Personnel & Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

And we have a quorum, so I'd like to call the personal finance committee meeting July 13th to order. Sorry, what?

Oh, I didn't know if you called the roll.

No, we haven't called the roll yet, so if you would please call the roll, Chuck.

Hey, Jerry Erickson. Here. Supervisor Rylander. Here. Supervisor Trava.

Trava here.

Supervisor Smith.

Smith here.

Supervisor Brower.

Brower here.

Supervisor Kim. Kim here. Supervisor Andre.

Andre here.

Great. So with that, I just wanted to bring up one other thing. Sorry. Okay, with that, so consideration of minutes, do we have a motion for the minutes from June 16th?

Do a motion.

Great. All in favor? Aye. That passes. All right, next section, section C. Any separations or you want to go through these individually or any questions or do we have a motion to move all three? Anyone?

I'll move all three of them.

Okay. So, Supervisor Chavala moves C1 through 3. Any questions on that? If not all in favor.

All right.

Okay. All opposed that passes. All right so section section D. I know that we've got. Let's see which one was it. The 5 we have a sub so I have to move that's we have to move that separately right.

No, you don't, as long as the person who makes the motion includes sub one for that, res 65.

Okay. And then we have one speaker on 65.

No, the speaker is on the presentation section. That would be Derek. Okay.

Oh, okay.

Which is not part of the referral section of the agenda.

Okay. All right. Then I'm confused. All right. So anybody have separations for Section D? Anyone? No. Otherwise, do we have a motion for D1 through... I'll move.

And to be clear, item five is in that as sub one.

Correct. So just, yeah. So we're clear on that, that that's moving sub one then. Correct. All right. Okay. So we have a motion for that. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? That passes. All right, then we're on to Section E, Committee Action. The first three items are expenses, 16-day expenses. We have a couple other things on here, filling a six-month vacancy and for bid waivers. So anybody want to break those out or move all of them?

Jack, if you don't mind, I'm just going to move one of the, I'm going to separate one of the bid waivers because I just want to ask a little bit more about that. I think that's the first time I've seen those. So why don't I separate D5 or E5, sorry.

Okay. So you're moving the rest of them then except for E5?

I'm just asking to separate E5.

Okay. Do we have a motion for the rest?

Andrea moves approval of E1 through four and six through nine.

Okay. We'll separate five. Okay. All in favor of that?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Okay. That carries. So go ahead with your question then for E5.

Can we just get a little bit more information on how the bid waivers work and what their purpose is, how they work? It seems like there's some here for... Contracts we have with agencies, there might also be some here for equipment. So if we could just get an overview of bid waivers, what our role is as a committee on them, and why these would come to us and some of the dollar limits around those.

Are you asking me?

Whoever's on staff. Yeah, if you have an answer.

I can give you that overview. I can't speak to the one that you separated.

Just in general. In general. Okay.

So, Chapter 25 of the ordinance governs purchasing... general policies and procedures and thresholds. The ordinance provides that in exceptions to competitive bidding, but we have a number of thresholds. So at a certain level, the department can use their discretion. At the next level, they need to get three quotations. At the next level, it needs to go out for a sealed bid unless A bid waiver is granted and for that higher level threshold and it's like 46,000 right now for this year. Those waivers need to be granted by this committee. um so there's kind of conditions under which waivers you know occur um if there's a technical specialty for a vendor if there's sort of like more an emergency kind of a thing if um there's really only one vendor that provides so like continuity of equipment for instances might be one um So those are all presented in these midway reform sort of what category that. It why it's from coming to your attention and then if the committee. Approves the waiver that's the end of it so this doesn't go to the full county board ordinance specifically designates personal finances the committee has that authority.

So if we reject bid waivers to go to the full county board know.

Okay. If you reject a bid waiver, then the department's going to need to follow some other method to procure, which might be issuing a bid, even though they maybe know there's only one vendor. You can go ahead and issue a bid, and you'll get maybe one vendor to submit, and then we go forward.

Yeah, and then... do we have opportunities like just do like vendors have to provide things like sole source letters and justifications? Do we, do we get all that? It looks like for the one I separated there, there is like something that explains the essential functions and how, how it's required. But for when we work with vendors, do we get some kind of sole source justification or. review of that documentation?

We determine if it's a sole source justification. The vendor doesn't do that. We could get a quote from the vendor that says this is the parameters under which this waiver is granted for this particular purchase. We don't rely on the vendors to make that evaluation.

Okay, so like DOA could ask the vendor for like sole source justification if DOA... No, we don't ask.

I said we do not ask the vendors to justify their sole source.

Okay.

The departments and purchasing do their research to identify to determine if there is if the reason for the vendor for their waiver is because there's only one vendor that can provide it, then the department and purchasing are going to research that and come to that conclusion on their own. They may ask a vendor certain kinds of things about it, but we're not – we don't – I'm not sure what you're saying in terms of a sole source, but what we do not do is cut from a vendor's letter of their sole source justification and paste it into the form that's before you if you're suggesting that.

