Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Michigan. Welcome everyone to the city of the OAF Finance Committee meeting here Monday, March at our new time of 03:30 at City Executive Conference Room. On the committee is councilman Sherry Burn. Councilman Larry Hug is not here as yet, and councilman Pat McBride. Mister Singh? I guess

I could keep going here.

How about approval of the minutes?

I'll to the approve.

I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Seems to be heard and none is yet.

Should we chat and see if that citizen is up in

the other room? I think he was just coming through to

pull me. Oh, I see. Okay. Sorry about that.

Okay. But we could check. Maybe here it is. Mister Singh.

Oh, actually, Liz will take this one.

I'm Elizabeth Abrego, director of human resources for the city of Joliet here to present an ordinance amendment section two dash 29 with Joliet code to grant the city manager authority for succession hiring and temporary appointments.

So, Liz, is this something is this ordinance something that we see that our old ordinance or our current ordinance at municipalities because in the real business world, this is absolutely bizarre.

So typically, policies like these are not in ordinances, but for whatever reason in the current ordinance, it does specifically not allow for the city manager to overhire the budget in order for succession planning, but that that's why we need to put in this ordinance change.

I understand those words, but in practical purpose I would like my new person to have some training from the person going out. We never thought about doing this before.

No, we haven't. With the position control and the Municipal League, the IGFOA with we have what's called position control which for every position we have, you guys have created it and then the code says that city manager can fill the vacancy. Vacancy doesn't occur until the person's out the door. So municipally, the governmentally suggest that you allow for this type of thing through ordinance. So that's why this ordinance was put together. So different that if have to see on that authority to do that.

We're on the first side of the area.

For the public.

We have a public committee call. Finance committee. Finance committee. The Kevin show.

Today's a Liz show. A Liz. So

I just like to ensure there are safeguards and protections still

in place. So temporary workers will not have any access to benefits until they're classified into a position. And then compensation is already established by city council because you establish those ranges when you approve either a contract or the the non exempted executive salary ranges. So that's already established. It would just be as long as there's budgetary means within that department allowing us to overhire.

So this person potentially is just coming in as a temp until the permanent person leaves?

No. So

if the if the

position I'll I'll have Allison go through her example. Mhmm.

Yeah. So, specifically in utilities last summer, Nick Gornick flagged, like, four key retirements that he's going to have this year, a chief wastewater operator, his main, administrative staff who helps him with all the IEPA paperwork, and a couple others. So when we were doing the budget, we said, I need to budget for this overlap of positions to make sure that we can have time for the training. And, so that's what, you know, we need this orange because of the way that the city's hiring is is if if it was within my department, I knew the replacement was coming from other department. We could probably work out, like, leaving the other position vacant.

But oftentimes, we have people coming from other departments, and it wouldn't be fair then for that department to have a vacancy, you know, for, a few months while we do the the training. So, it was with the other, you know, the collective bargaining situation that this just makes it allows us to do the training like you said, Councilman that is obviously needed. Yeah, because we'd be really left if we had Nick Lawson's admin person and then on day one he had to, you know, he doesn't have time to do the training and so really, you know, having that person currently with the position is retiring, do the

training is very important. Yeah.

So we're really buying the

eight ball

in a case like that or would be.

Yes. Like you, I don't think we didn't do that. I didn't realize that we weren't able to train people, you know, with the I

think sometimes in a one off case, it's happened, but it hasn't really been widely available to happen because of this barrier.

So Question. When somebody puts in

what I think is worded in this proposed ordinance as an irrevocable retirement. What if they change their mind?

So in accordance with the contracts that state that it's irrevocable, they are not allowed to revoke that retirement.

So all the the bargaining units have the same thing in the contract that allow for irrevocable, and if they decide they can't no. We can't we can't retire after all. We my my wife just got sick. They're gonna be forced to retire.

Correct.

And what about the exempt employees?

Non exempt and executive do not have the irrevocable in there, but the majority of them submit their resignation or retirement with that stipulation.

So again, the what if an exempt employee with this line line of succession that Allison was describing, if they're not in the union and they say they're gonna retire and they change their mind, what happens?

Legally, we don't we don't we could, allow for them, but it would have been a case by case basis depending on, you know, there's performance issues, what the circumstances are surrounding.

Legally, could what? Could rebook, you know, could change their mind?

We could allow them to stay. Yes.

And then what would happen to the one we hired?

We wouldn't hire the the other one. So we if we have already so say we do, backfill the position, we would say, no, sorry. You cannot revoke it based on the fact we've already filled your position.

We have control of that. Correct.

Yeah. Apple employees. Yeah. We have total control.

This looks like a way to expand staff to be honest. But that's my input guys.

I disagree with you, but that's fine.

It's just the first time we've ever disagreed Pat.

Feel like it's a way to just keep our departments running smoothly and up to the level we want them to be moving at rather than have somebody come in with no experience and especially high level positions. It may not be directors, but it's still high level positions. I want the person that's gonna be taking the place of certain

people. And we have to obviously get the city manager approved this, not only at the budgeting time, but then also at the time that we fill the position. So it it's not I I don't know how to necessarily get away with just trying to, you know, add staff without it being for this purpose. Right.

Well, and and you're sharing a fair point, but my

point is this, like, give

me some examples because we've never done this before. So the city's been running like this since 1854, so to speak. Where has the city been harmed without this ordinance? What are we addressing? What is the harm

we're addressing with this ordinance?

The the the gap in training

in this

Do have a real life example where where the city suffered and and the citizens suffered I

mean, I specifically for human resources. Yeah. I think I suffered and not having direct training with the past director.

But I think you're doing a good job, aren't you?

I am. But there is a lot of learning curves based on that fact.

