City Council - Regular Meeting

I What's up with that? You have a token token.

And the new ID, the new organ ID, please. The real ID. Yeah. Sorry. Yes.

Yeah. So it has pretty pretty pictures. You can sort of Yeah. So, you're having one Yeah.

Okay. I figured it's going to go that way. I just like I come in a couple hours. So, did you survive?

Glad it's over. Yeah.

And then we tore it up a little bit later, too. Yes. Hello. How you doing? How are you doing? Good to see you. Good. Looking sharp. Well, for 85, not bad. I That is incredible. Never spent a night in the hospital and take no medication of any charm. That is really cool. You have like a glass of wine every night or something which about half a glass a day. Okay. Okay. All right. Oh, by the way, he's working on it. I reported it. You'll get somebody out there. Guaranteed. Good morning.

Young You can see we All the troublemakers probably

I think when I was in school I was back. I'm sure I knew you. Were you were the Americans volunteer? It is volunteer but for the first time we like to kind of make it somewhere.

I'm going to pull Yeah,

she does. She's so I'm excited. Good.

Thank you. Yeah. I don't want you. Yeah.

Good to see you. Exactly. Right. Thanks for your support. Okay, so we're getting close to time. I guess the clock on the wall is a few minutes fast. So, I'm going to give you guys about five more minutes and then we're going to start. So, if you guys want to get food, get settled in, we'll give about five more minutes. at the right time. They are for you. I mean, I'll

I am so tickled that somebody's finally listening to you water. Me too.

Thank you. You want it? Yeah. Okay, if everybody wants to get settled in, we'll go ahead and get started. We're probably starting a couple minutes late. I apologize for that. Again, I was told the clock on the wall is a little bit fast. So, but we are still a minute or so beyond schedule. So, we're going to start out with um budget committee orientation. And it looks like Aaron will start out with presentation today.

Good morning, mayor, council, budget committee members. Uh thank you for coming here today for our uh budget committee orientation. This is going to be a joint presentation between myself and our finance director JC. I was going to say hacksaw rally because I'm going to tag myself out and he's going to jump in. So hack will be up here in a little bit after I provide some background on budget committee's role uh through this orientation process. What we're going to outline today for you is what is what is a budget? Where do I fit in as a budget committee member? How do I get to a proposed budget? Why is a budget structured in this manner? What are the important details? How do I read the budget document? And how do I read capital budget documents? And then through this process uh you know when we're done done or through the presentations we're more than happy to answer any questions and we'll open it up for your general discussion. So what is a budget document and what is the budget? It really is a legal document. It makes lawful appropriations that give the city the authority to spend public dollars which is extremely important. One of the most important things that a city council does is a to ultimately adopt a balanced budget. It is a financial plan for the city for one fiscal year. Some cities do multiple years, but for the city of Grants Pass, we do one fiscal year and we do have projections into the future for a following second year. It's an internal control mechanism because we have appropriated dollars which provides an opportunity for us to control the dollars spent and where they get spent. It is also a policy document because the budget follows the policies that have been identified by the city council and it is a public communication document. Many times people ask questions about programs or projects and it's pretty easy to open up the budget uh when they're talking to me or they're talking to uh the finance director or

any of our department heads and we're able to provide them a story on what we're spending and why we're spending those dollars. So who makes the rules? It's very specific in the state of Oregon. State of Oregon has Oregon revised statutes that provides rules on how the budget committee works. ORS states that uh it is to establish standard procedures for preparing, presenting and administering the budget for Oregon local governments. So our process through this uh through our budget process and adoption is very similar to what occurs throughout the rest of the state of Oregon because all the municipalities must follow this organ revised statutes. One of the key pieces is to encourage citizen involvement in the preparation of the budget before its final adoption. So, every budget committee meeting that'll be that'll be starting up and we'll go over those dates has to have an opportunity for the public to provide comment on what has been discussed and what has been proposed. It provides a method of estimating revenues and expenditures and ultimately to propose taxes. Uh it's a method of control for revenues, expenditures that promotes efficiency and economy when using public dollars because those have been vetted through this process and then the municipality must hold true to that what is ultimately adopted by the city council. So it starts off with the budget officer is designated by is the city manager and city staff prepares a proposed budget. So, we are in the process right now of starting to put numbers together that we're ultimately going to be able to provide you with a proposed budget. The budget committee reviews, revises, and approves the budget, and then it ultimately becomes an approved budget. Ultimately, that approved budget then goes to city council, and the city council adopts the budget.

Just another diagram visually for you because I'm a visual person and and this provides you an opportunity to sort of look at what it looks like. City staff provides a proposed budget. It then moves to the budget committee. The budget committee approves the budget and then ultimately council adopts the budget. And there's some more a lot of work that is associated with the city staff and budget officer proposing a budget. What I'm going to get into the budget committee consists of the city council and an equal number of appointees. So it's the city council who are eight elected officials and then also eight appointed citizens for the budget committee. Your primary role is to hear the budget message which you'll hear at the that'll be that this will happen at all your upcoming budget meetings. You'll hear the budget message. You'll hold public meetings. You'll hear public comments and get input from the public. You'll review and discuss the proposed budget. You'll make revisions to the proposed budget if necessary. And then two things that are very important at the budget committee level is you approve each tax rate and approve the budget uh moving forward for council to adopt. So the primary roles when it comes to what's the difference between the budget committee and the city council from a responsibility perspective. So city council has been elected by their constituents to set policies and and priorities. So the city council sets the policy and priorities of the community. That is the service levels also is one of those things that they define. They create, confirm, and or adjust revenues. It could be a revenue from a standpoint of maybe a utility fee or maybe it's a a tax increment of financing or whatever that is. They also confirm or change the budget based on the budget committee's approved budget.

The budget committee's responsibilities are to confirm resources allocated for policy and priorities. So council will identify the policies and priorities through the budget process. The budget committee confirms that those resources are matching council's policies and priorities. You confirm property tax rates which is a very important piece. And you also confirm or change any proposed uh budget items. So, one of the things for instance that's a a council responsibility and one thing that you may be interested in also is on March 16th the city council has a number of budget policy things they're going to provide additional direction to city staff for. This is going to help us develop the budget itself. For instance, on the March 16th workshop, council is going to reaffirm our budget policy and they're going to get a look at our future financial outlook. They're going to go over our LB projects and they're going to discuss uh any budget development and we're going to have some budget development discussions. That's going to give staff that final policy direction that we're needed in order to provide a proposed budget to you, the budget committee. So, council's going to address those policy issues with us. We're going to propose the budget based on those policy directions to the budget committee to then take a look at the allocation of resources based on council direction. So budget committee members you hold uh public meetings. All budget committee meetings are subject to public meeting law. So uh we have to have a quorum to conduct business and a majority is required to take action when you make a motion. At those meetings, you hear public comment. The budget is a public document. Once it is released to the

budget committee, copies must be made available to the public. The committee must take public comment at each of the public hearings and any member of the public may speak about the budget. So, taking a look at the future and what that looks like, uh, the budget calendar, the first budget meeting is set for April 28th. That's where you'll get the budget message. You'll hear the budget message and we will ultimately have an opportunity for the public to speak. Also, additional meetings that are put on the budget calendar are April 30th and then May 5th. During the first budget meeting, a few things will happen. We're going to nominate and elect a budget chair and a vice chair. Those are the individuals that will be running the meeting similar to what the mayor does for the city council meetings. You will have a chair and a vice chair will which will help facilitate the discussion throughout the budget process. You'll adopt ground rules so we all have an understanding of how we are going to be operating through the budget process. You'll receive the proposed budget and hear presentations of the budget message. Then we'll talk strategic plan and capital allocations and we'll set schedules for future meetings and that consists of your first meeting. Subsequent meetings after that, you're going to dive into specific departments and divisions and the proposed budgets associated with the policies the council have put forward. The strategic plan is an important piece to this. Just like the meeting discussion that's going to occur later on in March at the workshop, council provides policy direction through meetings like the the March 16th workshop and through strategic planning. This year we had a about a two-day session where we sat down and we talked strategic planning which provides direction to city staff on what is important for the community based on

council and those priorities. We then match resources and and allocate those resources to a proposed budget for your consideration. So, there's a system in place that gets us to where we are today and gets us to where you will be at our your first budget committee meeting. City council reviews the state of the city through having discussions with all the advisory committee chairs, uh through discussions with staff and through input from the public. We develop our strategic plan, providing direction through that process. We then we then as you recall from the other thing we propose a budget to the budget committee. Uh the budget committee then a budget committee then looks at that. It makes a recommendation approves the budget and then it's ultimately adopted by city council. We monitor our our programs and report out our successes and we do it again. We do it every year. We have a minor review of the strategic plan and our strategic plan we have established as a two-year strategic plan. Staff budget preparation comes from the strategic plan. As I mentioned, we evaluate current service programs and and levels. We evaluate current capital needs. We evaluate future services and programs to be provided. And we evaluate future capital needs. city manager and the finance director have meetings with each department and and division and we perform a line by line review of that and make sure that the resources are matching council strategic plan and the direction the council's provided from a policy perspective through those meetings. What we get as an end product is we get a proposed budget to you at the first budget committee meeting. I think it's important to note I wanted to highlight that the city has taken a

number of steps throughout the years to make sure that we are running efficiently and effectively and every department and division within the city has pretty much had an external audit done of their of their services is what we called a PAVE program performance auditing vision and enhancement program where we had a third party come in and review those departments. And it's interesting and it's important to note that each one of those reports came through with something similar between all of them. It came through stating that uh we have staff that uh has exercised prudent stewardship of our resources and that the community affordability awareness is there uh and that we are ultimately operating very efficiently effectively and the majority of the departments and programs are running understaffed in order to provide the quality services that we're doing. So we're running very efficiently and effectively through those through those reports. I think it's extremely important also um before I ultimately turn over the slides to uh our finance director that we highlight that we have from a policy perspective over the years over the decades tried to be good facilitators of public dollars. And we also recognize the challenges that we have with regards to trying to match resources with desired levels of services. Costs continue to rise, expectations of level services continue to rise. And we've been managing that through sometimes budget cuts, through program level of changes, through also increasing revenues. And so just this is just provides just a snapshot of some of the actions that have been taken in the past when it comes to councils trying to make sure that we're balancing level of service and affordability within the community. And we've done a number of

things like public safety levies. We've tried a fire uh service districts creating new service districts. And we've also implemented a utility fee to help level the expenditures revenues with community's needs. when it comes to levels of service, especially when it comes to public safety and general fund operations. With that, I'm going to turn it over to uh our finance director who's going to talk about the budget structure and our basis of accounting.

Yeah, I like how he leaves me to explain the boring stuff. So we'll try and get this through this uh as quickly as possible for you guys. Okay. So uh legally uh we need to mention what kind of basis of accounting we use. Uh so for the city of GR pass we use what is called modified acral. Uh what most people are used to is a cash basis accounting which recognizes transactions upon the exchange of cash. Uh expenses are not recognized until they are paid and revenue is not recognized until payment has been received. That means that the future obligations or anticipated revenues or expenses are recorded in the financial statements in the year following. Uh in contrast, we use acrrual accounting which recognizes expenses when they are incurred regardless of the time of payment and the charges records revenue when a legal obligation is created. This indicates the company has fulfilled an obligation and has earned the right to collect and say at the point when the goods goods are shipped or at the completion of service. So budget is organized by fund. Uh a fund is a self-balancing set of accounts used to record estimated resources and requirements for specific activities and objectives. So all of our the important the important takeaway here is all resources and requirements must be budgeted and it they must balance and we do all this as good faith effort through our estimations. And I want to get uh you you do have a packet of goodies that I gave you. Uh one in the packet there is this piece of paper that talks about the last 10 years of current property tax revenues. So you could see as part of our diligence of projecting revenues, we actually get pretty close to where we do project um out those revenues for future uh time periods. So this is just a visual representation.