The reason I'm asking is because sometimes my company, we have to – if we're contracting with a government entity – they will say, okay, well, we need a sole source justification for you to submit along with it. So we have to explain why we're the only vendor who can uniquely provide a service.

Oh, yeah, we don't ask the vendors to do that for us.

This is probably out of order and you can rule it out of order if you want to because I think we already worked on this. For example, we had a bid waiver here for Viapath to extend the jail communication contract until March 31st. We could also use bid waivers if we're already contracting with a certain vendor and we want to have some sort of short-term extension on that to provide time and space to do something that's That's another reason why that might happen.

Well, in this case, they are the vendor and there is an RFP that's underway. I'm sure you're aware. Correct? Yes. And that RFP is not concluded. It's circulating now. The contract with Viapath ends October 31st.

Yeah.

So there is not time available to evaluate the responses yet. secure County Board approval for the winning vendor and have that vendor order and install the equipment to implement the communication system before the contract expires. So by ordinance, contracts are limited to almost a five-year term before they need to have another competitive bid or a bid waiver issued. And that's the condition that we are in with Viapath right now is they're beyond that five years. This is the second bid waiver extension that they would have been granted. So that's necessary in order just to continue with them for this transitionary period while the RFP concludes and the approvals are secured. Okay. So a different example would be the one, number five, the one that you separated, which is for the Department of Human Services for Urban League. They provide certain... services under a contract that um and there are always a group of bid waivers for human services providers that go come to this committee early in the year it happened before this current committee was constituted and appointed um but that means that human services can't renew another contract for a sixth year with a provider without either doing an RFP or securing a waiver of bid exception from this committee. This one, for some reason, is a little outside of that cycle that happened earlier this year. And so therefore it's coming before you. So that's where we run into that five-year term. You can't have a sixth year of a contract without going through that review process.

Okay, that all makes sense. That's like a good overview. So we should kind of keep an eye on the bid waivers when they come here. And then one last question.

Go ahead. Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead. This is good.

This is good. We also got this number nine, the bills and accounts, and those are bills over $10,000. That goes to the county board, and that's part of that. Usually the pro forma approval we do of bills over $10,000, that's what that is. That's what those are, right. Okay. Okay.

Now there may occasionally under bills and accounts, there might be the bills and there might be something, then there's also like per diems or maybe some other thing attached to that. Okay. But this will be every, and then there's a, this list is supplemented on tuesday of the county board meeting week for anything that came in after the committee met okay now the committee's meeting today is in the board meetings on thursday this week but that's the typical cycle is this meeting committee is meeting 10 days before the yeah board meeting so the ordinance provides that there can be other ones that get brought up in there okay

Great. Those are all my questions. Thanks for all those detailed answers.

I think that's good. All right. So with that, do we have a motion for that one then?

I'll move five.

Great. Okay. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All opposed? All right. That carries. All right. So... So the next thing is F, right? Yeah, F, presentation discussion items. And do we have a speaker, right, Chuck?

Correct. And Eric Wallace is here, so he should probably take his comment.

I was looking at Rez, and I'm like, so why don't we go with that, and then Derek, and then we're going to have the presentation over the whole handbook process, et cetera. Okay. All right. Derek, go ahead.

It's good. I just, with Ed, I just told him, I didn't say anything mean to cause him to leave. I just told him that they already passed this exception to, for the position, which supportive of, and, you know, certainly that's a valuable position we need to fill. I would have been happy to speak on RISC-65. That's adding positions in my division, too.

I thought, but anyway, sorry. No, you're cool. It's all good. I'm still training. All right.

Handbook. No. Thanks. Okay.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to speak to the committee on the handbook.

Just wanted to quickly, I know this is a new committee with some committee members coming all over from the last committee. some new members. So I just wanted to make everyone aware that there was recommendations passed from this committee. Supervisor Brower and Supervisor Glazer largely took the lead on that last year. So just wanted to go through those quick, just to remind the committee of, you know, it was about a year ago now that these recommendations were you know, approved. If you want to go look in the legislature, it's like Act, or 2025 Act dash 070. But there's kind of a lot of precursor language, and then it gets into several bullet points. So the first one, employee group representatives should have the right to assist employees with the preparation and conduct of reclassification, reallocation, hearings, and appeals. Next bullet point, the existing telework policy currently incorporated as a temporary exception should be made permanent. There's a sub-bullet point, disputes concerning telework should be incorporated into the grievance process. And I think there's a typo, or other third-party resolution process. Another sub-bullet point, the rescission of a telework agreement for discipline and or performance should be directly related to the telework specific concerns. Next bullet points to a new topic. All employees should be made aware of their rights to representation and the role of employee representatives in meetings with managers slash supervisors. where discipline or change in working conditions is a potential outcome. In the final bullet point, employees should benefit from additional policy clarity related to, and then some sub-bullet points here again, circumstances or related procedures for employees during hazardous air quality conditions. Next sub-bullet point, the circumstances and related procedures for employees during extreme heat conditions. And final bullet point, uh procedures for making whole employee whose private vehicle is damaged while being used for accounting business um so you know i think those are all proposals that that we uh as egr representatives um you know strongly support um there i would say that um in this current handbook you know this was a recommendation for the last handbook and there was very very i would guess incremental advancement on some of these, not certainly to the extent that we would have liked to seen. So I just wanted to put that out for the committee's collective. uh recollection and or introduction so um you know we think these are all fairly um you understand the the budget uh scenario that we're in and uh these are all uh fairly i mean have really no financial impact or really negligible impact from our perspective so um so yeah uh that's what i have for you uh and i'm happy to answer any questions otherwise turn over to nick to give more questions for derek

