Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, it is 5 o'clock. We will call the Personnel Committee for the City of Manitowoc to order. Roll call. All members are present. Next item on the agenda is public comment. Is there anybody here for public comment? Second call. Anybody here for public comment? Anybody online for public comment? Any previously submitted public comment? All right, so no one is here, so we will close public comment. Next item is the consent agenda. Any items that members of the committee would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Move and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right, next item, discussion action items. First item on the agenda, 260760, update on benefit plan and performance from McClone.

All right, I think you guys should also have a copy of just a few items that are listed for pre rule summary for the January of 2027 upcoming renewal. Couple of things have couple of items happening in benefits, one of which is a move to United health care, self-funded TPA from health partners in 2027. A couple of reasons for that. There's just been some third parties, different contracts that we believe the TPA should have in-house, different knowledge levels of self-funding that are a little bit better manner, and a broad network for you guys to include, increasing some discounts to your claims. Other items that we are looking at, we have not firmed, are going to be updates to any deductible, out-of-pocket, and or premium recommendations. Those are still forthcoming depending on where we have and we see the renewal with further information with August data. We wanted to just give you an update in regards to the move to National Rx Pharmacy in 2026. Just in the first quarter of 2026, we saw over $20,000 in additional rebates coming back, including a lot of discounts in those pharmacy claims for us already in that first quarter of 2026. Quick reminder that you do for the city also have a transplant policy in place that helps for the additional risk from a high dollar claims perspective. We're also running some Medicare education meetings later on this week to help those folks that are over 65 or any family members in regards to Medicare and Medicare supplemental policies. Hoping that if there is folks that are either spouses over 65 eligible, that maybe they understand the worth of perhaps taking Medicare instead of staying on some of the city benefits. Overall, the Manti Clinic performance, we were able to do a little bit of cost avoidance in looking at that partnership you guys have with the school district. We've been managing and looking at a lot of the data over the last couple years, and we were able to secure a little bit lower paid percentage of that clinic, adjusting to the actual levels of utilization for those employees here at the city. versus kind of the increased utilization they saw at the district. So you guys weren't paying maybe for some of those. So great win there. We're also doing quarterly reviews in partnership with the district to make sure there's not any downtime for the nurses' availability. We also continue to have conversations about implementing perhaps different tier setup for the employee contribution. Today you do just have a single and family, so we are continuing to evaluate that. We're looking at adding some ID theft program for you guys in 2027 called Aurora to sort of help employees find benefits for that. Also considering moving your EAP vendor back to perhaps Aurora. They've got some upgrades that are happening and we'll be meeting with them and reviewing in two weeks. I also wanted to just quick mention we may also look at a possible conversation around moving to a different venue for the HSA just to bring it to someone who has a little bit more technology and services. I'll open it up to any comments, questions, or suggestions at this time.

Hi. My question is this, since I've been through about one or four of these in my lifetime now. The Medicare education meetings, If someone currently has Medicare and they're looking to compare or contrast or get more information, what should they bring along to these meetings? Do you have a list of things that people should bring along, like a list of medications or current coverages or things like that?

So one of the things that is unique for McClone to assist in those Medicare meetings is they will already know what the contribution level is for premiums and then what it would be for them from a Medicare perspective. So they'll be able to have those conversations already with those employees.

Okay, thank you.

But yes, if they do have some of the medications and they want to get that detailed, they can definitely bring those along.

Okay, I was thinking that might be a good idea to send out to any employees that have signed up for this.

And they're also available ongoing at a personal level. So they'll be able to talk individually with those folks too after the meetings as well.

Super.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? I wanted to comment about the tiers for the employee contributions. I assume that is giving people different options like employee and spouse or employee and child only. And I wanted to mention that I had that offered to me one time. And as an employee, I very much appreciated that.

Yeah, and that's why we're going to be looking at it and reviewing it again. It's just an adjustment factor, unfortunately, right, for those family coverages because that number seems to go up when you start adding the middle two tiers.

