Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress

All right, it is 5 o'clock, so we'll call the City of Manitowoc Personnel Committee to order. All members are present with the exception of Alder Bill Schley. Okay. Public comment. Is there anyone here for public comment? I do not see. It's pretty quiet. Chief, you have public comment? Okay, anybody online for public comment? Any previously received public comment? Okay, so we will move on. All right, next item is consent agenda. Any items that we would like removed from the consent agenda?

All right.

All right, it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, so moving into discussion and action items. First item on the agenda is discussion on the 2027 budget at the request of Mayor Nichols.

Thank you. You're the first committee, so... I did send my budget memo that I sent to all department heads to the chairs of each standing committee. So Alder Sickwitz and Norell definitely should have received that. But really just wanted to have a conversation. Anything personnel related? Any requests that you have? Any questions you have going into the 2027 budget? Budgets are due from each department by the end of this month here. And in September, we'll start compiling it. So if there's anything... you want to know or anything you would like to see added in it now would be a great time to share that information with me so i'm here to listen to you or take questions if there are any any questions for the mayor any comments for the mayor you'll see me again several times on other committees but figured it would be nice to just focus maybe on on personnel, the employees, health insurance, benefits, anything that does make up the vast majority of the budget.

I have nothing at this time.

I have none.

Anything, Eric? Nothing that I haven't said all year long.

I'm not sure we have anything at this point. So we know we're transitioning on the health insurance plan, and obviously we won't know how that performance is until we start that transition. Do you have anything else you'd like to share related to that with the committee?

With the health plan, not really. We just had a meeting with our brokers this past week and our numbers are looking more favorable than they were at this time last year. So until we have July and August numbers though, we're not going to have a great idea of how the plan is going to end up this year. As far as how UMR is going to impact our bottom line, again, we're not going to know that until probably mid to end of next year.

Any ideas on what we believe the increase is going to be?

Ballpark? Estimated ballpark?

Approximately 13% at this point. Double digits.

Which is around last year, correct? Last year was?

It was a little higher. But it was double digits. It started out a little higher. I think it got down to about 14%.

Yeah, so right around that same is what we're looking at now, yeah. And as for non-rep employee wage increases or adjustments, we'll get those numbers usually in September from comps or inflation or whatever cost of living adjustments. So we'll put all that together to come back to the committee for what you feel you also want to see there. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, real quick on the compensation side of it, I guess when we take a look at the total compensation for employees, non-reps especially, I know we use comps throughout our peers and then what their rates of pay are. And then we try to benchmark benefits. Can we also get the information on what percentage split other municipalities are asking their employees to pay of the health insurance versus what we're asking employees to pay? Because I think that goes to also compensation at the end of the day.

Yes.

So you're talking about the premium, the 12 and a half that the employee contributes right now? Yep. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's a good data point. Thank you.

I guess I'll just say for the two that didn't get the memo, I'm not looking at adding any positions to this next budget. Right now it's looking a little tight, but not looking at eliminating any positions either. Looking at just more of a thorough review of each position, though, to see where we could maybe find some efficiencies. I did implement a hiring freeze for the remainder of this year for all positions other than police and fire union personnel. So any position that comes up, unless it's deemed absolutely necessary will be held for the remainder of this year, but budgeted for in 2027, most likely budgeted for in 2027, unless we find throughout the process that we can find ways to work around that. But the budget isn't in horrible shape. There's not. warning that there's going to be fire and brimstone anytime soon in 2026. But if you recall, we do have money that we put in the budget as fund balance applied. That's basically anything we save through the year. We make up that way, so we don't have to increase taxes necessarily as much to offset. We use money that we save through the year. That number... We've met that number every year, and I don't anticipate we won't this year, but it's always a gamble. We've had fortune of having mostly full employment, I would say, for most every department, which is a good thing. But in years past when we didn't have that, we saved a lot of those dollars where we put in a separate fund for years. So when we talked about equity adjustments for certain positions or mid-year adjustments we could take from those dollars, those dollars have not have been as robust as they have in the past because we've had pretty good employment for every position that we budged, which is a good thing. But on the reverse, we're not seeing those same types of dollars as we did in the past. So that's probably the main reason for the hiring freeze for the remainder of the year. I appreciate the time. And like I said, I'll see you again at other committees. So if you think of something, share them. Sounds good.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. All right. Next item on the agenda, 260666, update drug and alcohol policies, August 2026. I assume that's you, Jesse.

That is me, thank you. We were contacted by the DOT several months back, letting us know that it's been five years or so since our last audit that we had, and that's typically the transit division that gets audited by the DOT. They did make a strong recommendation that we look at our policy and make some revisions that are necessary. Just through the years, things tend to change slightly. In the process of doing that, we also looked at our policy that is in effect for all other non-DOT employees and made some changes there as well. I did work with the DOT on the DOT regulated policy and I worked with CIVMIC on the employee alcohol misuse and anti-drug policy to get these revised and I'm bringing them forward, recommending that you authorize me to update these policies and send them out to all employees to have them review and sign off on them.

All right. Are there any questions for Jesse related to the two policies?