Anyone actually? So last year in the meeting, confirm any of those things then included in the handbook or those still proposed things for this year's

Yeah, you know, so there's still, as Nick was going to mention, there's still going to be one more session where people are developing their proposals as EGR is working on finalizing ours. So I'll just go through one by one. Yeah, there's not really any changes with the... reclassification and reallocation hearing and appeals. For the telecommuting, there was another temporary exception issued. So again, it's not permanent. It's just temporary for this year. There were a couple modifications that we made very slightly in regards to how there is an appeal process that goes directly to DOA. We made some tweaks there. I think that falls short of what was here in the recommendations with using the full grievance process. Let's see. So the representations and meetings. There's been ongoing discussions throughout the past six months, I would say, since we adopted the handbook, but Nothing official yet. And then finally with what we did do in the last handbook, we have a safety and working conditions committee. And so that committee is comprised of managers and EGR representatives. And that committee basically took it upon themselves to provide recommendations to DOA and to PNF. and to present that as a handbook proposal for this next handbook. So, again, very, I would say, incremental steps, but, you know, a lot of outstanding issues on most of these topics. So, is that helpful? Yeah.

Any other questions, Supervisor Andre?

Yes. Can you discuss in the third item, is that basically just like a notice disclaimer that would occur in a meeting, or what would that look like if operationalized, the retro-representation item?

Thanks for the question, Supervisor Andre. I would say this is – so public employees have kind of a combination of rights – before they can potentially be disciplined, um, whether that be, you know, reprimand or suspension or termination, um, they have, uh, it's a combination of wine garden and louder mill rights is the official term that's just based on case law that's gone through the courts over the years. And that's precedence has been established. Um, I think what our The you know, the concern is essentially at the federal level, we've been seeing those rights being chipped away. You may have heard about there's even a proposal at the Supreme Court, a federal Supreme Court to essentially get rid of the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board altogether. And so what we've been trying to do is codify those those rights that exist and still exist. do currently exist on the national level and put them in the handbook so that if there is some sort of change at the federal level, then the practice here at the county level isn't going to change and we're going to still be honoring those protections for employees.

Okay. Thank you. That helps me understand. And then on the first item, is that the same sort of thing where you're just seeking codification of something that exists in practice, or is that changing something that's not allowed right now to allow it instead on allowing EGRs to assist with preparation and conduct of reclassification and reallocation hearings and appeals?

That's another great question. I would say, and I see Shelby here smiling too. I would say there's a different interpretation from whether it's something that's been allowed versus not allowed. I think from the EGR perspective, you know, one of the core tenants of what we do is making sure that people are paid equally for the same type of work. And so, you know, there's a reclassification, reallocation process that exists for employees. And, you know, essentially, not to get too much into the weeds on this, but, you know, there's a process that employee relations does most of the time. I'd say 90, 95, maybe higher than that. They get the decision right. We have no disagreement there. Other times we might. And so what we're looking for, you know, employees do have the right to appeal that oftentimes. And there's a quasi judicial body that will hear those appeals. And so the county is there. The employee relations division is going there to those appeals and representing their case, why they think, you know, their decision was correct. The employee has the ability to go there and make their case. And from our perspective, we think the employee group representative should also have that same right to be there without the same statuses, for example, as employee relations, there to make that same case and offer that different perspective.

And right now that happens sometimes or never, or that's what the problem is. There's not really a policy about that.

Right. I would say that's the problem.

Okay. Thank you. And then just an education opportunity for me, very last item, and I could speak with Shelby about this too, but what are the conditions under which an employee is using their own private vehicle for county business that this is trying to address? Is that happening all the time? I know we've got the fleet, but I don't have a concept of whether that's an exception to things or if there are certain county employees based on their jobs that are using their own private vehicles all the time.