This is state law. We do have to match the resources with their requirements. We cannot spend more than we're actually bringing in. So there are different types of funds. Uh there's the general fund which accounts for all financial resources except those to be accounted for in another fund. So basically it's anything that doesn't fit into the rest of these descriptions. We have enterprise funds that uh are water, wastewater, and storm water. And those account for operations that are financed and operated through dedicated user charges or utility fees. Uh there's a there's special revenue funds. Some of those examples are transportation or streets and lodging tax. Why streets get slumped in there is it actually receives uh gas tax from the state of Oregon and so there's a dedicated purpose that we have to use those revenues for. There are capital project fund which accounts for resources used for the acquisition or construction of major capital facilities. We have some debt service funds which accounts for the accumulation of receipts usually for improvement projects. There are internal service funds. So those accounts for financing of goods and services furnished by one department to another. An example of an internal service uh is finance city manager. We consolidate all those into one area because it's cheaper for us to organize that way than every department getting their own accountant. So we consolidate those resources what that uh Aaron's talking about. And then we have other funds like fiduciary funds which is like the landfill that accounts for assets held by a government unit in a trustee capacity. So one of the key takeaways here is the government does not necessarily uh function like your own personal bank account. So you as an individual will be taking money in and you can spend it however you want. In the government, we have to take in those revenues into different buckets

and ensure that those buckets are only spent on those items. We can't use water dollars to pay for sewer items or we can't use water dollars to pay for general fund departments like public safety or planning. So, the general fund is slightly different than other funds as it handles everything else by definition and its largest revenue is property taxes. We don't have anything that dedicates by policy uh to public safety, but we choose to align our property taxes, both the levy and the permanent rate, uh and allocate them directly to public safety, which is police, fire, and support. And those revenues do not pay for the entirety of the service. The general fund has program and general support resources. So program resources are those dedicated funds I'm talking about that are going directly to a department. And then we have what we call general support. General support is our non-dedicated funds. Uh and our discretionary can be used across multiple program areas. Uh an example of these are franchise fees, state revenue sharing. Some of the those dollars that just got kind of get put into the entirety of the general fund and then programs share those dollars and resources. So part of that visual representation is those blue arrows kind of coming in as far as resources are dedicated and when they come out in spending we spend those dedicated resources first and then that general support kind of gets shared between the rest of the departments in the general fund. So some of the budget details Oregon law allows local governments to levy three types of property taxes. So we have a permanent rate at uh a little over $4. The local option levy is $1.79 and then there is a bond type that we currently do not have. The bond is typically used for capital. The Oregon Constitution places limits on

property tax collection. So measure five, which was passed in 1990, limits combined tax collection by general governments to $10 per thousand. Um and then measure 50 was passed in 1997 which limits that growth in assessed value to no more than 3% per year for existing properties. And for us in the city of Grants Pass here are most of the uh non says non-education rates and you can see the total is about 8.49 49. And depending on where you live in the city of Grants Pass, there are two different school districts. And so, no, not any one individual gets charged all three of these rates. They would either get the top or the bottom from the Grants Pass School District or Three Rivers. So, some of the budget details. So, fund balances. The city will maintain adequate fund balances to meet seasonal cash flow, support a good credit rating, to have resources to meet emergency or unanticipated expenses, and to have sufficient resources to begin the next fiscal year. The budget shall provide for an appropriate beginning ending fund balance. Generally the fund balance levels are dictated by cash flows. Uh relative rate stability from year to year. Uh susceptibility to emergency or un unanticipated expenditures. Its credit worthiness and capacity to support debt service. Legal or regulatory requirements affecting revenues and reliability of outside revenues. So, as an example, most of the property tax resources um come in in November. And so, we have had a 25 to 35% uh general fund balance in uh or 25 to 35% fund balance target range for the general fund to ensure that there's enough uh resources to get us through those lean months at the beginning of the year. Um as um Aaron

mentioned earlier, this will be further discussion on March 16th. So now I have uh here's the link obviously for those of us watching on YouTube. Uh the the this all this information is online. Uh there's a link to our capital budget book. I have taken out snippets of this book and we're going to kind of go over those. and it's this stapled packet right here in front of me. So I think there's some highle things uh if you take away anything from today that make sure you read these before our first budget meeting. Uh so this is pages 95 through 101 which is the budget process and financial policies. I'm not going to sit up here and read this but I think this is all good information especially for our first timers here. There's also some stuff about Oregon budget law. Uh Aaron mentioned earlier the strategic plan. There's some key revenue details, some key expenditure details, there's some capital budget summary, and there's some long range financial planning. And you can see the associated page numbers on here. Now, specifically, I'm going to call out some other things on page 30. There's a funding matrix and it's the page that looks like this with the red boxes. Just want to make sure that everybody understands that this is how we balance the budget and your transfers in have to m match your transfers out and your total resources need to match your total requirements. Again, it's part of state law. The next set of pages is the resolution. And so you can see the resolution that sets the adopted budget for fiscal year 26, which is our current fiscal year. And this outlines the programs and their uh availability as far as their budget capacity to spend in any one given year. It also lists out the transfers for every fund and the contingency. The next one, if you flip a couple more

pages, it's going to be this example of the appendix B. And so there's a bunch of different uh statistics in the appendix section, which is page 328 that I have in your packet. Uh this one's a good one as it shows kind of the breakdown of the revenue by type and by fund as well as the expenditures and how they come out. And a key point too is these budgets always balance and then you can see the difference in how we supply those services. So in the general fund you can see that there's a lot of property tax dollars going in as resources. We can also see that it has high personnel costs because in order to deliver those services, it takes people to uh call for service as far as police, fire, 911, planning. When you go to the right and you look at enterprise funds, that story changes a little bit. The dollars associated with the revenues being brought in are more actually expended for capital. And you could see the nuances and differences and within the budget uh in each department. When you flip to the next page right after that, you can kind of see that breakdown. And I gave you an example of the parks department and some of those program areas of how they utilize those resources that they are getting in dedic dedicated describing their services and what they deliver and what they provide the community. And those are pages 161 and 169 in your little handout here. The next one is page 35. I think I have this. It's going to look like this little orange box on the top. And I think I have this actually broken down a little bit easier. So you can see on page 35, how to explain this, which most of the budget document is laid out this way, is you will have two years of the previous year's actuals. You'll have the previous budget year next to that. And

then you'll have the current uh recommended, approved, and adopted budget of the current fiscal year, which is highlighted in orange to make sure you're looking at the right year. And then all the way to the right, we actually project out an additional year as well. And what I want you to look at as far as page 35 is there is a discrepancy in the general fund as far as we utilize more or we are set up imbalance to spend more in any given year than we actually bring in. So that number at the top is your beginning balance that we started with fiscal year 26 and where we project to end in 26 and start fiscal year 27 is about $4 million as far as a decrease. So we are set up to spend about $4 million more than we are actually bringing in revenues. And the next page of uh at the bottom of page 36, you can kind of see that the resources uh match the requirements. The next page I want you to look at is page 132. Here's an example of fire. And I just wanted to show that there's the dedicated revenue sources. And you can see that they get some property tax, they have some grants, they have a piece of the public safety fees, some lodging tax, but there also is an additional amount that is required to balance their budget. And that's that general support that I was talking about earlier. That is that non-dedicated revenue that is shared within the general fund. As a different example, we do have some funds and programs out there with their own contingencies and ending fund balance. Uh on page 287, you can see there's a red box uh circled around the contingency and the ending balance. And that is actually what we're proposing and or planning to become the beginning balance of the following year. I just wanted to show you that little

slight nuance as contingencies normally are considered the beginning balance of the next year. Are we having fun yet? All right. So, the next uh I'm going to talk a little bit about the capital budget and how it's set up. Uh for those of us viewing at home, there is a link. It is on the website. I have all uh this document. You can kind of see there's red boxes in the pictures of what I'm describing. So I'm going to read some of this but hopefully uh you can kind of view it a little bit easier uh on the page than you can on this screen. Uh so there are maj major infrastructure service areas at the very very top. Uh this helps delineate which infrastructure service area this project is located or monitored and that gets into potentially where the revenues come in mostly too. And so sometimes there are joint system projects though the project is funded by both there's only one project to track each facet. So what that means is even though we may have a a sewer project, uh water may potentially give uh money to sewer because at the time that they are replacing the sewer line, they're also going to go and do some water work at the exact same location. So they fund it all into one project and that's where you'll potentially see sometimes an outside funding source from a different fund and that is allowable. So at the top again there's the capital number and project name. Uh these are delineated based on their number and their area. So you can see anything that starts with a TR is a transportation. Uh DO is storm water, WA is water, SE is wastewater, LA is solid waste. And LB is the lands and buildings fund. The estimated cost is the top right. So this is the best cost estimate at the time these pages are prepared. And we go through and we review these annually. Uh obviously we have some projects out there and I'll get to the estimated completion date, but we have some

projects out there that aren't set to kick off even in this next budget year, but there are out there in the future. And so we won't like to give the reader the information as to what we currently think that project may cost in the future as well. On the left, the blue box, there's a project created. So it shows the establishment date of the project. This can help inform as to the longevity of the project with everchanging priorities and funding scarcity. So you will see there are some projects that we created maybe over a decade ago and they just still are currently being worked on. The next is the estimated construction. Uh again not all construction types or we are saving money to do construction in the future uh for a future date. And so this is kind of giving you the heads up as to when we as staff assume to be either initiating the project or or ending the project. And you'll notice that not all of the projects that we have in your capital book uh will be will be taken upon uh in the fiscal year that we're going to talk about in the budget committee. The next is the strategic plan. So this is going to link you to where uh we think that this project links into our strategic plan in the different areas and we have different goals. So there's one for public safety, one for fiscal stability, one for economic growth, one for housing and homelessness and one for infrastructure. And then we have various outcomes and expected results and these are aligned to hopefully uh fit within those strategic plan items. Uh the next is the project description. So to the right we like to put some words as to describing the project and then there's also a project need. This doesn't necessarily describe the project. It shows the real purpose as to what the why this project is a priority and that's right underneath that and that's all on the top side.

So down at the bottom uh this is the fun part for me. This is where the money is. So at the top those are all your resources or revenues. On the bottom are your requirements or those are your expenditures out for the project. And those shows you kind of the plan timing. And I'm going to go through this kind of year by year. So the first column of numbers is going to be the actual spent through the previous fiscal year. It's also the next is going to it's kind of grayed out. It's going to show you the adopted budget. Just because it's budgeted doesn't mean we do actually undertake that project. But normally uh that is the case. The column next to it is where we actually think we're going to estimate what we're going to come in in comparison to the current budget. And you'll see that the plan can change midyear. The priorities change and so that project may be delayed or sped up depending on the need. The next uh column is going to be the is an orange color and that will be the current recommendation uh by staff uh to push forward as far as what uh the project activity should be for that coming year. And then the following year's projection is based on the current year's recommendation and additional years projected to show the following year's potential plan. Again, some some projects may be out in in the next year and or future years. And so the last column is going to be the remaining future estimation. So after the current year's recommendation, we have some potential future years if we think that there's going to be construction out more than those two years that we show budgetarily, which can very well happen like the water treatment plan. And then the very last column is the totals. Uh and again, that's to show you that the total uh revenues need to match the total uh expenditures. I do have at the as the very last page a specific example as far as a Spalding industrial park from last

year. And you can kind of see if you walk back through how to read the budget, you can kind of get a real life example as to how we do that through um uh SE6200, which is the Spalding Industrial Park wastewater infrastructure upgrade. I know that's a lot of information. Um, but at this point I'll turn back to the mayor if there needs to be further discussion or questions. Thank you, JC. Um, I would be looking to committee members as well as council. Does anybody have any specific questions on the presentation and the overlook that JC just presented? Doesn't look like anybody's jumping the forefront. So, we might have to just keep going.

I might have put everybody to sleep. I'm sorry. Or maybe it was the pizza, not me.

So, you guys have this presentation material. So if there is any questions after you guys digest it a little bit, don't hesitate to reach out um in to myself uh city manager or even JC and we can field those questions at a later time cuz I know that was a huge download in in uh in one fail swoop. Uh with that I will say thank you very much. Thank you guys. Okay, so that was our first orientation on the budget committee. And uh next on the agenda here, we have uh non-bargaining compensation and classification. As soon as she gets set up, Stephanie will proceed with a presentation. No pressure,

just a little pressure. Yeah, go for it.

