGINEER POSITION. MOVE TO APPROVE. SECOND. DIRECTOR?

I'D BE HAPPY TO COMMENT ABOUT THIS. AND I KNOW OUR PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR WAS GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THE MEETING, BUT WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE. WE WERE WAITING FOR THE DATE TO BE OFFICIAL. Long-time employee Pete Neuberger is retiring on January 14th. Hiring civil engineers is difficult. Hiring someone who has the history that he has is going to be difficult, plus he is also the deputy director. So we want to get a start on it, and we want to have some transfer of knowledge. So the overhire is to do about a six week. Over hire if we if we find the right person Total cost and this does include benefits would it be about eighteen thousand nine hundred of that about thirteen thousand five hundred would be wages for the over hire Beyond that just happy to answer if you have any questions on it

I think just in observing that we have three over-hires, what I will say is I appreciate that we're trying to be planful and thoughtful about the long-term operations of the city. And really at the end of the day, it sounds like what we're aiming for is continuous service to our citizens and our residents, not to be interfered with because of life events that occur. And so I just want to commend you all on being thoughtful planning ahead and really bringing this forward for us. Thank you. No further questions.

If there are no further questions or comments, all in favor of this action item, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? That passes 3-0. Our last action item, 26-1112, requests the approval of older person salaries.

Is there a motion? Point of order, Chair. This is an item that it will not be a simple move to approve. This is an item where someone has to make a motion for a particular, and correct me if I'm wrong, Attorney Glad, where we have to actually say, I'm sorry, but where we actually have to say the salary that we're looking for here.

That is correct. There would need to be, for any change, there would need to be a motion for a specific new salary amount. There is a memo that's been prepared. It's in your packets, and I know Director Ratchman can provide some additional information and context regarding what needs to happen with regard to this, but essentially you are correct. Okay.

Would you like to pass it off to the Director, then, or do you have any?

Do you have anything to add? If not, I'm prepared to make a motion, unless you have something you wanted to say ahead of time. Yes.

Yeah. Director Ashman? I think just for the record, one, I've been asked to bring it this early in the year, because I know we have time. So I just want to put that out there. Second thing is what you're voting on is salary for future alder persons or future terms. So you're not voting on compensation for someone who's currently elected in that position. And I think that's important to note. Historically, you have the council or the committee and the council have voted on a single adjustment, which is outlined in the memo. It's option number two. And I just also want to stress that you have three documents. The role of human resources and the attorney's office is to bring this information forward, what your options are, which is the memo, comparable data, and then also the history of what the raises look like. Ultimately, there's no recommendation that comes from human resources or legal services. To our other person's comment, this is something you would take up as a motion for what you'd like to do.

Yes, I'm Aiden. I would like to make a motion for no increase in salary over the next two years for incoming alders next year and alders who are alders in even districts over the next two years that we have elections for.

So would this be the single adjustment? Correct.

That's correct, Chair.

Effectively no adjustment. OK. And as the director pointed out, this is historically what the council has done with salary adjustments, correct?

Correct. Historically, a single adjustment has been on the table.

So you motioned that.

Is there a second? So I will second it. But I have some comments I think I would like to make after I second it. Sure.

Alder Landbrecht, go ahead.

Yeah. I will say, based upon community messaging, some of the things that I hear is the amount of work, effort, and time that is spent by our council. should be compensated appropriately for the for the work that we're doing and we are entering into a budget cycle of which there is a very tight budget and so when it comes down to the decision of increasing council wages versus uh providing services to our community i'm going to align with providing services to our community that said i do think that it uh that that uh that the work that the council does across the board would reflect a higher wage. So even though I would like to have a higher wage for them, I do want to focus our allocation of funding towards the services that we provide.

Thank you, Chair. I agree with Alder Landbrook. The work that we've been doing, honestly, since I think March, I feel incredibly undercompensated. Granted, I will say the work that we did from probably June until March, I felt overcompensated for. So it's a very weird past year that we've had here. That said, we had a raise that we passed last year that will go into effect next year. And as Alder Lambrick suggested, this is going to be a very difficult budget year. So it seems like passing a raise only makes our lives harder come October. So this is the right thing to do for the community right now. And I will also admit that some of the extra work that we've been doing since March has been self-inflicted. So we are kind of creating work for ourselves in some respects.

I completely agree with both of my colleagues here. I will also point out that the council does have, in my opinion, a participation issue. Again, my race was the only contested race in that cycle a couple of years ago. And I think raising the salary, even incrementally, is a step in the right direction. So we have two motions. Are there any questions or comments from Walter Crote?

Just a couple things, and this is why I stayed for the meeting. I just wanted to hear the discussion. First of all, I appreciate the work that's been, or the documents that have been provided by Human Resources. If I may ask Director Ratchman a question? Yes. There is, I know you have a motion on the table, but as far as like urgency to get this, keep this moving, it's my understanding that we have until December to approve something. I might suggest proceeding Since you only have three of your members here tonight, maybe it makes sense to hold it at committee. And it's totally your call. I agree with the motion, by the way. And I appreciate your comments, Alder Lambrecht. But as much as we might be invested in this role, that doesn't mean that someone coming in two years from now will have that same level of investment. Hopefully, right? But someone could come in and do the minimum, or not even that. But I've always and anybody that knows me knows that I vote against older person salary increases I never did this for the money I did it because I wanted to be involved in local government and make a difference in some way shape or form so I appreciate the motion to not increase the salary, but since you only have three I was going to suggest maybe keeping it at committee for a cycle or two and And just maybe have some more time to digest the information I will say that some of this information about about other municipalities is very interesting Especially you know some of the extras you might say and in particular What jumps out at me is what Eau Claire did? It looks like a very big jump in their salary, but some of the Quote-unquote benefits are interesting and Not that I would advocate for any of those, but I do find it interesting. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder Crote.

Hearing Alder Crote's comments, if Alder Lambrick would like to, I would be open to rescinding my motion and moving to hold this until the next meeting of HR and IT, the next necessary meeting, not a meeting that we just addressed this.

Second motion second I need for the comments all just one. Thank you, and I appreciate that and hopefully you have five members here for that But I think it's also good to have some dialogue tonight about it so that they can understand What you know what the direction you're looking at going in? Ideally we'd have a recommendation out a full committee to the council on this so thank you Thank You Alder Alder Director Richmond.

Thank you. Yes, I

So just to address the comment of when we have other things, because we know sometimes we have a full agenda and other times we don't. But I think at some point, if we get into early October, we may just need to meet to talk about this item. So I just want to throw that out there.

Yeah, I appreciate that and I don't want to run up to the deadline by any means but I also think that in years past it was some of us wanted to see what was in the mayor's budget for employee raises and Maybe use that as maybe use that as a guide for older person salaries Yeah, I just would like to add to my comment within reason If there are no further comments or questions

All in favor of this action item, please signify by saying aye. Being held. Oh, being held. This action item being held, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed. This item has been held 3-0. All right. We have one more information item, 26-1118, recruitment status report through August 20th, 2026. Director Ratchman.

Yeah, I guess really nothing major that I would pull out and just address separately. I mean, recruitment continues to be strong. I think as you see on the recruitment status report, there's quite a few processes that are about ready to be wrapped up. So we had a vacancy rate of about 3%. We'll easily be down to 2% or less in the near future. But I'm happy to answer questions on a position if you have one. Any questions? Any comments?

Then I have none. So we can move to action. Move to adjourn. Second. All in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? All right. That passes 3-0. Thank you.