I'd say it's most common with our social workers who might be transporting clients in their own personal vehicles. For the most part, I would say in my local 720, we're typically using county vehicles, but there are occasions when they might use their own personal vehicle. But yeah, I would say with the social workers and transporting clients is probably the most common one that I'm aware of in that.

And there's like a policy under which you're allowed to use your own personal vehicle or not. Okay.

There's an APM policy on vehicle use and in the handbook too, actually.

And right now, is there a policy about personal vehicle damage or it's just silent on this issue and you're trying to make a policy about it?

Yeah, I don't think there is a policy specifically listed. So yeah, I think the intent is to recognize that additional risk that employees are taking on when they are transporting individuals who are in the, you know, basically the residents that we're serving within their own personal vehicles.

Okay. Thank you for the education.

Great. Any other questions for Derek? Anyone? Anyone? Okay. So then the next part was we were getting an overview of the handbook process, I believe.

Would you like me to move over there or are you sitting here? Fine.

You're not blocking anything there.

Okay.

I mean, unless anyone wants them. Otherwise, I think you're fine right now.

I was just asking the committee's preference. Before I begin on the handbook item, I do want to just point out that last year, as the Personnel and Finance Committee was considering changes to the Employee Benefit Handbook and As the whole county board was considering changes, the DOA director at the time, which was previously Greg Brockmar, did write a memo that describes how all of the changes that Derek were, as recently talked about, how the handbook that was proposed to be revised addressed all of those points. And I have a copy of that memo. I'd be happy to share that memo again with members of the board if you are interested. Can you send it to us, please? Yes. I can do that. Thank you. That does describe as to how the handbook last year did make progress on a number of those items and sort of what transpired over the course of that handbook.

So I'll share that information. That'd be great. Thank you.

I would just respectfully ask that we include that in the minutes because it's like a core, you know, attachment policy, blah, blah, blah.

I'll send it to Chuck as well. Okay.

Thank you.

the above. Thank you. Okay so we're here to talk about the 2026 review of the employee benefit handbook because there are a number of new committee members we thought this might be better structured as a presentation and provide some kind of key background pieces of information that kind of leads us along. So we are engaging in the review of the employee benefit handbook now. We have had a number of sort of proposal sessions that are underway, but we first wanted to start with maybe just some background about the process. Can I move to the next slide, please? So what is the Employee Benefit Handbook? Prior to Act 10, the county had several union contracts And after Act 10, the county passed an ordinance that would establish the terms and conditions of employment in an employee benefit handbook. A couple things to point out. There are multiple employee benefit handbooks. There's one for each employee group. 65, which is primarily the employees at the airport, the zoo, and highway. There are also some at AAC. 705 and 720 are the sister locals. 720 is the one that Derek represents, and they're the largest employee group of all of the employee groups. 895 is the nurses employee group. They used to be with SEIU, so sometimes you will see them referred to either as nurses or 1199, which is their number with when they were with SEIU before they were with ASME. Um, 1871 is the professionals, uh, and 2634 is the social workers. And then there's the trades, which doesn't have a number. And then attorneys, which doesn't have a number. Um, and the attorneys, uh, represent themselves. Uh, and the trades, uh, are represented by the building trades council. Um, The handbooks contain a number of different provisions. Each one of those different handbooks are a 100-page-plus document that contain very detailed policies about how things work. They contain provisions like how much vacation time employees receive, how much sick time employees receive, when they can use sick time, what happens to unused sick hours, what are the reimbursements for tools and uniforms, and how frequently can those reimbursements be received, how is an employee compensated when they serve as an election official, or what happens when they attend jury duty. The handbook describes all of these things. And then it also has provisions for how leave balances are converted at the point of retirement and how does that work. And then there's many more policies. I'm just trying to provide a general overview as to what's all in the handbook. And if you have specific questions, I can either respond or provide the kind of information after the fact.

So can we move to the next slide?