Sure. I don't know how it works behind the scenes so much, but as an employee.

It is very nice, and that's why we're looking at it again. Thank you for that.

What is the timeline for when we'll have the updated proposal?

Thank you, yes. So I wanted to have McClone here to just give an update on what we've been doing over the past year since we did sign with McClone, and just give you kind of a preview of where we're at. I'm hoping that we will have a recommendation for you at the next personnel meeting in October. I'm not sure of the actual date of that, but hopefully we will have enough as far as our numbers for the year that we can make some recommendations.

Great.

Any other questions? All right, well, I appreciate you being here today.

Absolutely.

Providing an update. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And I'll consider this to be placed on file since there's no action to be taken.

Next item on the agenda is 260669 discussion a recommendation on compensation performance management

So I'm presenting a proposed revision to our performance management process. Over the past couple years, several department heads have worked on this project. We've done a lot of research and lots of different revisions to this final project here. the goal that we had in mind was to strengthen our performance management process right now the process wasn't overly effective it was being done because we were requiring it to be done and we did find through a lot of our research that moving to a process that's more of a check-in quarterly based coaching approach was kind of the direction that a lot of different organizations were moving to and we really feel like that is going to work best for the city of Manitowoc this would move our current process which is very very highly focused on directly tying individual performance to compensation to more of like I said, kind of the coaching. It's gonna give managers a much more, greater opportunity to be sitting down with their employees on a regular basis, talking about priorities, talking about goals, talking about areas where they might need support, and then also giving managers an opportunity to kind of see who the high performers are and also address any issues that there might be and change any kind of priorities that might be necessary. We do believe that this approach will be good for our culture and it's going to also give employees a clearer expectation about what we expect of them and also allow managers to be able to timely coach their employees throughout the year. As far as the compensation plan, the maintenance strategy that is being presented tonight, it reflects the approach that two of the alders have indicated that they are comfortable with. So tonight we are asking for approval to change the language that I've presented. There's a memo attached also along with some employee policy manual language that's tracked and we're asking for approval on changing that language so we can move forward with implementing and training.

Thank you, Jesse. I'll just comment that Alder Sickowitz and I, along with Attorney Nitsch, Jesse, and Mayor Nichols had the opportunity to meet a couple times to talk through this, and we fought, we hugged, we did all the things you'd have to do in a meeting like this, but one of the things we did realize is there was a need to change the process around these. And we also did talk about the education for the department heads to implement this so that we do have that structure in place, that there is some consistency and, I guess, consistency in the application of the check-ins and how important they are in talking about goals and performance at the time and having those on a regular basis. So I do appreciate the discussion. I don't know if, Alder Sickowitz, if there's anything you would like to add?

Thank you. And I think that's the biggest takeaway for me in this process was that if there is a change to be put in place, I would hope that through the budget process, that there's an education component there for the employees on how to, administer the evaluations, but through that process, because we want to grow our employees. If we don't do that, and I would hope that the mayor puts it in his budget, otherwise at finance we'll have to find how to put it into the budget. But if we don't do that, we'll be back here in another two, three years with the same list of issues that it doesn't work. Because it's not necessarily always the plan, but it's the implementation. We didn't have the implementation on the last plan with the education component, and that was part of the reason why it didn't get the intended results that were there. So this is a different approach, and it's something that is staff-led, and I think that's important.

Yes, I agree. And then I would say from the compensation standpoint and the annual increases for employees, I think we all agree that it's important to fairly pay employees for the city. But we also understand it's a budgetary impact item and we have to be able to build that into that whole overarching budget plan. So having it automatic every year at a certain amount, we felt it needed to be discussed as an overall budget item as well. So the mayor will continue to make his recommendations Adjustments will still be made to the plan based on data that we have in front of us and the mayor will continue to bring those forward to the committee through personnel and through finance to include in the budget. Any questions or comments from committee members? Alder Schley.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think the 90-day idea is fantastic. I really do. I've worked in so many situations in my past lives where it was always annual reviews or maybe semiannual reviews and it's, in today's job market especially, it's completely ineffective. I think this is gonna make a big difference. Right down at the bottom, at the very bottom of the where it talks about managers will check in with each UKG during the following discussion topics. And the last discussion topic is, what can I better do as your supervisor? And the first thing it says under that is encourage two-way feedback. I'd make that a part of every single one of these discussions. And just, I guess, I can't think of a better term, but drill down with these folks and find out what they're really thinking. Because especially if we find an area of need, That's about the only thing I could, other than that, it looks great, thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the committee members? All right, otherwise, entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve as presented.