But we we'll get your your microphone. My microphone will get in stereo. All right. Good afternoon, counselors. Um, I know the mayor can hear, so I'm going to go ahead and get started because we do have a lot of information to get through um on this one today. So, again, we're back to talk about the non-bargaining compensation and classification adjustment. Um, again, I'm going to acknowledge that I do have a conflict of interest as my position is one of the non-bargaining positions. However, my role here is to present you with options and risks, uh, receive your direction and provide the legal parameters. I will proceed however council instructs. Um and as we've mentioned before, there are two things to keep in mind. First is that full implementation has already been included in the current budget. Um so funding for whatever council chooses to do is available. And we are second, we are talking about market and equity adjustments in order to be able to recruit and retain quality employees and compliance with legal requirements.

These are not merit increases um such as an annual step increase would be and it's not a matter of whether employees deserve individuals deserve raises. It's a matter of whether or not the structure needs to be addressed. Um as we've talked about before, we're looking at updating our non-bargaining employee compensation and classification based on market analysis and pay equity law, which supports council's goal of fiscal stability. Um the goal is to balance the city's financial health and long-term sustainability with the need to recruit and retain quality employees and comply with legal requirements. Um so what we're going to do today do I like to do the background and status just to remind everybody of where we've come from since our last session. Um, we're going to talk about the 90% of task force recommendation option which was the direction that council provided our last workshop and then I'll seek re uh direction for staff to proceed on with. Um, as we know in 2024, Dr. McGrath was retained by the city to complete a market analysis and that report was provided in October of 2024. So essentially that's a year and a half ago was when the report came out. The data at this point that it was that relied or that she relied on in creating that report is two years old. Um her report focused on the positions themselves, not on individual employees. It grouped comparable positions based on an analysis of the duties and responsibilities of each of those positions. And it looked at um trying to both bring wages into alignment with market as well as address internal compression issues. Um, as we know, we do have some pretty significant internal compression issues. She did not place employees on the grid, although she did note that most the most budget friendly was to place employees on the grid at the step closest to current wage without a decrease. And as we've talked about, that approach to it would actually result in pay equity

issues as well as an increased risk of future issues um as new employees are promoted or existing employees are hired. Flip that. as existing employees are promoted and new employees are hired. Um she did not review any individual employees um in their positions for pay equity compliance that was left to staff. So again our definitions um the market refers to external competitors in comparable jurisdictions and she looked at comp the comparable um jurisdictions by population as well as in southern Oregon. Um she looked at and then compression is internal compression where a lower track or subordinate position makes close to or in some cases more than the higher supervisory position. These are the two components that Dr. McGrath looked at. She did not look at pay equity and I'll talk about the definition there in just a moment. Um she used market and compression to guide development of the salary schedule itself. Um I did go back um based on council's uh discussion at the last workshop regarding southern Oregon and Rogue Valley comparators. Um I did look at her raw data that she provided and broke it down by whether or not the jurisdictions that she gathered information from um were in were a Union comparator, which is the five up five down that we've talked about, Rogue Valley comparator, southern Oregon comparator um as well as the overall comparator ratios. And based on her data from two years ago, um grant's past non-bargaining positions were on average 12.6% below all comparators. Um the positions on average were 7.3% below Rogue Valley comparators, 9.4% below Southern Oregon comparators, and 14.5% below um the Union comparators. And the difference between Rogue Valley and Southern Oregon is Southern Oregon has the addition of Clamoth Falls and

Roseberg when she had those included. She didn't have data from um the Southern Oregon or Rogue Valley comparators for a number of the positions. She only had union comparators on some of those. So, it's it's hard to tell you um kind of how every one of them fits, but that's those are the averages that I saw based on the raw data provided by Dr. McGrath. I also did not obtain any current information or determine which jobs in other jurisdictions would be used as comparators for grants pass. There are some positions where it's clear um you know a city manager to a city manager is a clear comparator. Um a number of other comparators are not and it's I don't have the experience. I'm not a human resources professional. So to do anything more than look at her data would be essentially a new market study. Um so the last piece then is the pay equity. Um that's the legal requirement that more experienced employees cannot make less base pay than a less experienced employee in a comparable position. And as we've talked about before, compression on its own is not a pay equity concern. Subordinates under certain circumstances can in fact make more than their supervisors. And this often happens where long-term subordinates report to a newer supervisor or where overtime's involved. However, compression can indirectly lead to pay equity issues when a subordinate promotes and because of the wage the wage scales are so close together, they start at a new position at a step five or higher regardless of their experience. This can result in less experienced employees being paid more than more experienced comparables, which would then be a pay equity violation. So, it really when they're when the pay scales are too close together, um you run the risk of pay equity issues if you aren't very very careful. All right. Our current status, um we have 49 non-bargaining employees, three non three vacant non-bargaining positions. It's my understanding that one of those

positions actually will have uh will be filled in the near future. Um 24 of those employees have been with the city for more than 10 years and 17 have been here more than 15 years. Council did previously approve that 3.02% cost of living adjustment to the current salary schedule um effective July 1st of 2025 that was implemented and as we've talked about we there are some adjustments in progress where required by law. to some extent, we need council's direction um before we can finish that work because we need to know how council wants us to wait and adjust things um before we can finalize. But some some adjustments have been made and some were just pending that final determination and we will make those retroactive to the appropriate dates. However, even with the steps we've already taken, we do still have we have known pain points where we were we will have difficulty promoting, recruiting, and or retaining and where there are pay equity issues that cannot be adjusted for under the current salary schedule. And these are known pain points. We've discussed them in depth previously. So, I'm just going to do a quick overview of what those pain points are as they exist. Now, we have sergeant to lieutenant. This is a recruitment and retention issue as well as a pay equity risk. Essentially, sergeant detective pay range is the same as a lieutenant's pay range. But lieutenants are eligible for less in base pay incentive increases and cannot get overtime. This results in lieutenants making less than sergeant sergeant detectives. We have battalion chief to deputy chief, which is both a recruitment retention issue and a pay equity risk. Um the battalion chief's sixstep pay range is the same as deputy chief pay range through the first six six steps but again there's less inbased pay incentive increases and they cannot get overtime at the deputy chiefs office assistant to office assistant confidential. Um you'll also hear office assistant confidential referred to as

administrative associate because the recommendation is to retitle that position if the new if a new schedule is adopted. Um, essentially the office assistant pay range is higher than an administrative associate pay range through step seven. Um, and an office assistant step seven is almost the same as the administrative associate at step eight. Communications supervisor to 911 manager. Um, essentially the communication supervisor pay range is about 9% of the 911 manager pay range, which results in the communications supervisor promotion to only one step lower than their current step. And generally that would be a higher placement than would usually be justified by experience. So because they're so close together, it makes it difficult to um promote correctly. And then we have the potential for pay equity issues going forward. Uh it's a very similar situation with associate planner to senior planner. Um Dr. McGrath has stated that when starting a new position, it should generally take 3 to 5 years of experience to reach market average, which she placed at step six. So, a promotion with no same experience should usually not be anything lower than a step four absent unique circumstances. And with all of these positions that we've talked about, the promotions would be to the very top of the pay scale for the higher position. Um, finally, we do have unresolvable pay equity issues. Um, as noted before, we have one or more positions that have been grouped as comparable by Dr. McGrath, but on the current schedule, they are not grouped. They're on different pay bands. This results in one or more employees at step 10 with more experience than an employee in a comparable position. But that comp person in the comparable position even at a lower step makes more money because that uh employee is in a higher pay band. So we can't fix that within the current structure. Um we our goal again we want to balance the increased costs with legal compliance, recruitment and retention.

So with that, that jumps us forward to what council asked staff to return with um at the last workshop, which is the 90% of task force recommendation. Um so the the parameters were what would it look like if council adopted a salary schedule that is 90% of what the task force had previously recommended? And we're calling this the 90% of task force recommendation option. It's not a recommendation that was made by the task force. It's a reduction to that recommendation. Um, I did use step 10 for the step to reduce. The results were essentially the same no matter which step we used for it. And starting at step or using step 10 allowed for a more straightforward formula for Excel to make calculations. So that's why it's at step 10. Um what I distributed uh by email and again today is the current schedule the 90% of task force recommendation schedule and then a comparison document that shows some of the schedules that we've discussed both the one the 90% one um prov that you requested today as well as the consultants's original schedule and the task for the last task force recommendation schedule. Um, it shows how step 10 at each of those compares, what the dollar amount is, and then for the potential new schedules, what the rate of change from current is. You will note that if adopted, the 90% of task force salary schedule would have 13 positions see a lower rate of pay at step 10 than what they are currently making. So that's 30% of positions would actually see a reduction in their maximum pay available. Um that would impact 21 employees and that's 43% of the non-bargaining employees. 14 employees would actually be placed at a higher step than their current step in order to avoid a pay reduction because

of the shift in their pay band. and five employees, which is 12% of the non-bargaining, already have a current salary that is higher than step 10 of the proposed schedule. So, these employees would be frozen at their current salary and would have to be paid outside of the adopted salary structure, which is against city policy. City policy is that we have a salary structure and people get paid within that structure. So, let's talk about the pain points um that we've already acknowledged are out there with the current structure. Um you do have a a new document that did not go out on Friday. Um it's it shows you what the uh pay rates are as well as the incentives for all the positions we're going to talk about um under this painoint analysis section. Um just because I know you want to have the numbers in front of you when we talk about what these are. So, I wanted to make sure you had that information hopefully in a fairly condensed version. Um, but I'm going to walk through each of these and what the actual pain points look like if the 90% of task force recommendation were to be adopted for sergeant and sergeant detectives um who would promote to a lieutenant. Adopting the 90% task force of task force salary schedule would result in step 10 of the lieutenant pay actually being reduced. Not by much. It is less than 1% I believe that the comparator says it is 0.17% less than what their what their current salary at step 10 would be but this was already one of the biggest pain points in the existing pay structure and it so adopting the 90% would actually exacerbate that pain point as you can see current sergeants step 10 base wage is 125,793 and I did round for purposes um I don't have the pennies on The current sergeant detective at step 10 is $132,82.

However, sergeant sergeants and sergeant detectives can increase their base wages through incentives. And those incentives include DPSSST certifications of 2.5% for intermediate or 4% for advanced. They can get 1.25% if they have a second language. They can get 2.5% if they have an associate degree or 5% for a bachelor's degree. Um, one thing I would note is that an associates degree or the equivalent education experience is actually required in that job description. A lieutenant requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent, but does not have any additional pay included in the salary schedule. Um, to acknowledge that sergeants are also eligible for 1% longevity if they've been there 10 to 14 years and 2% at 15 or more years. And I believe that's with the city, not just in that position. They are eligible for overtime. A lieutenant, on the other hand, has a base wage at step 10 of $132,298. And the only incentives that they are eligible for are a 2% increase for a master's degree or one 1.5% for DPSST management. Um, language, they only would receive $50 per month. So what this means is a sergeant detective with an associates degree as required by the job description would make more than a lieutenant at the same step. At step 10, Spanish fluent employees, sergeants and sergeant detectives would make 15 over $1,500 um per year just for that additional incentive. A lieutenant would only be able to get 600. A sergeant detective with a bachelor's degree makes more base wage than a lieutenant with a bachelor's degree and actually more than a lieutenant with a master's degree. A sergeant with a bachelor's degree makes essentially the same as a lieutenant with a with a required bachelor's degree. And all of these do not factor in that a sergeant or sergeant detective can receive an additional 1 to 2% increase for longevity which is not available to lieutenants.