So how is the handbook updated? So ordinance, specifically it's 1824-4B, requires the county to engage in a review of the handbook on an annual basis. And from this requirement, the county has described what has become a more interactive process for that review to take place. Can we move to the next slide, please? So what does that review look like this year? And then we'll kind of give you a sense about what that process looks like overall. So we begin with a number. We start actually with a notice to all county employees that that process is going to take place. And we submitted that notice. I'm forgetting exactly when, but it was sometime in the middle of June. It was at least two weeks before the 25th. I don't have the exact number, or exact date in my head. So we give all county employees that the process is going to start, and then we lay out the schedule for that process. For this year, there are three proposal sessions. What happens at those proposal sessions, any employee presents a proposal that they have for changing some aspect of the handbook. And we listen to what their proposal is. They explain what they see is the need for the proposal. There are clarifying questions that are asked of the proposal. Like, did you mean this thing when you really meant this thing? How does this work with this provision? That type of thing. And then we try and also ask questions. that any comments that are regarding support or opposition to that proposal to try and limit any kind of like robust debate, goes to a website that we've created. So there is an engagement website that's available to all county employees. It's through Connect to Dane. It is where ultimately we post the handbooks when we get them. It's there. It's available for everyone. It has a comment feature that's available for anyone to see, and anyone can comment on the site. And they can kind of post about, you know, whatever they see fit during that process. Like I said earlier, these are opportunities for all employees to be able to present a revision or a new section to the employee benefit handbook. We record all of these sessions and post the recording to the engagement website. So someone has any question as to what happened during the recording, they can go back and view the recording of that session. And then after the fact, we also allow There's like a comment period for any last comments that are made. So someone makes a proposal at the last session and they weren't there to respond to that proposal, but they want to be able to respond to that proposal. We hold kind of a deadline for all kind of comments to be received and to be posted to that website. And then we wait for all of that stuff to be in. And once all of that feedback is in and presented, oh, can we move to the next slide, please? Sorry. After all those proposals are presented, the Department of Administration does a significant amount of research and explores the effects of all of these proposals. We want to particularly understand if there's any sort of cost implications of those proposals and just other effects that could occur. Additionally, we then hold a number of discussions with interested stakeholders on all of the proposals that are presented. And we have a number of them scheduled out for the course of this year. And these discussions continue and they will continue throughout this summer and the early fall. Ultimately, those discussions result on a resolution to approve changes to the employee benefit handbook. Once those discussions have gotten to the point where they reach a handbook, that all parties feel comfortable in advancing.

Quick question before we move to the next slide. Sure. All right. Well, now we see it here. Okay. I was just wondering if the bullet point that says DOA holds discussions with interest stakeholders, if that was the point at which you're seeking guidance from this committee and that's listed here. Just trying to figure out where it fits in this timeline and flow.

So we're here to kind of ask the question of what the committee's policy priorities are today, but also like I think last year the committee asked us to come back at a later date. We're happy to kind of work however the committee would see best fit. We think it's a little bit better to have that guidance in advance so we know what that guidance is when we engage in these discussion sessions. It's useful to have that information while we're continuing those discussions. It's harder for us to deal with that after the fact. The ordinance also requires that we get the guidance before a draft is sort of posted. And so if our discussions are kind of going along the line of sort of producing a draft, we need to have that policy priority before we get to a draft that's posted on our ordinance. So we wanted to ask, so the county ordinance grants the Personnel and Finance Committee the opportunity to provide policy guidance on potential changes to the employee benefit handbook. And we see this as a conversation to get your policy guidance. And we wanted to ask, you know, what are the committee's ideas? And are there any broad topics that the committee is interested in?

Okay. I guess that's a question for us. It is. Okay, but aside, are there any questions on the rest of the presentation?

That's not all I have. If you've got questions that you want me to answer first, I'd be happy to do that. And then my question back to you, you can maybe do after the fact.

Yeah, but are there any questions on anything else in the presentation?

Has consensus ever not been reached since this process started? We've not.

We've always kind of operated from a document that we have had consensus on.

And just 30,000-foot level, it's very detailed, but what would happen if there's consensus about everything but one thing? Does then everything else get opened up through an arbitration process? Or what is the scope of what happens next if there's not consensus?

There are provisions under both ordinance and in the handbook that's called the independent consultant's procedure. We have not used that procedure at all. So how exactly it shakes out, a little unknown. And so it's kind of hard because I don't have any examples I can talk about how it's sort of ever shaped out because we've never, we've never done it that way. But there are some broad discussions under ordinance that the independent consultant hears proposals and makes a choice. as to which of those proposals are sort of going forward.

Just under the ones that were under contention?

I believe so.

Okay. And then there's a whole separate process for the deputies. That's totally unrelated to any of this under bargaining.

Correct. The deputies themselves are, because they're still allowed under Act 10 to have collective bargaining, the deputies have their processes entirely a regular collective bargaining process.

Okay, great. And is there a deadline in ordinance by which this must all come before the county board, or we just need it all to facilitate other conversations?

There isn't a deadline in ordinance. There's a practical effect deadline. The reason is that a number of the changes we ultimately have synced for payroll to begin at the beginning of the payroll year. And so in order for those changes to be done first, pay period one, there's usually a number of changes that have to happen behind the scenes on either payroll categories or other things that have to get coded into the system that need time. So that means if those changes have to be taken care of before December, before the beginning of the payroll year, they have to be done with time in order to get that implemented. Other changes may require a longer time horizon as well, just in order to make those changes be implemented for the next year.

Okay. Thank you for playing the memo from Greg McClure last spring. I now know how much it costs to park in the county parking ramp for a month.

Yeah, very niche items.

And then can you just touch on briefly what does go through this process related to employee benefits and what is not subjected to this process?

That's a good question. Anything that is in the handbook, or could be in the handbook is a part of this process. So if someone wants to have a new benefit and that's not currently entertained by the handbook and they want the handbook to cover that terms and conditions, it could be a proposal. So there's not really much of a limit.