I'd like to ask some questions. First, thanks for doing all the work, and you also answered some of my questions already, so that's great. I was curious about what seems like the limiting the employee's ability to self-report a drug or alcohol problem. The DOT policy, I was guessing, would probably be a bit stricter and more related to state guidelines.

State and federal, correct.

But our own policy as well.

Correct.

Can you explain that to me a little bit better?

About the DOT? Or the non-DOT?

The non-DOT.

The self-reporting, is that?

Yeah, there was a section in there about the city reserving the right to, let's see what page is that on? Seven, page seven, the city reserves the right to waive this provision in instances where the self-admission comes after the selection for testing or after a violation.

And you're just wondering what that refers to? Yeah, that was recommended to be put in there by CIVMEC, and that is so that if we do a random test or a reasonable suspicion test on an employee and it comes back positive, that the employee doesn't come forward and then say, oh, yeah, I'm self-admitting, so that if that is the case, that we can move forward in a way that we deem necessary.

Okay.

That was all. Any other questions for Jesse? I am flipping back between, I see there was one highlighted in the DOT. One, there's a comment, and I'm trying to go back and forth between them to find it again, but it was whether or not we wanted to keep language in here. It's on the red line, it says page 17, and it just says, does the city want to keep this sentence? What does sufficient opportunity mean? I don't know if the pages line up in the.

I'm sorry, can you repeat what page?

It's on page 17 of the, it says page 17. Of the track version? Yeah, I'm assuming, I don't know how it, I'm trying to find it in the other one, if you kept the sentence or not. Was that question answered?

That was a question from the DOT.

Under the self-admissions. Self-admission. I'm just trying to find that in the article.

No, we didn't strike that.

You didn't strike it, okay. All right. The only other thing I saw is on page, this is just a type of, just a small correction. On page 19, at the top of the page, I'm sorry, the line right above DOT drug testing, city's not capitalized on city of Manitowoc. I just caught it when I was looking through it. It just happened to jump out at me.

I'm sorry.

On page 19 of the clean copy.

Of the DOT?

Yep, right above where it says DOT drug testing. The confirmation test results are those the city of Manitowoc city's not capitalized.

Gotcha, okay. We'll update that. Thank you for catching that.

Yeah. Okay, any other questions for Jesse? Then I believe we need a motion to approve the policies. Motion to approve. Second. Second, so first by Beam and second by Benzing. To approve the policies as presented. All those in favor, or I'm sorry, any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. So, or do we skip that one and just take the next one or do we go into closed session now?

We can talk about this one at the end, after we come back, we'll close now.

Okay, so the next item on the agenda is for closed session 0670. So notice is hereby given that the above governmental body may adjourn into a closed session during the meeting as authorized by section 19.85 sub 1 sub e of the Wisconsin statutes, which authorizes the governmental body to convene in closed session for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties The investing of public funds or conducting other specified public business, whether competitive or bargaining reasons, required a closed session. The subject matter that may be considered in closed session is update on police contract bargaining. The motion to convene in closed session was made by Alderperson. So moved. Sicklewitz. And seconded by Beeman. All right. We are in. Oh, sorry. Sicklewitz. Aye. Beeman. Aye. Benzinger. Aye. And Norellis and I. All right, we are in closed session. Okay, we are back in open session for item 26-0670. There is no action taken. Next item on the agenda is September Personnel Committee meeting date, because I believe our next meeting is scheduled on Labor Day.

Correct. Typically, when that happens, we will move it to the Thursday of the same week, which I believe would be the 10th, if that works. Otherwise, we could look at the Thursday before, if it works better for the committee.

Go ahead. Well, we're running to the same issue, and we're going to discuss it at finance coming up next. And we always moved it farther down the line because finance was Tuesday. So we could just slide it to Tuesday. whatever Tuesday the 8th there's nothing that shouldn't be nothing on the calendar for in here because unless there's something unique but that's typically the slot of finance so we could my recommendation at finance it could be just a slide over to Tuesday looking at others does that work Okay, you won't be at finance either then? No.

At five o'clock?

Five o'clock, same time. And that's what you said you're gonna do at finance? That's what I was recommending when we talked about it in a couple minutes. So I would say yes, let's move to that. If it works also for finance, if not, I think we can- We can probably adjust. We can adjust after finance makes your decision, if that works. Okay, so that is that, and that exhausts our agenda, so I'd look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second? All right, we are adjourned. Thank you.

Great. Great. D8. D8. They're one of them.

D8. The tabs are the ones. Grab the tabs.

Great. Was it? I don't know.

Recording stopped.

I saw a kid get out of one side, so somebody was dating somebody. So this is a positive. So we're going to use that, right? There's no way we could have gone to the 10th with that meeting because the 10th is wide open.

Is that Thursday? Yeah. Let's see.

You just sign up. Anything that actually you voted on that's not consigned, you can sign up.

Yes.

I'm trying to remember. I had two things going today. One was Paul. That guy? Paul Miller. Yeah. He goes, I sent it out, and then I realized, he says, wait a second. That's not my older brother.