Um, a sergeant detective at step seven would promote to a lieutenant step 10, uh, which if city policy were to be followed, which requires a 5% pay increase for a promotion, and that's without any experience at in those job duties, and they would be eligible for lessen incentives. A sergeant detective at steps 8 through 10 would not receive the 5% increase of city policy. Moving on to battalion chief and that is our most significant pain point from the analysis that that's where we see the biggest discrepancy. Um the rest of these there are there are significant ones but that's probably our biggest one. For battalion chief to deputy chief there is some slight improvement to the existing pain point but it remains unresolved. Deputy chiefs would have a wage scale increase of about 4.63%. Battalion chiefs at step six have a base wage of $138,223 and they have available incentives of EMT lure of 3% for advanced, 5% for intermediate and 9% for paramedic. A degree uh they can receive $75 a month for bachelors or and $50 per month for Spanish. Um they do qualify for overtime. Deputy Chief Step 10 base wages uh are 154 304 which seems like a pretty significant jump but remember we are talking about a sixstep to a 10step pay scale there. Um step six for a deputy chief would be 142 5553 and they they have some of the same incentives but at lower rates. So for EMT lure it's 2% for advanced, 3% for intermediate and 5% for paramedic. um for a degree they can receive 2% for a master's um but a bachelor's degree or the equivalent is required for the deputy chief according to the um job description. So this means that when it comes to actual numbers, a battalion chief at

step six with a bachelor's degree and paramedic license would make $151,562 before overtime. Deputy Chief at step 10 with a master's degree and paramedic license would make 165 105. A promotion of a battalion chief from step six would have to go to at least a deputy chief step seven without any experience and with less in incentives. Office assistant to administrative associate. This is another one where there's slight improvement to the pain point but still some significant compression. Administrative associates would have a wage scale increase by 3.8%. and a step one administrative associate would have a base wage higher than office assistant step one. Previously their base wage was lower. Um both positions and you can see step seven to step 10 on your sheet in front of you. Both positions currently have the same incentives. However, office assistant is likely going to be receiving the longevity of 1% or 2% in the near future because their union has joined with Teamsters which has that incentive. In addition, the Teamster's contract is up for negotiation currently. So, we do anticipate discussions about cost of living and other adjustments to that salary schedule. So, they're essentially the same at this point, and we anticipate increases to office assistant. An office assistant step seven makes essentially the same base wage as administrative associate step six and would promote to administrative associate step nine. A similar situation exists with associate planner to senior planner. um again with the incentives that will change due to the consolidation of the unions. Finally, the the previous pain points that we talked about were the unresolvable pay equity. The 90% of the task force recommendation option would resolve our unresolvable pay equity because it would band together those comparable positions. So that at least would be fully resolved.

However, the 90% of task force recommendation does create two new pain points. There may be more. These were the two that jumped out at me when I was looking at the data. Um, because of the way it would be because of the way our progression currently works, we have communications supervisor to 911 manager and the dispatcher to communications supervisor. So, communication supervisor to 911 manager because they would both be placed on the same new salary structure. There is enough space between them to resolve the previously noted um concerns. But what it does is it shifts both of those back far enough that now it would create a pain point between dispatcher and communication supervisor. Um so a dispatcher a step seven base wage for a dispatcher is 83,496. They have available incentives of 2.5% for an associates degree, 5% for a bachelor's degree, 1.25% for a second language, and 2.5 or 4% for DPSST certifications. They do qualify for overtime. Communications supervisor at step 10 is $90,29. At step seven, that comparable step on the grid is 84,837. for their incentives. They can only get 2.5% for a bachelor's, $50 a month for a second language, and 2.5% for an advanced DPSST. So, a dispatcher step 7 that has a bachelor's degree in advanced DPSSST speaking Spanish would make $92,54 overtime. Communications supervisor with the same qualifications would make $95,130 without overtime. So, those are very close together. um especially when you start talking about the possibilities for overtime. A dispatcher step seven makes more than a communications supervisor at step six. So a dispatcher promotion from step

seven would have to be to communication supervisor step nine and that's without any supervisory experience and the incentives would be less. We have a similar situation when it comes to the record specialist to record supervisor. Um, I would note that the communications supervisor and record supervisor are positions where that step 10 would be significantly reduced from current pay. Um, I believe that the communications supervisor, it's almost 10% lower than current and record supervisor is over 12% less than current. So that's why these pain points would be created. Um, for the records specialist, the top pay at step six would be $68,6 and that's uh just slightly less than a step five for a record supervisor. And again, you see the same issues with the incentives between the two. So we would have a a higher potential for a higher pay rate for a record specialist compared to their record supervisor. So we have the new pain points even though we do resolve some of our existing ones. it creates new by the 90%. A comparison of the options that we've talked about before. Um we're talking about the legal pain points, the recruitment retention pain points and what the costs would be. The full consultant implementation would resolve our legal pain points. Um it would resolve our recruitment and retention pain points, but as we've talked about, it's the most expensive option. The task force recommendation does resolve legal pain points as well as the recruitment and retention. It's less expensive than the full consultants. The 90% of the task force recommendation resolves the legal pain points but does not resolve the recruit and retain pain points. And in fact, it actually exacerbates one and creates two new ones even though it resolves or minimizes some others. It would be a much lower cost.

Restructuring the current, which we've talked about before, where we essentially band together all the positions that Dr. McGrath did to address those um the inherent pay equity issues would resolve the legal ones, but it wouldn't resolve our recruitment and retention. Um it would still leave some odd results as far as position pay ranges. It would also mean that positions that Dr. McGrath has on a lower band would be on a higher band than others just because of how we would have to consolidate. But again, it's one of the lowcost options. Um and I know and then the last option that we've talked about previously was public safety only. That one does not resolve our legal concerns because um some of the restructuring needed is to salary schedules other than public safety. It partially resolves our recruitment and retention but only so far as we're talking about the public safety employees. It doesn't resolve the other employees. Um and it would be a little bit higher cost than the 90% of task force and restructure of current. Um, also the 90% task force and restructure of current options only resolve the currently unresolvable pain points. They don't address the actual structural issues that may lead to further pay equity issues and it would require some very careful work going forward to make sure that we remained in compliance with the legal requirements. So, one additional option that is out there um is to update your market study. As we noted, it's two years old. Um, Dr. McGrath developed that based on position duties and responsibilities, external market data for the comparable positions using her proprietary formula that eliminates outliers, accounts for differences, and does a far more in-depth version than um I could do using her data. Um, it addressed comp compression between non-bargaining and union pay schedules and internal pay equity. But again, it's nearly 2 years old and the pay equity safe harbor in statute only applies if there has been

an equal pay analysis within the preceding 3 years and only if progress is being made towards resolving those differentials. So you could request a new market study that council provides direction on what the consultant should be looking at and how the consultant should approach it. Um so with that we're on to our staff direction. So some of the options available uh to council, we can engage a professional to develop a salary schedule pursuant to council direction. We can bring one of the options or an adjusted option forward for council action. We can bring additional information to a workshop for further discussion and or we can discontinue the non-bargaining wage adjustment work um at this time and focus on something else. So with that, I will leave it to questions.

Thank you, Stephanie. Uh any questions from council? I have uh Victoria and then Rick and then Eric. Victoria. So thank you so much Stephanie. Um, can this, if we chose the 90%, can we deal with the positions that would be um in compression or pay equity by taking those out of the pay schedule like you mentioned and then through retirement or attrition hire back in at the wage that we created. That's the first question. And then I have one other.

Are you talking about the five individuals that Okay, so um technically yes is let me explain that. Um yes, we because we can't cut their pay. We can't do it. We they would have to stay at least at their same pay. We would have to find a way to do that. Um there's probably a couple of different ways we can do it. I know it'll complicate JC's life if we have to go this route. Um we could kind of create specific bands, but we don't want to do that. We want to leave it as is. We could um have to then address city policy that says that we will pay within um because city policy says we pay within our structure. We would have to revise our policy that we pay within our structure with exceptions under XYZ uh parameters and so we could could do it. Um it's just more complicated.

Yes. Oh, thank you. And then uh could all of these be I was listening to your percentages throughout and I was just wondering to myself if it could be taken care of not taking anything out of a pay schedule if it was uh 95% um so 5% more which would make it a a little bit less with the money saving the um council was looking for and uh but not have any of these issues. And there was one or two I thought it wouldn't work with, but from what I heard, but I don't know what you can tell me about that right now.

Um, if we increased it to 95% and I I can't run the numbers specifically, but I know that um there are a number of the positions where step 10 is reduced by more than 5%. In fact, if you look the the task force recommendation, um the original one has three positions that would see a slight reduction. Not very much, but slight reduction. So no matter what you did, those three positions would still have a step 10 reduction. And then there are others um that would have So it would only resolve, just doing math in my head, one, two, three. It would only resolve three of the 13.

So it would resolve some three of the 13. Yeah. We would still have 10 that would be that would be and those potentially could be taken care of by being taken out or at least some of those possibly.

I just have to look at something here. We would have I'm looking at the positions that or the individuals that would see a pay increase to see if that if it would any of them would be resolved. It would not resolve any of the five. Thank you. Uh, further questions. I got Rick, uh, Eric, and Joel. Rick,

thank you, Stephanie. I just wonder if I could have some clarification. Um, when the task force put together their recommendations, I thought we focused on step six, not step 10. So, when the council made the recommendation to do 90%, that was based on step 10. And was that step 10 based on the council's

it went back and forth at the last workshop whether step six step 10 I I did the math on both and they're essentially the same thing. If you reduce the whole grid by to 90% it doesn't matter which step you start with. Um and so what I just for math purposes I did step 10 because then I could just have Excel calculate reduce by 2 or 4% all the way back as opposed to some having to be reductions and some had to be increases from the step six. So there the numbers are the same essentially on the schedule regardless of step six or step 10.

Okay. So when I put the spreadsheet together showing step 10 and taking 90% I was using factors that it was representing those positions throughout the state of Oregon, not just southern Oregon. Although I found the discrepancy between the whole state and southern Oregon was not that significant. But but um the problem I'm having when I did that I came up with of the high paid positions of those 15 high paid positions nine of those were higher pay with the 90% than they were with level six by the task force.

I'm not sure I understand if what a task force was looking at trying to meet level six. Step six, step six would be market is presumed to be market average. That's what Dr. McGrath said she put where she put the market average at was step six. So what you're you're saying we lower the the entire step of step 10, but we're still going to pay people at step six. The entire grid is reduced by 90%. So step six would be reduced by 90%. Step seven, steps one through 10 all get reduced by 90%. I just did the math for step 10 because then you can calculate the rest. It all ends up being the same.

So what I'm hearing you say when it comes to actually paying the person in that position, we could be looking at step six. Yes. Not every employee is going to make step 10. It's but where I did my math, I started with step 10 as the starting point. So it's it regardless of where you pick your starting point for that 10% reduction, the math comes out essentially the same for all. So the discrepancy I'm seeing in my figures, I focused on step six and our calculations are based on step 10, which is okay. Not how it would actually come out. Okay, thank you. Further questions. I got Eric and then Joel. Eric,

thank you Stephanie. I had a question in terms of um u these pain points. Um would there be a way to increase the percentage of incentives and or maybe add an incentive to these specific pain points uh these specific jobs? Instead of increasing the pay, how about uh increasing the percentage or add an incentive of some kind knowing that we are uh having problems with those areas. Is that a possibility?

Potentially. Um it kind of depends on where you want to go with it and there depending on what you did it could result in different pain points. So a lot of these positions lieutenant wherever they end up there's another step above them. captain. So, if you start giving incentives to lieutenants, now they're getting closer to captains potentially who either don't qualify for it or the same thing, captains to chief. Um, same thing with deputy chief to chief. Um, we've got senior planner to principal planner. Um, so you you may cause new pain points by offering certain things or adjusting. And you're also talking about we the salary structure was developed by Dr. McGrath saying this is kind of the hierarchy of positions. So now you're adjusting hierarchy for certain positions that may in effect put them at higher pay rates than uh positions with higher with more job duties and responsibilities. So you can it's just better if you can offer similar incentives within similar pay structures. So you need to offer them for everybody.

Okay. Thank you. Further questions. I got Joel and then Indra Joel. So Stephanie, if you deserve a performance award for doing all this. So I'll buy you a cup of coffee, but I don't know if there's anything beyond that. Should be I'm here to answer your questions. Whatever you need is what I'm here for. Okay. Um I I had a couple of questions on your presentation. Um thorough presentation. How is the associate planner and senior planner a pinch point? Because when I look at the associate planner and let's say, well, pick any of the steps, I don't care. Pick pick step four.