Maybe another way of answering that question would be to describe the distinction between what's in the handbook versus the administrative practices manual.

Oh, so... The administrative practices manual is just things where we have county policies where we issue what the county policy is on a number of topics. So there are oftentimes areas where we want to, we have a county policy and it has been an ask of a number of employee groups to incorporate some of those county policies into the handbook. We have discussions on those. There are a lot of policies where things need to change frequently, and we don't always see that it is important for those details to be in the handbook. So if the, like our, like HIPAA policy, there's like some new federal regulation that came out. We would update our policy regularly. If it would be in the handbook, it would be, we would have to wait until we're doing a meet and confer process or do some other process in order for it to be a part of the handbook. Am I missing anything on that?

No, I think the administrative process just allows us to set administrative rules, right, which aren't technically always benefits to employees. Sometimes it is HIPAA. Sometimes it's how you protect your computer when you walk away from it. It's not really a handbook item or entity. And so it gives us a little more procedural background, process background, not so much employee benefit background. Okay.

I guess I'll muddy the waters a little bit because I think what might you be thinking of is, so sometimes in the past when we adopted things like paper and a leave or community service time off, we've done those things through the budget process. And the budget resolution would have a language that says the department administration can issue an administrative practices manual policy on this topic. And then we put those top report policy out on that topic. A number of those things where we've done a policy like that have now become things in the handbook language. So that's part of the reason why there are employee group asks on a lot of our handbook policy or APM policies to move them into the handbook. But we have discussions on those about, you know, do we think that's appropriate or not?

Are you good? Okay. Any other questions on the presentation?

Well, I just, before I interject, because I know there's some, this go-around, there's some thoughts on some things that we want the administration to consider. But before we delve into that, I want to point out, you know, I think these two bullet points here, this is sort of our, there's been a bit of a struggle for several years of what, at what point, And is there a single point versus is it more of an iterative process that the committee is engaging in providing guidance? And I think part of the struggle has been that before meeting confer starts, the members of this committee may not be aware of of potential issues or areas of concern, either from the administration or from employees. And so that's where I think, where it might be helpful for there to be an iterative process of the committee getting informed what and maybe the guidances after the proposals are made in these sessions that the committee can be informed about what those things being raised are and what maybe are some of the broader value and policy um areas of contention that the committee can might be able to provide some direction to the department on where they see the support of the board um going for those things um just a thought that's about not having just a single point of contact where you're seeking guidance from the committee but but that cycle of being informed the committee being informed after these sessions and then and then providing guidance over two or three meetings that's just one of my thoughts

Okay. Any more thoughts?

Yeah.

Also, I'm not missing anybody online, right? Supervisors who are online? They should be using the chat. I pressed it. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry, Supervisor Brower.

Okay.

So go ahead.

I went with the hand up and the chat. I just want to co-sign what Supervisor Chair Miles was saying about it being an iterative process. Because I think that this process, from my perspective, is both about things that the County Board, its preferences that we'd like to see implemented, but also related to proposals that are made along the way to be responsive to those. and to provide commentary about proposals that may or may not match a general set of preferences that we have about the handbook revision process. So not only staking out what are some value-based positions that we'd like to see implemented, but also the opportunity to be responsive to proposals that we see as maybe leading astray from those values that we've kind of set out in our policymaking. So I just want to offer some words of support in that regard.

Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yeah, my other miscellaneous process question. So everyone reaches a consensus. This is great. But and then it comes for the county board. Can the county board line item changes? Or we just approve or reject as we would any other? And it's a contract. So is that the situation?

It's not a contract. It is a handbook. So the handbook does get attached. If there is consensus that is reached and there's one thing and no independent consultant procedure was worked, the board has to approve the document up or down. There's no ability for the board to do amendments on that. the fly. I do believe that if the independent consultant procedures use that there is an opportunity for the board to kind of weigh in on the specific recommendations of the independent consultant. But again, we have never used that procedure. So the exact process is something that we will have to talk through with court counsel as to how that actually kind of works. To Supervisor Brower and Chair Miles' point, one of the things that the ordinance talks about is policy guidance. If we haven't interpreted that as guidance on every specific proposal, we have usually done that in terms of general principles as we approach these discussions rather than what do you want us to do on every single one of these topics. Just because from an administrative perspective, practice that's very difficult last year there were like 75 proposals the year before there were like a hundred different proposals uh it is a long time to kind of go through and wade in on all of those different items uh and the part of the reason why we produce the memo about what's in the changes in the handbook and are transparent about that that does kind of comment on what the committee's priorities are is because we're trying to explain how we took the guidance that we heard from the committee and how that was carried out throughout the process. And that's part of the reason why we're kind of asking here today what the overall approach that the board would have is as we're approaching some of these discussions before we wade into them.