Second. All right, it has been moved and seconded to approve as presented. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. Next item is 260770, recommendation to suspend elements of 2026 performance.

This item relates to the previous item. In preparation for launching this on January 1st, we want to suspend some of the items in our current process so that we can move forward and meet deadlines, new deadlines that we have to set in place and move forward with some training for managers so we can get the new process started.

Any questions for Jesse? And this ultimately ties to the last discussion we just had.

Motion to approve the recommendation.

Second.

All right, moved and seconded to approve the recommendation. Any further discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I assume both of these will go on non-consent to the changes. Okay, next item. 260761, retiree insurance discontinuation beginning January 1, 2027.

This is a recommendation from our brokers based on some evaluation of our benefit plans and the usage. There's very low participation as far as the retiree insurance. And so the recommendation is to grandfather any retiree that's currently in any of the retiree plans, but as of January 1, not offer retiree coverage to employees that are leaving the city. There will still be COBRA coverage available for those employees.

Okay, any questions for Jesse? Move to approve. Second. Second.

All right, it's moved and seconded to approve as presented. Any further discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

I assume that's going on consent as well, huh?

Yeah. Okay, next item, 260762, request to approve building inspection, LTE, job description, copyright, et cetera. So that's the next agenda item. This... Chief doesn't get stuck in his chair?

Yeah. Phones. So yeah, what this request is for is we have, at this time, one commercial building inspector for the city, obviously a very important role, and due to an unexpected absence coming up, he will be out for four to eight weeks, and to keep projects going in the city, we need to fill that role. So in working with... Jesse here, HR. We went the route of the LTE position to look at getting, kind of contracting with one of our former commercial building inspectors to fill in during that time. And then when our current one is able to come back, we'll release him from duty. So that's kind of the impetus behind it is to get that coverage while he is out.

I'll make a motion to approve the request. Second.

All right, it's been moved and seconded to approve the request. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries unanimously. All right, so the next two items on the agenda require a closed session. They're both separate, so I have to read two different notices here. So on the first item, 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 one, sub e of the Wisconsin Statutes, which authorizes the governmental body to convene in closed session for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchase of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whether competitive or bargaining reasons required at closed session. The specific subject matter that may be considered in closed session is 26-0481, Fire Department 4896, Schedule Extension through 2027, Recommendation to Approve Side Letter. Next, the notice is hereby given that the above governmental body may adjourn into closed session during the meeting as authorized by Section 19.85 of the Wisconsin Statute, which authorizes the governmental body to convene in closed session for the purpose of considering employment, promotion, compensation, or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility. The specific subject matter that may be considered in closed session is 26-0769, unpaid leave of absence request for police department employee. The motion to convene in closed session was made by Alderperson. So moved. Second. Made by Sikowitz, seconded by Schley. A roll call vote. Okay, Sikowitz? Aye. Beeman? Aye. Shalai? Aye. Benzinger? Aye. And I'm an aye.

We are in closed session.

Okay, we are back in open session. We will now take up item 260763, fire department 4896, schedule extension through 2020, second recommendation to approve the side letter.

Move to approve the recommendation.

Second.

All right, it's been moved to approve the recommendation. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries unanimously. Next item is 260769, unpaid leave of absence request for police department employee.

Move to approve. Second.

All right, moved and seconded to approve. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, I believe that exhausts our agenda for today. We need a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn.

Second. We are adjourned. We'll take five minutes and get things switched over for financing.