They earn $75,000. If they get u um promoted to senior planner, then you get two steps increase to the next one. So, they would make they would go from 75 to 90,000. Th this is what So, I don't understand how that's a pinch point. It's a pinch point because of how high a step seven would promote to. Because if you're at step seven making a certain amount, anytime that you're hiring to step four, five, six, anything above that, you're pro um you're not allowing for that 3 to 5 years of experience within the position to get to market. So if you're at step seven, you make 84,000

and then if you go two steps above uh to step five as a senior planner, you make 93. You get a 10% increase in salary. But that's not a And you call that a pinch point? It's a pinch point because if you bring in another senior planner, so if you promote one, you promote an associate planner to a senior planner, they have bare minimum qualifications for the senior planner, they meet just that. But because they were a step seven associate planner, they get mo promoted to probably a step four just based with no incentives, nothing, they would get placed at a step four. But you bring in somebody from outside, a lateral employee with the same exact experience or even more experience than your associate planner, but maybe not a whole lot more. All of a sudden, they have to be placed at step five or higher on the grid, even without the experience. And neither one of those positions has the experience that would justify being placed at market average because they just don't have those skills yet. They haven't developed that experience. So what I hear you saying is it's not the wage scale of the associate planner and the senior planner that creates the u the issue. The issue is how much you pay a new person coming in.

It's it's how closely they are related and where you put the promotion which then will dictate where you may have to put those uh new hires. That probably can apply to any position. I would guess the further apart the wage bands are the less likely you are to have those issues. Anytime the top of the lower pay scale promotes to step one, two, or three, you're generally going to be fine. It's when they start promoting to the middle or top of the grid, that's where you have the potential for pay equity problems and andor um either promotions or new hires are always going to come in at that top half of the schedule. So, what's the point of having a lower half of the schedule because nobody's ever going to be placed there?

So, I I heard what you said and I understand what you said. When I look at step four of an associate planner and a senior planner, there's a difference of $15,000 between the two. Correct? You would go from a step seven associate planner if you promoted. I believe a 5% increase would put you at a step four. So you'd go from 84 to 89. I guess I would I would disagree that that's a pinch point, but that's my my opinion in and of itself. It's not that promotion piece is not a pinch point by itself. Where we have a potential pain point is the fact that you bring in a lateral and now we have a lateral with no experience being placed at the mid or upper levels of the pay scale. But that lateral would have more experience at that level. I would guess

potentially which but you still don't want to place somebody brand new with little experience in the middle of the pay scale. You want to place them on the lower end. They come in with more experience. They should get it's just it's a potential for pay equity issues is what that pain point is. It's not a guarant it's not a mandatory compression issue. It's not something that's fully existing between associate planner to senior planner. It has to do with potential. Be interested in seeing that that play out.

I mean, as an as an example, what you're talking about, what she's trying to explain is if you took if you took an associate planner and you promoted them to senior planner and they they go from step seven to step four. That's that's not a pinch. That doesn't seem like a pitch point. And then if we and that's with that's with the minimal experience as a senior planner. they're in the job for say 9 months and we hire a lateral that has four years of experience uh or or you know three 3 to four years of experience and you'd think that they would you would bring them in at step three four five but if someone is at step four with less than a year experience you have to take into consideration an individual that has 3 years more experience than that individual and they would need to go up to 567 with only 3 or four years experience they should be sitting at three, four, five. And so what it does is it elevates everyone's step increases. And that happens very quickly. Uh unless you're going to have a pay equity issue to to so resolve pay equity issues, you're needing to bring in people that you're recruiting outside the the organization or even sometimes within the organization at higher placements initially than the structure is really designed for.

Well, we need to pay people what they're worth and what their experience comes in. And if a new hireer comes in with more experience at that level, they need to get paid more. But if our hiring policy says that somebody with three years of experience gets hired at a step two or a step three, and because we have somebody with one year of experience already at a step four or five, we now have to put that person that should be a step two or three at a step five or six. And that's where we start ending up with issues except their experience level at the We can debate this. We can they have more experience, they should get paid more. That's Oregon pay equity law. But if we're getting used to a system where if you get promoted, you go two steps above where your salary is the same. And this is a very different system

and and it's done. Um, next question I had was uh the um the one slide where you talked about uh 90% of task force recommendation. It's just a clarification Stephanie. Um, under result, are we at the same place? Yeah, result. Those 13 positions would see a step 10 reduction from a current step 10. And then there's 21 employees that would uh be impacted. Correct. So, are those 13 positions part of those 21 positions or are they additive? Nope. Those 21 employees are in those 13 positions. Okay. So, so there's Okay. So,

some of the positions have more than one employee with the same job title, right? Okay. Okay. and and we could fix that as well. Okay. Um the other question I had and it's more of a philosophical question that I personally have struggled with um and uh it may not be gerine to your world uh or may not apply to your world. There seems to be an expectation on the part of municipal employees regardless of their location that they get a cost of living raise and a step increase every year.

Correct. which is about an 8 to 10% increase in their wages every year depending on the inflation rate. Um, and not only that, but if there's initially 10 of those, once you run out of those, you go back and you get even more. So, like you get it's like if you're at step 10, uh, now you go back to step six and you get four more. Only if the salary schedule's adjusted.

Yeah. And if the salary schedule's adjusted. Um, in my world I'm not used to that. I mean, when you're at 10, all you get is the cost of living from there on out because your expertise is at the top level and any marginal increases after that. So, is it a re is it an expectation on the part of municipal workers that they get a step increase and a cost of living increase every year? Yes. I've never seen a system that operated any differently for local government. Oh, that's crazy. Okay. Thank you. Uh, further questions? I got Indra and then Rick. Indra.

Yes. I'm going to follow up a little on what Joel was asking you. We can look at associate senior planner. Um, so when you're talking about pinch point, you're talking about someone at a a supervisor making at or less than what someone they're supervising is at. Is that what pinch point is?

No. Um, for purposes of associate planner and senior planner, what the pinch point is is if you have two senior planners, one of which was promoted from an associate planner with the bare minimum of experience and they promoted from a step seven, they would have to promote to a step four, even with no qualifying experience, that would put them at a higher step than step one. Which means that if you hire an outside person to come in as a senior planner and that person has the same or more experience, they have to go to a step five, even if their experience would only normally justify a step two or three. It's a it's not an actual existing pain point between the two. It's the potential for a pay equity issue under promotion and hiring circumstances down the road. It's just it's a risk that we would have to pay very close attention to. So, it's not an actual problem at the moment, but it's potential for a problem. You could have an associate planner on step six or or we have tons of employees at step, you know, have been here 10 or 17 years as you said. So, they're high up, but then you could hire a new senior planner on uh step one. Correct. That I mean that has no experience. Are you saying if they have the same or more experience than an employee higher on the scale, they would need to be placed higher on the scale. Otherwise, we would have a pay equity problem.

But if they don't have that experience, then we could place them at step one. You would place them at one where and then they're making less than the person they're supervising. So, it's fine to do that in circumstances. Yes, it's all on associate planner and on office assistant to administrative assistant. Those two, those are potential for an issue if we don't pay very close attention and make sure we're dotting our eyes and crossing our tees. Those are pain points, but they're more like a bruise as opposed to a gaping wound. Okay? So, there it's a m it's a lower level pain point. It's still a pain point, and we have to pay attention to make sure that we don't violate legal requirements.

Okay? Because you're you're using those terms in general, but they don't really apply to every situation. And so when we're throwing out one solution for every situation, it doesn't really apply in my mind. And then I had asked, we talked about retention and uh that was a part of your presentation today. I asked for a while back um more detailed information on retention. I never got anything.

I'm I'm unclear about exactly what you want as far as when it comes to retention. We've talked about some of the things before that we do have um anecdotal where positions have been declined due to our low pay pay scales. Promotions have been declined due to low pay scales. Um we've with we've held off on uh posting positions because we know we won't be able to have a quality recruitment. We know that some employees and I'm I don't remember off the top of my head how many, but in their actual exit interviews, the questionnaires did site uh lower um higher pay elsewhere for similar job duties as a reason why they were leaving. Um so we but everything's basically anecdotal on that. Um and we also have the grumblings behind the scenes that we're hearing um about the low pay and the people that are dissatisfied and what they might do. Um, and so we we have all of that as well. There's not a lot that's concrete and that I can say we have this many who left just because of low pay that because people are always going to have multiple reasons why and some people have weighted reasons why they they valued one thing more than another, but we know that a lot have said low pay is a reason why they left.

I'm not Did you actually say we hold off on posting positions because we think we won't have anyone apply? We have Yes, we um lieutenant we have a lieutenant position that we're trying to find out what council wants to do hopefully um because because of the high levels of well because it is currently paid essentially the same as a sergeant. Um it's hard to we know it's going to be hard to recruit. Okay. So I just I don't want anecdotal. I'm not looking for I I want just the data on retention like what positions what's our turnover rate about 10%. In specific positions that's what I would like to see.

Which specific positions? All of these the non bargaining. Yes. Non-bargaining. Yes. Over what time period? Uh the last year. say

Stephanie, if I could just make a quick clarification. Um, regarding the lieutenants process, I did we did post um um a process. So, there is an application period currently. Um, my concern is we won't get enough applicants um to move forward with the process. We might, it's currently still open. Um, but based upon what I believe is going on in the organization, I don't expect to get a um um more than one candidate, for example, for this position. Thank you for clarifying. Posting and seeing who you get is different from not posting at all. Correct. It is might not.

It is an internal posting. So I I need to find out if somebody is going to apply and I may not get a number that I feel is sufficient to move forward. Thank you, Chief. Uh further questions I had Rick. So Stephanie, if I recall right, when the task force looked at the issues before us, we recommended this 10 10step chart because some people are in six steps right now. Yeah, all of the bargaining units with the exception of the sergeants um are on either a six or seven step.

Okay. So, in part of that was the opportunity to go forward in the future for a pay raise. Um when I'm doing my calculations here, and again, I'm not an accountant. If you take 10% off of the task force recommendation, the resultant figure will be less than what they're currently earning. So if that's the case, then you're going to have to if you slide them over to a similar level of what they're earning, they're probably going to be in a step eight or nine or even 10. And to me, we lose our purpose in everything that we're doing. Is that

if I'm following you correctly, I would agree that if you're if everybody's getting placed at those higher levels automatically, then you have a system that's already out of date. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? Looks like I got Rob.

I guess I have a question more for the council than uh than for Stephanie, but I'll I'll ask it. Um essentially, and I I just want to also make a clarification that um last time at the last time we met um you know, we're calling this this possible plan the 10% uh reduction of the task force by 10%. Well, that was not um just an arbitrary figure and and it was frankly it was I figured that out at one of the dis on the fly last time, but it wasn't an arbitrary figure. That 10% less than task force is almost exactly uh the average of what the five cities in southern Oregon pay. And like for instance uh public works director the task force uh well we can start with um and and then I'll get to my question but um the consultant salary for public works director uh would have topped out at 226 the um 226,000 the task force recommendation was 209 and 10% less than that is 188 when we look at southern Oregon, Roseberg topped out 176, Kay Falls 185, Ashlin 187, Lake Asiggo 187. I don't know why that's in there. Uh Medford 199, etc. So basically 10% less than the task force. And and that's true for every one of these uh whether it's the public works director, community development director, like community development director, 10% less than task force is 1746. The other cities in southern Oregon were 162 173. um uh 185, you know, 193, etc. So, the 10% less in task force was putting us right in the middle of where Southern Oregon is paying their managers. And that's that's to me when we're going to say 10% less task force, I'd rather I'd

rather call that the Southern Oregon average. And so now, if I'm going to call it that, which I am, at least I'm going to call it that. The council needs to the question that council needs to answer is where do we want to be with our pay scale? This is a policy decision. This has nothing to do with Dr. McGrath. Dr. McGrath was never asked or never instructed um or never given guidance actually for for this aspect of it. Do we want to does council want to basically pay our management group uh on average roughly the same as what the managers make in the rest of southern Oregon? And if the answer to that is yes, that happens to be about 10% less than the task force. So, if that's I I think that council should probably uh I I I'll make a motion or council should should discuss that. Do we want to basically pay our managing our managers our non-bargain positions roughly the same as what the other ones the other managers make in the other five cities in southern Oregon? If the answer to that is yes, we have a target. We can call that 90% of task force, but basically the target is southern Oregon. So, uh, I I I'm if everyone agrees with that, I'll I'll go forward. But, um, you know, McGrath was never asked to do that. Staff in 2023 when when council gave staff direction to go forward with the study, staff never asked council, where do you want this to be? Do you want to average? Do you want to be averaged uh with do you want do you want the end product to be representative of southern Oregon averages? you want it to be representative Pacific Northwest averages, statewide averages. Staff never asked council to give that direction. Um they went to uh McGrath and said just you know give us the figures. Now somehow McGrath came up with figures that are uh 20% higher than Southern Oregon and that's pretty pretty accurate. Um, and you know, if we want