Okay, so no other questions about the presentation? then we'll go into, you know, broad topics that we're interested in. Anyone? Supervisor? Yeah.

So thanks for that presentation. Thanks for all those questions to kind of set this up. We have had a lot of discussions here about not only a budget deficit, but a structural deficit. And a lot of that has been related to health care costs, which have gone up 25 million since 2021. and around $7 million in this year alone. And when we look at health care costs, in general, the premiums are approaching 10% of the entire budget. Now, with that being said, one of the values that we have here is to have robust health insurance because it's a retention and recruitment tool. And we also want industry out there to have to compete with the county's benefits to try to raise everybody's benefits up. With that being said, when we're looking at how to kind of attack or, you know, solve our budget problems, one of the pieces of guidance we got was to have a $5 million reduction target in healthcare costs. So to that end, there's a number of recommendations that we would like DOA to explore. Right. Also, after I read through all these recommendations, there will also be a request coming from me to have an additional meet and confer session that is dedicated to healthcare discussions, in addition to the ones that are on the calendar. The list of things that recommendations for DOA to look into, first is everything that was in the M3 presentation. That gets you somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million. We'd like you to look. at those M3 recommendations and give us all permutations of those so we can see what the maximal savings are as some of those are redundant and you can't apply all of those to get to that total savings. There's some ceiling to all of those savings. We'd like you to look into an opt out benefit for employees who can get health insurance elsewhere, who can provide proof of health insurance. And I could provide a write up of this at the end. And we could call that the cash in lieu benefit where this is a new benefit for employees to get some cash if they're not eligible. taking county health insurance to explore some of the high deductible plan options that were in the m3 presentation but pair those with a new benefit which would be a health savings account those accounts are triple tax advantage when you contribute to them when they grow and when you withdraw money from those so they'll definitely be a premium savings if You go from an HMO or PPO plan to a high deductible health plan, but that premium savings should be provided, some percentage of that should be provided as a new benefit to employees. Also to look into individual coverage health reimbursement accounts, IPRAs, where the employees can use those funds to get reimbursed for qualified medical expenses, including premiums for individual market health insurance. Also look into implementing what's called progressive premium sharing where employees pay a percentage, but that's based on wage. Wages where the higher earners would pay higher percentage because when we had things like percentages of COLA changes, the higher earners were getting a better benefit out of that. They were getting more money in their pockets. So looking at an employee salary at the beginning or at an enrollment period, and determining some structure to see what percentage, if any, they would pay, and then that would move up as employees had higher income levels to look into phasing out retiree eligibility for county insurance, health insurance, once a retiree reaches Medicare age. Just to clarify, if there is somebody who is Medicare age but still employed by the county, that not for them, but just for retirees, Also to look into the percentage of PPO premiums paid by employees and PPO plans. Currently it's 25% of the difference between the HMO and the PPO premium. So to look at that. Now, when we look at all of these changes, they're obviously gonna be more than 5 million, but the goal is to say like, this is a big menu of possible changes. Can we have DOA, the employee groups, with the guidance and support of the county board, come to a consensus for how we can get to $5 million? And can we have all the options available so not only employee groups, but also DOA and the county board can look into all these options? And with many choices, the goal is to try to reach some consensus on it. So based on all of these requests, I assume DOA would have to do a lot of homework on this. And I feel like, you know, one of the things is having that dedicated meet and confer session to have all of these discussions and, And to try to come to a consensus that can help inform what the county board would have as a budget proposal, what the executive would have. And we can look at the parts that would go and meet and confer. And we look at the parts that were part of a contract and come to kind of like a grand consensus amongst everybody.

I think we're happy to take a look at the calendar for a fourth meeting conferred that focuses on insurance with the call out that those M3 changes are planned changes that would go through the contract. And so kind of centering on what we can focus on the handbook versus what would have to be done via a contract addendum. So with that caveat, but I think we're happy to look at the calendar.

Okay. So you have that and you have everything else that Supervisor Chabla said. Yeah. Okay, do you have anything else? Otherwise, I have another supervisor who wants to speak.

Yeah, no, this is all good. I can provide a write-up of this as well if that would make life easier.

It would.

Okay, great. Okay, did you have anything else?

No.

Okay, excellent. Supervisor Smith?

Thanks.

Yes.