And oftentimes if we're hiring somebody for a key position,

if if if they're being promoted within the

city, should have been trained already. That's called foresight. You train them and then eventually that's why they're called an assistant or deputy. Right? It's a house. In in in the cases where like, well, we don't have anybody qualified. We need to hire outside. Well, we should hire a qualified person who knows how to run a a sewer a sewage treatment plan. If he's gonna be the manager of the sewage, you know

what I'm saying?

I I don't I don't see a need, and I think it just looks like the right for just expanding. You know, it's no secret I voted against this year's budget because we added 30 some new positions.

Now we're gonna add more new positions

even though they're defined as temporary.

So Well, I know in my business model, I hire a person and have them be trained by their person that it

will be leaving before, you know, at least a month

or two before they leave. So I know that that helps them and it helps us to have a smooth transition into, you know, every company is different. Everybody has their own, you know, ways of doing things and even in a city that's, you know, whatever should be a position that we hire experienced person, they still have to know the lay of the land and the systems and the, you know, how it how it comes specifically to Joliet.

Which we've been doing for years, but, know, and and I think that's great. You know, being in the private sector as a business owner myself, when we do that in the private sector, we're spending

our own money to do it, not somebody else's,

not taxpayers. So a a a a governmental agency is not a business.

It's a governmental agency, but

that's just my opinion. You know?

I think we'll be more efficient doing it this way and looking for a motion to move this ahead.

Motion to move it to the full council with my recommend our recommendation to approve. You're gonna have to do it.

I'll second it.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? No. Opposed? No.

Right. Now, can you talk to us? Now, I think it's my turn now. I'll be brief. Got the monthly financials. So we've got two months to talk about general fund first. We got two months. We're reporting a surplus. It's expected. If you look at the revenues are kind of on track with budget expenses are lagging once again. You know, we're still catching up from the accrual method of charging the last couple months to the prior fiscal year. But no bad news to report. I am watching, you know, little bit better than budget, I'll say, but instead, two months is still early to tell, but just those are my early indications. Sewer and water revenues are on track. Same with the expenses.

Parking, trending higher than last year, $11,850 higher. This you know, first two months of this year has the parking changes. Last year has the old system. So we're trending about 11.8 higher, which is about 18%. So and we're still deficit.

Is the parking charged through the weekend also?

20 yeah. 24. The decks. Twenty four hours. The deck. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing some things with public works on passes and stuff like that to Yeah. To the, like, entities, attorney's offices that so they can automate. So but that's those are just more customer service oriented things. Nothing on discount per se other than what's in the ordinance.

So How do you feel people are getting the hang of the districts, the parking on the streets?

I don't know. I'm not involved in that part. So so this revenue and I noticed this revenue does not include citations. I'm gonna follow-up with adjudications in the the PD just to make sure that we're putting them in here so we can track that as well. So if we can track historically if citations now going on as well or they where are they at? So that's a piece that's not included.

Who would be tracking that, like, as far as, you know, just complaints that they didn't,

you know, they didn't understand. Krista has been. Yeah. Krista has been highly involved in the parking kind of management and complaint department between her and the police department with the enforcement officers.

Kevin, when will we close out last year? Is that in April?

So the auditors are coming in house, I think later this month or early next month. And so provided we get everything we need from our component units and the actuary, which the actuary should be on time this year, it should be before June 3,

which is what we're And

that's why we'll decide how much above or below budget we would Yes. Okay. Thank

you. Yeah. And then this year's actuary report for pension is called the short report, but they'll still do the calculation based

on And

are we still on track as far as up till now to hit it by I think it was 2040 is the date we hit that.

So the insurance, we never amortized.

No. No.

The Pensions? The retirement Pension funds. Yeah. Pension funds are that hasn't changed.

Alright. So we'll still hit a full funding by 2040.

That's the thought. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And we still fund a 102% of the requirement for police and fire to make sure that we're not falling behind. So you've got the exception, which is the invoices that we do between meetings, generally utilities, that kind of stuff.

So an exception question. For example, here on page two, we had an $81,000 exemption. Yeah. So we didn't know that was coming or

how did utility bills because of the quick turnaround. We pay as an exception so that we don't get late fees because it's statutory and there's something we just can't get around that. So that's why generally, know, you'll see ComEd, Direct Energy, Constellation, and we pay those just because by the time we get those through the council process, it's late and understand. So, yeah. You got the quarterly for the Rialta.

I'm sorry for library. They had 57,000 visitors, 30,000 downtown, 23,000 at Black Road. They checked out 11 81,000 items. And then you've got, you know, 10,000 people did 490 different programs. 91% of the programs refer to youth. And then travel is kind of light this month. It picks up generally in the summer months. So we do have a number of people going to the Tyler conference between finance and HR. That's the software we use. We've done a big push to start using that to create efficiencies internally.

And actually know Allison staff has been has been pushing us to try and do more with it as well.

Kevin, question back to the library which would apply probably to the Rialto or the museum as well too. Right? When we say 81,000 visits in the quarter, right? Is that one person visiting 81,000 times or 81,000 people visiting one time? Do we track that?

They do not. It's just a counter.

Can you ask them if they can't

track that?

I did. I did. This question came up. It's just a counter at the door. When somebody walks through, it counts. There's no independent tracking that they have because someone can come in and use the WiFi per se. There's no login or anything like that. So if they check out a book, they could tell. And maybe I can get that information on how many individual people actually checked out materials versus just used a program at the library.

So back in the day when I was a heavy smoker, I did three packs a day?

You'd you'd be six I counted 10 times if

I was

there four hours.

Yeah.

Okay. Mhmm. Thank you.

Any other questions for mister Singer? No? Okay. Moving to the back page. New or old business, not for final action.

Public

comment? No one?

For a motion.

You adjourned.

Second. So

moved. All in favor?

Aye. Thank you.