to pay this what I would consider to be an exorbitant amount, all these pain points and all these other things just miraculously go away. Okay? And we can accomplish that by paying 20% more by by I would say overpaying by 20% of what people make in Southern Oregon. Um, I I personally don't want to do that, but um but here's here's I guess my question. uh you know we've got so many detail a question for Stephanie actually or for Aaron more for Aaron we have so many so many details here um that of course you know we're all uh council is all non-professionals in HR as a matter of fact I don't think we have any professional HR person in the room today so all these details are seem to be very daunting to someone who's not a professional in HR um and that might be different if we had an HR professional in the room today but since we don't we're going around and round trying to figure out ways to possibly uh uh put a sab on all these different wounds or be able to uh uh figure out a final product without having an HR professional involved. But what I will say is this, we know because we've bargained fairly recently with the police union and the um fire union, etc. We know that our police and our fire in ballpark make a ballpark of what those other five cities in southern Oregon make because we keep seeing those figures. Those those figures are always given to us every time we bargain. And in fact, maybe our our police might even be making I think they were very gracious when they actually did agree to I think take a little bit less possibly than what that average was. But but our our unions are making approximately the same as the other five cities at this point. So here's my question for Aaron. If our unions are making approximately the same as the other five cities and the other five cities are paying

their managers 20% less than McGrath, how can they do it but we can't do it? How can every other city in southern Oregon do what I believe, at least what I want to see and I believe probably council wants to see. Every other city in southern Oregon is able to do it. Why can't we do it in Grass Pass? Why why is your staff unable to make come up with that that that formula? So one I think uh instead of looking at anecdotal discussion of salaries of other five cities with all the multiple positions, you would need to really look at the data on each of the bargaining units and compare just the local five cities that you're wanting to compare to non-bargaining.

I'm not talking about anecdotal. I'm not talking anecdotal. We got the figures right here on the page. That's not anecdotal. So, as I continue my my explanation, counselor, we would need to look at the data of like for like and make sure that we're looking at non-bargaining and the five cities that you want to compare with with the rest of the bargaining units and those same exact cities to then have a discussion to see if the premise that you're talking about is correct. We don't have that data in front of us and I don't think it's appropriate for us to make that assumption unless that data is right in front of us. I think when we're looking at we've discussed recruitment and retention and those kind of things and that's something but it in totality is the way we need to look at we should be looking at this system. Um in theory doing a local five and setting non-bargain at local 5 is great. We'd be happy with that and we'll move forward with it from a non-bargaining perspective. We wanted we want to get something adopted and we want forward progress and I think that that would be wonderful. In order to keep that to where there's some consistency to where we're not dealing with pay equity and succession planning issues, you would need to look at the other six bargaining units and do the exact same thing. because currently right now the six bargaining units are comparing not the five local cities that you're wanting to compare with the non-bargaining and so you have an inequity with the comparators the bargaining units based on Oregon arbitration or five up and five down based on population and so those are going to give you different numbers than the local five cities and so to keep non-bargaining in a position where we're not trying to look at the issues that we've got today when it comes to compaction compression and pay equity we need to look at the system as a whole and non-bargaining should be should be looked at the same as bargaining. So if you want to set the

standard for non-bargaining to be the five cities, we should move forward in any future bargaining sessions with the bargaining units with the same comparators and stand firm on that so we can have um so we can have the whole system as a whole appropriate which would allow us to have succession planning allow us to be able to promote and and appropriately and put them in the in the proper places without pay equity issues. So, I understand what you're saying and there's a tremendous tremendous illogical aspect to what you just said and I'll point it out and it should be clear to everybody as soon as I say it. When you're saying that we that our non-bar that our unions are basically being compared all around the state, right, rather than just southern Oregon, that means our unions are actually going to be paid a little bit more than they would be if they were just compared to southern Oregon. So the bottom line is it would even be even easier for us to come up with management pay if we were to compare to the other the other five cities because our unions theoretically would be compared to the entire state whereas in fact we're just talking about uh uh southern Oregon. So, it's it's um um the fact that the other five cities in southern Oregon are able to do this using probably slightly higher data from around the entire state for their unions and yet they're still able to pay their managers a rate that's much lower than what our our consultant said and they're they're able to pull that off somehow. All five cities do it. We should easily be able to do this. our job is actually easier because it's it's we're only looking at at at uh the what what the other five cities are doing. They're doing it successfully. We're not able to do it for some reason. And it's like they're doing it right now in real time. And our our unions are making approximately what

their unions are making and they're still able to come up with management pay that that solves probably most of these details if not all of it. So they're all able to do it. You know, I mean, you know, you want to call that anecdotal, it's not anecdotal. I got the figures right here on the page. And actually, JC could look at the figures right now for the unions. That's not anecdotal. That's not pie in the sky. That's just arithmetic. So, uh, you know, again, we don't have an HR uh person in the room. And I would also say that part of how we got here is likely because we didn't have HR people on a annual basis who were really looking at uh some of the internal equities as they came up and we didn't actually put out small fires each and every year if we had to make a slight adjustment here or there. We we haven't done that as far as I know. So part of moving forward Stephanie's talking about in the future we could have you know specific uh significant problems as different well in the future we have an HR director theoretically every year who's going to be looking at some of that and there could be small adjustments made every year but again I I'm I'm still asking the question how is every other city in southern Oregon able to manage and come up with uh paying their managers approximately 10% less than our task force 20% less than McGrath every every other city is able to do it and yet we're sitting here uh fumbling over details saying that it's so difficult. Everyone else is doing it.

May I make one statement on that um quickly? The Oregon pay equity law is a fairly new law. Um it's only within the last few years. So the fact that we're 18 years since our last market study um and nobody was on top of pay equity, there wasn't a law for them to be implementing. So, it's only recently um within a couple of years of when this market study was commissioned.

Yeah, I I I understand and I appreciate uh reminding us of that. Um nonetheless, we have five other cities in southern Oregon that are functioning under the same state law that we're trying to function under. I understand how we we got here or how it got so out of balance. You know, that's I guess a different you know, I think that's what you're addressing is how did we get so out of balance? Yeah, it's a combination and the the pay equity issues which the some of the pain points are primarily that pay equity concern 5 8 years ago that wouldn't have been an issue because the law didn't apply. So it's not that somebody didn't stay on top of that particular piece that put us into legal troubles.

Okay. Well, moving forward though, if we have somebody that stays on top of small differences, I would imagine we can put out small fires rather than gross um restructures. Absolutely. And that is the intention,

right? So when when you say well you know yes that would work this year but it may not work next year. Okay well next year we can put out small and we and we should we should assume that we're going to have to do that almost no m unless we want to take Dr. demographs, grossly inflated inflated figures that are so out of the ballpark they're not even a consideration. Unless we were to take that, if we take anything that's even close to a fair reasonable deal for our taxpayers, then we can assume every single year that our HR director is going to have to bring certain small little tweaks back to council. Not a big deal. And I don't I don't think that council should be intimidated by the fact that not everything is going to be perfect for years into the future with whatever we decide. That shouldn't intimidate us because we're going to have to make adjustments as we move forward that were not done in the past. Again, for the reason that maybe you stated, but again, I to me I I'd rather call this 90% of task force. I'd rather call that the Southern Oregon management pay scale because that's exactly what it is. Um or we can call it the 90% of task force, but that's where it came from. It's not an arbitrary thing. So to me, you know, if we want to address again the um the retention thing, I'd have to ask council even, do we even have a retention problem when 41 of the 49 people in this group have had 10 years or more of tenure? Do we even have a retention problem? I I I don't you know granted we're going to have an anecdotal story about this one left or that one left or whatever but I don't personally believe that we even have a retention problem if 41 out of 49 have been here 10 years or more and are and are on step eight or more. We don't even have a retention problem. So I I you know I don't want council personally to be intimidated by those words. You know could we have a recruitment problem? we could, you know, but um but let's actually be real here and uh especially when we don't even have any anecdotes about, you know, Indra asked for stuff. We don't even have any anecdotal stories about that. Um

so Rob, you're going you're going in circles at this moment of time, but let me re Well, let me let me interrupt you one second and let me remind the council.

You are a governing body of eight people making this decision. So for you to say that the staff is telling you not to make the decision, that's a little bit grossly misrepresentated. You guys have the ability to make a motion, go forward and make a decision. You guys have as a council body have have asked for more and more and more information because this is a very hard subject to get through. I completely understand that. But at this point, you have every right to make a motion and say, "I want to do XYZ and get the rest of the council on board to go forward."

Thank you. So, okay. Uh, thank you, Clint, for keeping me on track. So, um, and and I'll just say that, you know, one of the reasons that we've asked for more and more and more information is everybody intuitively knew and then actually mathematically realized that Dr. McGrath's recommendations were completely out of line. So, since we didn't want to we didn't want to accept that and take a rubber stamp on that, we asked for more information. Um, so I'd like to make a motion first that council, you know, um, uh, wants to try to solve this situation with our non bargaining to have us be at or around the the average of other southern or the five other southern Oregon cities for their management group. I mean, is that our goal? So, I'd like to make a motion.

Okay. There's a motion on the table to Are you asking council? I'm asking council. Is that what council wants? Is that what council wants? Do we want this ed product to be at or around the average of Southern Oregon management? Joel, did you want to weigh in on that? Uh, I I would ask Rob to make an amendment to his motion if if he would so prefer that we would engage a professional, develop the salary schedule pursuant to council direction. that would include just what you said and then if there's any anything there that needs to be changed from that we can change it. That that would be the next question. I think we vote on my motion first then we can make a second one. But yeah, Rob's basically giving you guys a direction. What's our what's our goal and then how do we get to that goal?

Right. U that professional is is going to be absolutely necessary and then the council direction needs to be absolutely clear. Right. So, so you have a motion on the table to um lead the council in a direction to restate uh that our management pay is at or around the the average of the five other southern Oregon cities that we've been talking about. Do we have a second? Joel is a second. All right. Any further discussion? Victoria and then Victoria,

when you were uh this is for Stephanie. when you were going through all of this, I know that you included southern Oregon. Um, how far out and how many other cities are outside? So, the there were, I believe, 18 um comps that Dr. McGrath used in a variety of uh ways. Some of them didn't have And you use all of those in this?

So, well, what I I I split them out. So there's 10 that were considered the union comps, that five up, five down. There were a couple of extras that are essentially union comps. There's a couple of cities that have very similar um populations and two years ago they actually may have been flipped, but they're so close in there that I called them a union comp because they're not a southern Oregon city. Um so the Union comps and then I had the Rogue Valley which is Grants Pass to Ashland um as and then the Southern Oregon which also added in Clamoth Falls and Roseberg. Um there would have been so if we had I believe there were 12 that would be considered the union comps. So that would mean there were six six or seven of the um comps were either Rogue Valley, Southern Oregon or both.

Six of the 10. Yes. Of the 18. Oh, six of the 18. Oh, I thought you said you reduced that to 10. I misunderstood that. Thank you. Okay. We are asking question or discussion. Oh, sorry. We're asking question or discussion in regards to Rob's motion. I had uh uh Indra and then Rick and then Rob wants to weigh back in. So Indra, please.

Uh yes, I think we all agree that McGrath was way high and then the task force went by her figures um not checking. So in my view, they were high also, which is why we're still discussing going lower. I'm not opposed to that. Um, I know we had seven pain points early on that we were told those or or legal legal problems. Those were supposedly all taken care of. Um, although at the last meeting it seemed iffy if those were taken care of. So, so we're not uh in legal trouble. We took care of those seven. Is that right, Stephanie?

We have taken care of a couple of them. There are a couple that depending on how we assess um experience whether or not we're waiting it or not, which is a policy decision of council that we have yet to receive direction on is whether or not there's a pay equity concern there. So, we're waiting for that direction to determine whether those last couple are in fact um issues and then we will make them retroactive to the same date as the ones that we've already resolved so that nobody's being treated differently.