Yeah, so I appreciate the overview of the handbook process and That clarification at the end on kind of the differences between a contract addendum and what we're talking about with the with the employee handbook. I also think. it's important for us to be thoughtful about what we're talking about for plan year 2027, whether it's in meet and confer discussions or whether it's a contract addendum, like in addition to those changes to the handbook language, or if it's for the future RFP for the next contract for the next health insurance provider for the county. You know, I think just going back to last year and last fall when we had these discussions at this committee about some of the proposed changes that had come down last year. From my perspective, my word on that to the employee groups had been, you know, if you're given a dollar amount of savings. can you do the homework of identifying what those savings, what you could do to add up to those savings? And, you know, I think so far this year they've received, you know, $5 million in savings, like request from, from the executive is my understanding. And I think to, to some of the things you mentioned, you know, supervisor Chablon, like some, some homework needs to be done. Well, the good news is I think the employee groups have been doing homework for the which things they think can add up to maybe not all the way to the $5 million yet, or maybe some of it we just need to hone in on what the dollar amount is. I think it's getting pretty close. And I think some of these other ideas that would go beyond $5 million can be part of that secondary track of conversation for the next RFP process, what things can make the county more appealing so we get additional health insurers rather than just the one that are responding to an RFP in the future so we can be more competitive as a potential client. in that landscape. I think those are worthwhile conversations to be had. I just think I want to be precise in what we're talking about, whether we're talking about something that's language changes in the handbook, something that's a contract addendum for plan year 2027 with the current health insurer, or something that is a future adjustment for the next contract in terms of how we are describing and outlining the health plan expectations and needs for plan year 2028 and beyond. So I think from my perspective, I think there are a number of great ideas that have been proposed that the employee groups have worked on and worked with M3 on. And I know you referenced many of those things that get to the savings that we need for 2027. And then these other conversations, I think we just can also have, but don't need to be presented as like, this is something that this committee or this board necessarily needs or expects for 2027, for these changes to come down, like changes to premiums, expectations for employees to pay premiums, or high deductible health plans, though those can be certainly tools to be put into a future RFP in terms of how we want the plan structured going forward. So I just wanted to say, you know, I think in general, all of these ideas that are floating around and out there, everything has pros and cons. Everything has some merit for potential cost savings. I also just think it's important to be very clear of which thing are we talking about? Does it have to happen right now? Would it be implemented for next year? And is it necessary for next year? Or can we kind of, from my perspective, from what I committed to, I think, during the discussions we had last September, is if the employee groups are given a cost savings to reach for and they're able to achieve it with things that they're willing to compromise on, then I think that's the approach to take the coming year uh and then can go from there for for future years and future discussions about more substantive changes in the next contract uh with whoever the next insurer would be okay great thank you all right any other supervisor andre um yeah i'll i'll just um

You know, share my thinking, too, as a new member of the committee and all this, essentially that I would I'm really hopeful and optimistic that, you know, it's possible to find five million dollars in savings where there is strong consensus. And to me, that that's sort of the minimum bar to achieve. I know that's hard to hear because. The operating deficit is looking a little bit better than it was earlier in the year, but I'm still very mindful that there are big problems to resolve in future years, too. So I would love to see a solution that doesn't include what may be seen as some of the more aggressive proposals for next year. But I do think it's important to have those in the mix. Because we do have an imminent budget challenge. And I don't know how that consensus process is going to work out. So I kind of see them as... worst-case scenarios for 2026, but perhaps something that will need to be considered really seriously for 2027. And I do also want to note my appreciation for all the work that both DOA and the employee groups and the IEC have been doing on this issue for months now. and that these issues are being taken really seriously. And I understand there's a lot of work behind the scenes with employees to actually maybe estimate what the uptake of various proposals will be so that we're making informed decisions or not, you know, shooting in the dark on any of these things. So, um, I appreciate that all of that is in the mix. I would be hopeful that we can land somewhere, um, that that doesn't feel really aggressive, but that still, um, addresses this $5 million target. And I just appreciate the work that's going into it now. I do think that some of these more creative and what might be seen as aggressive, but still very, unfortunately, standard in the health benefit landscape would need to be considered in future years, very seriously, just looking down the next few years. And as Supervisor Smith mentioned, to potentially make ourselves more competitive for additional respondents to 2028 RFP.

Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody else have any other suggestions?

Anybody?

No? Okay. You want online? No? No? Great. Okay. All right. So thanks for the presentation. I think that's really helpful. It's always a good refresher as well as for new folks. And you have some ideas from us, which is what you were asking for, correct? And you'll get the list of those. Send those on as well. And we'll send it to everybody, the whole committee, so we all have it as well.

Sure. I'll just put an email.

Yeah.

And then should I send it to, should I just send it to those guys? Should I send it to the whole committee?

It needs to be in the minutes, doesn't it?

Obviously send it to them, but send it to Chuck so it can be included in the minutes. Okay.

And then I would like to send it out to the whole committee too. Okay. All right. So you have that. Anything else from you guys? No. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you very much for that. Okay. Well, if there's nothing else on item F, we just have G. So our next meeting is not until next month. So it's on August 10th. Okay, everyone got that 530 you spoke so I just want to make sure that. And public comment on items, not on the agenda and then business such other businesses allowed by law and otherwise ask for an intern. Great all in favor. All right, that passes. Thank you very much. Everyone have a good evening.