Okay. And I I understand the problems uh between the non-bargaining and bargaining uh and and it's tricky, but I mean the union wages are are unsustainable at some point. I I hope we can all agree to that. And there's a reason we have non-bargaining versus bargaining. So part of our staff um is not unsustainable. I would be uh against just wholesale 10%ing although it's better than than nothing because some positions are very skill oriented. The police and and fire have certain requirements and it's more difficult to get those attorney you need more um schooling and skills and and uh professional degrees. So I and then some positions are administrative assistants. While very important, I'm not saying they're not important and we don't value people in those positions, but you can get a plethora of applications for people coming into the positions. We run into a lot of issues with the lateral moves as we heard earlier, which is not bad. you want to promote people from within your organization and a lot of times they do move laterally which creates uh problems as well. So as Rob pointed out we are always going to have to be looking uh at these issues going forward. Um, I I just think getting raises and this is just step one in a bunch of positions of $6,000 10 across the board. It's like getting a huge bonus and I don't know that that the city has the

funds to do that and I don't want to bring that to the taxpayers. Thank you.

Okay. for so further questions and discussion in regards specifically to Rob's motion in a direction go forward. I had uh Rick and then Rob and then Victoria and Kathleen. So Rick, this is a very complex subject and that's one of the things that the task force really looked at and a lot of the comments that Aaron made I found valid. Um we want to be consistent. We want a whole system. Um, one thing we got frustrated with McGrath, we asked her what the yard sticks she used and the nomenclature for that is called a rubric. She would not disclose what that was. Uh, it's proprietary and therefore we had to do somewhat of a guessing game on what would be included and was not included. Um but I felt the task force did an excellent job in looking at the whole perspective we had before us and came up with results that would also recognize not only Oregon Pay Law but also um the competition within the city which the union even though they're union they are employees of the city of Grants Pass and other employees need to um have similar pay scales as well. But the other factor um is this is very complex. So it's um a decision needs to be made on what issues will be used and not used. But the other thing that always bothers me when you have a smaller group that you're taking a survey from um like five people instead of 10 people or five cities instead of 10 cities um your results can be skewed as well. So um I still appreciate the work that's already been done by the task force. Thank you.

Uh thank you Rick. And just to reiterate, I don't think if we do choose a path forward like Rob's trying to basically hurt us in a direction which is actually positive, um I don't think anybody's dis going to discount any of the hard work that everybody's uh been involved in. So, but thank you for making that statement. Um I have further discussion in regards to this motion. I have Rob, Victoria, and Kathleen. Rob.

So, I just wanted to be clear cuz I don't know if all the counselors, you know, remembered or have the same sheet in front of them. Um, but to be to be as clear as I can with this motion. Um, and I'll just if I'm just going to read to you what again, and I've done it before, what the, um, uh, what the southern Oregon cities, um, you know, are paying say a city attorney. Roseberg tops out at 162. Uh K Falls 194, Medford 204, Ashlin 212, and um right now um uh the task force was recommending 200, the consultant was recommending 215. So um actually actually what I'll do is that that's the city attorney. I can pass this pass this piece of paper down and everybody can take a look at it. Um I'm going to circle on this page what the what 10% less than task force was just for that one one clarification I'll make is that for city manager um current let's see the uh task force recommendation was 235 uh let's see the consultant was 254 Um the um right now, let's see, we've got uh Ashlin's 226, Kay Falls 235, and um when we look at our current city manager pay, you also have to include the fact that there's $18,000 more in different uh there's deferred comp and other and other uh other things that he's also making that is not on this list. But I'll just pass this down. Um,

okay. Further discussion on the motion at hand. I got Victoria, Kathleen, and Joel. Victoria, and then Indra Victoria. So, before I would vote in the affirmative on this motion, I would need to know what the definition of southern Oregon is. Uh, you just mentioned four cities. Uh, is it just those four cities? Five. Five.

Okay. There there may be some additional that you would want to consider also including I know that the consultant looked also so the ones that the consultant had on her list as well we had Ashland Central Point Grants Pass Jackson County Fire District for comparison for fire um Jackson County uh Clamoth Falls Medford the Medford Water Commission uh and Roseberg were some of the ones. So there's a couple in addition to the actual local government units that she used. I I I don't know about anybody else. I have no idea exactly what the Medford water commission means. I don't know what a fire commission means. I kind of know what the word city means and they all have, you know, city managers and they all have same similarities.

Those would be for very specific. I think I think I I was asking the question and so but that brought up a little bit more uh I mean the the entities you're talking about they just do their city a different way and it's it's the position correct that you would need to encompass here in southern Oregon. Yep. The fire district would have comparisons to the fire positions. The water commission would have uh comparison to the public works director because of how that's handled. why those comparators were under limited circumstances included on there. So it it's more potentially if council wishes more than just actual city limits because of how they're Can you clarify, Stephanie? So So Medford though does have a fire chief.

Yes. Okay. But now you're saying there's another another fire person in there. The Jackson County Fire District. Yep. So the fire district, it's like city and county. They a city ad or a county administrator and a city manager have very similar duties. They may be in the same jurisdiction. Do you want to include county level positions as well as I'm I know I just said five cities to me. I wasn't looking at counties. Um and there's a lot of other other titles around southern Oregon, but I was looking at five cities because it seemed like they were the best uh comparison direct comparison to us and that was Rose Roseber, Grpass, Central Point, um uh Medford, Ashland, and Cape Falls. So, specific cities as opposed to southern Oregon jurisdictions because those are two potentially different.

I'm not an expert on that subject, but that's what it seemed like to me would be the most reasonable comparison.

And my interpretation of your action, Rob, is basically to get it more centralized towards our location versus all the cities across the state that might not. Yeah. Okay. Um, further discussion in regards to this motion, I have Kathleen, Joel, and Indra. Kathleen. So I think the concern is that why we're so hesitant to just pass something is along the lines of what Indra said and that is that you know we're being projected with the budget a 4 million shortage and we're looking at you know establishing huge increases and you know what we don't want to have to you know not be able to pay people once we decide this. So, it's like I feel like we're being put in a really difficult position having to being forced to choose a structure, being forced to say, well, yeah, we want to pay our city what the average is in southern Oregon, but can we maintain that? So it's I it's one thing to say yes today and another thing in a year which is very questionable after hearing the numbers that JC gave us today.

I just want a clarification point. Um JC I was just I was making sure that you are in full full chew mode right there buddy. Sorry. Um so I when these conversations have been had in the past um I was under the understanding that the um salary structure reconfiguration was taken into account from the original McGrath study into future budget or future budget was taken into those those accounts. So I think I understand the question so let me say it back just to make sure. Yeah, please because I know I just butchered it.

No, you're good. Uh, so yes, uh, in the fiscal year 26 proposal, uh, based on where we were at the conversation at the time of pulling together the budget to give council the maximum flexibility to make a decision, what McGrath proposed was in the fiscal year 26 budget. seeing some of the other information come out in the direction that kind of council is going. We probably will be not at that level uh for estimating a fiscal year 27 budget when it comes to these positions and personnel. Understand that I your the first part of your answer was all I was looking for. Okay. But thank you.

Um further discussion on this motion. I have Joel and then Indra. Joel. Well, the other thing is um and we haven't gotten to that one where the professional engages it, but uh those incentives, I wouldn't uh be against um addressing that. And the other thing I wouldn't be against addressing is overtime as long as it was managed and it has to be approved ahead of time by the supervisor. Many of the positions wouldn't by definition qualify. They are exempt under but we could under city policy have it that way. I don't believe you can. You can't do overtime for legally exempt positions. There's a it's a legal standard of what an exempt position is.

Yes, you can. At least you can at the federal level. Um I got it as a GS13. I was in charge of the outfit. Um so I don't know what labor laws there was a state law that prohibited that. But anyway, I would I would be uh looking at making those consistent across the board. We need to pay people what they're worth. Um but we don't need to have those automatic 10% increases every year with that comp comparative thing. So and thank you Joel. But we are trying to keep our discussion to the motion at hand which is basically just giving us a direction going forward. Um further discussion I have Indra and then Victoria Indra.

Okay. And I think in order to make a decision on the motion, we do need to hear what people are thinking so we know how to vote on that even if it seems outside a little bit. So I I wanted to ask Rob with this motion because this paper is just basically department heads and specific positions. So are you talking about just for these or for the entire um page of non-bargaining? Well, the basically I'm using non-bargaining and management is is um um um as synonyms, but to me and again today we're not actually even voting on today whether or not we would approve this this plan once it's brought back to us at that point. We could discuss whether or not we think that the taxpayers want to go for it quite frankly. But I'm just saying as a as a way to uh uh you know, as a way to move this forward, I'd like to see what this looks like. um with uh somewhere near at or near the average of the of the southern Oregon cities having their non-bargaining uh this being brought back to us with um what the non-bargaining looks like if we're going to average to the other cities in southern Oregon which is where I feel we're competing against for um for retention and recruitment primarily is people that want to live in southern Oregon. So that's that's what I'm looking at. I I just what we have in front of us is just the top person, but you know, we go down from there and it's it's it's going to be similar in all the cities. But I'm saying that we have a working model in five different cities that's doing approximately what it is we're trying to do. Why do we need to go outside of that pay range, I I I don't see it. So whether or not we're actually going to vote to approve that at some count at some uh business meeting some Wednesday night, that's a whole se that's a whole different other question. But

so so you are talking about all of the non-bargaining positions. I'm talking about all the non-bargaining positions being somewhat similar to the average of uh what we see in southern Oregon.

Thank you. And so with that said, I' I'd just like to point out a concern that even all Southern Oregon cities aren't the same. And and it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that Josephine County is one of the lowest socioeconomic uh counties in southern Oregon. meaning uh we have more poor and needy people and seniors on fixed income than any other county near us. And I think we also need to look at the tax base of some of these cities. So when we mentioned Central Point, I know that Central Point has very high taxes. Their property taxes are way higher. So when we make a decision to be at the average, do we want to be at the average of Southern Oregon cities because um do we want to then increase our taxes uh to make sure that we can pay for these average southern Oregon salaries? Um I don't I'm not sure about the other cities. Some are probably below. Ashlin's probably higher. So I think we need to look at their revenue and tax uh base coming in as well.

So you didn't mention Roseberg or Clamoth, but they're below us. Um further discussion on this. There we go. Further discussion on this motion. I have Victoria. So, I'm still not clear of all of the cities that are going to be involved and I would be inclined not to vote for this if we didn't include something like the Jackson County Fire District or the Water District because they are the entities that are in Jackson County that have the positions that we're discussing now. So, uh will you uh further define what Southern Oregon means? Uh Rob, thank you.

Um thank you, Victoria. And um just consulting with Rob Sidebar here just a quick moment. Um I think his his ultimate goal here is just to get more information that's more centrally located to our our uh geometric or geographic location. But it's still not clear of what that geo location is. It that we don't have a clear definition of what southern Oregon means. To me that means the coast. It it um it means Brookings, you know. So I mean it's going to mean different things to different people. So I think before I could vote in the affirmative on this, I would need to know what does southern Oregon mean?

I think three three times what I defined what I meant by southern Oregon. I'll say it again. That would be Roseberg, Grants Pass, Central Point, uh Medford, Ashland, and Clamoth Falls. The five ma I would call the major cities in southern Oregon. So that's on the third time now I've defined that. And you did not include the Jackson County Fire District or Water District. So there would be jobs that are we are discussing that would not be in um that wouldn't be included in this. So I couldn't in good conscience be for this. It's just not well enough to find.

Okay. And to clarify the motion, it sounds like we're trying to get council to uh get more information from staff. So we have a motion on the table. We've um had some robust discussion. Any further discussion? Indra. Uh, yes. I'm not opposed to getting more information, but I would like I would like us to address this more specifically um within to the departments. And then um also I'm not opposed to additional incentives for some positions. I thought that was a good idea.

Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion on the table um in regards to getting further information um basis around the cities that Rob had uh stated for southern Oregon as to use I believe is more comparison. Any further discussion, Seth?

Yeah, I mean I'm uh I'm for this. Um but I would like to see some more information the next time they come back around. I mean, the step broken down by steps is great, but ultimately it would be nice to see year by year, you know, what the cost is cuz ultimately that's what I mean, that's what we're voting on, right? Is is how much is this going to cost taxpayers for year 1, year two, year three. Um because again, I can look at all these numbers and it's it's fine. It's data. It's good, but I would like to see it as, you know, a larger picture.

Uh thank you. So, you have a motion on the table, and I've been watching Stephanie make diligent notes, so I believe that she fully understands what where we're going with this. You have a motion to accumulate more information for comparison with a second. Um, I'm going to go into a vote on that. This is not that you are voting that this is the end all be all. This is realistically getting more information for comparison in a better geographical location. Um, Rob, how do you vote? Yes. Uh, Indra. Yes. Rick, no. Um, uh, Victoria, no. Joel, yes. Uh, Eric,

yes. Yes. Kathleen, yes. Seth, yes. All right. Uh, majority rules on that. So, um, Stephanie, you do have full direction on the information asked to be brought forward. We know the information that wants to be brought forward. I would suggest that council discuss whether or not to have a professional do this evaluation. I I don't have the skill set to be able to compare what comparable positions would be. Um and I don't know that we have anybody on staff that would be able to have the bandwidth for that. I think Erin can address that a little bit further.

From an HR perspective, we don't have the bandwidth to do this and at this time to have another study. We we would recommend that council allow an opportunity for us to do an RFP based on the direction for today. we bring the RFP back to you and you can determine a consultant to move forward to work with to get you this data. And I believe that was a further going to be a further discussion or nomination from Rob. But uh

I just wanted to ask Aaron a question. So right now since we uh seem to have um uh we're a little bit understaffed in HR, I guess is the best way to say it. um we probably have uh an e excess or um we'll say um excess in the HR budget because I don't know that we've been paying everyone that we're budgeted for. Would that be correct that we have we have funds in HR that we could put to this that are already that have already been currently uh budgeted for? Yes, there'd be funding through HR. There be no necessary need for a a budget change to uh to fund this study. So Rob, do you want to make a further motion?

Then I'll I'll I'll make a motion that given the specific um direction that we gave that uh we hire a professional to um cross cross the tees and dot the eyes and bring us bring us back a working model. So, we have a motion on the table to um to get council direction to issue an RFP for a professional to um do an evaluation in a more geographical location as stated in previous motion. Is there a second? Joel's got a second. Uh so, further discussion on that motion.

Uh Victoria and Indra. Victoria. So we started off uh with a MC McGrath study and we did not like that study and so we made a task force that came up with a recommendation and then we decided we were going to go 10% below that task force uh to accomplish the goals that the city wanted to and now we are going back around full circle to another consultant and uh that does not make sense to me. I think we have enough um information to where we could come up with something uh with all the options that are on the table uh without uh another consultant. And uh it seems to me maybe like it's just a little bit of buying time quite frankly and uh so I am totally against this.

Thank you. Um further discussion on this motion at hand. I have um Indra uh Rob sorry uh Joel and then Rob. Indra I am completely against getting a consultant. It's a waste of money. I'm I find it hard to believe that we don't have anyone on staff that could collect some basic data which is all we're asking for. Thank you.

Further discussion on this motion Rob I mean sorry uh Joel. Well, one of the things um that I'm concerned with is we don't have a human resources officer uh on staff and um um this is is instead of having uh that human resources officer do this, we need we need to have that skill and that legal knowledge. uh and then where we do run into uh points of uh adjustment or whatever that they're legal and that we move forward in a uh an appropriate manner. Otherwise, we're just wasting our time and spinning our wheels. So, um that professional uh if it's a if it's our own human resource officer, we don't have one. Uh we need to contract one and get one.

Thank you. Further discussion on the motion. I have Rob.

Yeah, I I completely agree, Joel. And the fact that we've got uh funds budgeted for uh for that position or for that work to be done uh makes this a really easy decision because as Stephanie has just said, she's actually been carrying the the baton here for last several months and she has just basically said that this is over and above her ability level. So, since I don't see anyone on the council that has a higher ability level than she does on these in this area, we need to actually bring an expert in to uh as as ridiculous as it may sound, unfortunately, we just don't have the HR expertise uh within our organization right now. And that's all we'd be doing is getting that because we've heard it said that there's no one confident right now that they can take it to that next level. That's why we need to hire someone. Otherwise, we're again just just spinning our wheels. will be back here with all kinds of pain points again that we are not going to be able to resolve.

Any further discussion on the motion? The motion at hand is to um uh send out an RFP for a professional consultant to do the work as stated in the first motion um with clarification that um we would not have to rebudget for this that there is um monies available for it. Any further discussion, Eric? Not sure if it's legal or not, but I mean I know the task force uh was we asked the task force to do a certain thing uh to come up with a a better study or to add their information on there. I I guess I'm I'm I'm going to ask the question, can the task force possibly look into this and compile that information or is that asking too much or is that even legal? I don't know. I I think that that's asking too much. Um, one of the things and one of the reasons why I don't have the bandwidth or capacity for this is because it involves actually comparing the specific duties and responsibilities of each position to other positions, gathering that information. Not all of it is um my understanding is Dr. McGrath had to sign NDAs with some of the because some of the information is not part of the public records um because of the duties and responsibilities and making sure that you're comparing apples to apples in determining where positions should be set. But that's the detail level that you have to get into because you don't want to compare positions that aren't essentially the same. And in some cases, you're talking about two positions that when combined makes up the duties of one position. So things like that, we just can't do that analysis. the task force. That would be a huge ask, probably far more than what they've already done. They would have to go position by position. We'd have to make those requests for all those details and they'd have to sit down and an analyze each and every duty and responsibility between the comparators.

And my interpretation is a task force is is made up of bodies of the public as well as staff and uh counselors. and their duty is to basically digest information presented to them, not for them to do research based. That's just my interpretation of it. Um, further discussion on this motion, I have Seth.

Yeah, I mean I think um early on the task force this topic sort of came up. Um, you know, if we wanted to go super in-depth and break it down by position and we all agreed that wasn't the best use of time for the task force and nor do we probably have that much time to do that. Um, you know, I think that ultimately, you know, we didn't commission the McGrath study. That was before us, for before most of the council, I guess, or the new council. Um, and I mean, frankly, the last year has been been frustrating to say the least, talking about this over and over again. Um, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's going to cost money no matter what, right? whether that's, you know, a task force time to commit to doing it or hiring somebody to do it. I'd rather just hire someone um that this council agrees on and um yeah, move forward with that.

Uh thank you. So, we have a motion on the table to um put in an RFP for a professional to um do the research as stated in the previous motion. Um not seeing anybody jumping up for further discussion. I'll go into a vote. Rob, yes. Indra, no. Um, Rick, no. Uh, Victoria, no. Yes. Joel, uh, Eric, no. Um, Kathleen, no. Seth, yes.

All right. I have more nos than yeses, so the motion fails. So, I'll bring it back to council for any further questions in regards to Stephanie's presentation or the whole topic at hand. Seth question. Well, what do we do now? It's it it will it will sit most likely until somebody has the capacity to work on this. Um there's just what we can do. Um I don't know if there's any cost estimation on on um a third party. I don't know if there's any numbers from like what McGrath roughly cost or ballpark. Yeah. Yeah. McGrath I think was 24,000. So it was budgeted for 24. I believe the actual invoices about

18 or something 1820. So it'll be likely under $20,000. You'd be very specific. You're talking about five cities and maybe less, but I don't want to give you a number up front. Uh as mentioned it, we do have monies for the project. And as as we mentioned before, just internally in-house, we do not have the bandwidth. And even if we did have the bandwidth, it the cost would be something likely similar for us to do and take the time to do that. Uh so due to the the situation that we have, staff would still recommend that we uh hire someone to get this accomplished for council.

Well, I mean, I think that at this rate, you know, I I I would think that council would want a third party to to handle this, not staff. I I would assume based on the conversations we've had over the last year. I could be wrong. Um, and again, you know, no matter how you how you look at it, it's going to cost money. I mean, whether again, even if the task force agreed to do that, that's that's money that each individual person's losing out on because it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of expertise, you know, when you get down in these numbers. So, further discussion? Um, Rob?

Yeah. Um, I'm not sure, it's not even at this point, um, a question. I'm not sure why any counselor would ask staff what to do now. I'd like to hear from anyone who voted no what they think we should do. U you know you must have some positive way to move forward. But the thing that uh concerns me the most is that we have our staff we've seen has inherent built-in 100% conflict of interest on this issue. Like they are benefiting from this. So it would make a lot of sense not to task them not to basically task the uh fox to count uh the eggs in the hen house. So, you know, but I'd love to hear from anyone who voted no what your positive way forward is here because staff already told us what they think it should be. Three counselors told us what, you know, vote with how we could positively move forward. Um, anyone who voted no and put that negative out there, let's hear some positive. How do how do we move forward?

So, we have uh further discussion in regards to the toll topic at hand. Rick and then Andra. Rick. Well, I've got my opportunity to say no and I guess I would int entertain a new motion. Um, it is a very complex subject. I guess I want to also recognize the effort that the task force put forward. So, I guess I'm also uh expressing I'm willing to change my mind. Thank you.

Thank you. And to clarify too, I don't think anybody is discounting anybody's uh work effort or time that's been put into this topic um from day one to this point. So um further discussion of Indra and then Seth. Indra uh I think hiring of the first consultant was a complete disaster and I don't I really don't see why it doesn't seem that complex. What we can do is it uh do can council can someone a council member come up with the figures and numbers? Can we do our own research uh and supply it? Is that acceptable or no? I mean theoretically yes. Um but do you have the experience of being able to determine what those applesto apples comparisons are? That's where the HR experience comes in. you would have to be able to get the job descriptions as well as um I know Dr. McGrath actually surveyed the current employees and for what they actually do on a day-to-day basis and how that might compare. So, it's those kinds of things without an HR background um I I I would struggle with being asked to do that because that's a a high level of detailed analysis that you really should have a background in that area for. Not saying that somebody without that background can't. Um it's just a matter of whether or not it would be done according to HR standards,

right? And I'm I'm not saying I have the expertise to do that, but I know people that might. So that's why I'm asking and they may not have access to the same data that Dr. McGrath did because of the level of detail she was able to get from the jurisdictions um because of the way she approached it. Uh, further discussion. I have Seth, um, Rick and then Joel. Seth,

um, yeah, I just want to say too that I was on the task force. So, not discrediting what we did. I think we were, we set out with here's what we were asked to do by council and so, uh, you know, we tried to do the best we could on that. Um, you know, and even I didn't agree with all of it and that that's fine. So, I think we still did a great job. Um, the other question I have is, you know, if we put an RFP out for this, is there a way that council could review, you know, top three choices and, you know, determine who we want to move forward at that rate?

So, yeah, normally the the process and what what what I talked about council ultimately choosing is we would do an RFP. Uh, we would we bring them in, we can do what we our normal process is. We normally score those, then make a recommendation to council. uh they'll be a prize in their services and then council ultimately determines who they award the the project to. So that's the normal process. Uh and that's the process that I would follow unless council provided another direction. So it would be coming to you for approval. All right. Further discussion I have uh Rick and then Joel. Rick,

I want to reaffirm what Stephanie said. This is a very complex subject. And one thing I like to do when I put together my spreadsheet and so forth, I like to validate other people's information. So I started doing my own research. And I found this is a very complex subject, especially when you're trying to contact another city and find an employee that you can't find and then find out what their job description is and start comparing it to five or 10 other cities. and you could spend 10 hours on one position. So 10 times 50 positions, you're going to be looking at a lot of man-h hours in there. Are you willing to do that? And do you have the background to do that? Do you have the right questions to ask? I found it was very intimidating and I just so um you need a consultant that knows what they're doing. Thank you.

Uh thank you Rick. Further discussion have Joel. Well, the other thing that strikes me is um there's a reason why you have a human resources director or you you have somebody that has that skill. Um and that's because we're affecting people and how much they get paid. And we want to make sure that we do that in a legally defensible manner if we're challenged. Uh which we probably won't be, but uh we uh owe that to our citizens and and and to our employees. Thank you. Any further discussion andor motions or actions? Uh, I got Indra.

I would rather just work with the cities that McGrath put forth that are in southern Oregon then add a couple more cities and or districts and spend more taxpayer money on this. Any further discussion? Any further action? Victoria,

of the cities that were mentioned, those five major southern Oregon cities as they've been put forth here, are they on the study McGrath study now? Um, so in McGrath, we've got Ashland, Central Point, uh, the Grants Pass, uh, Medford, Roseberg are the ones that she had in there. Um I would note that uh she does not have data for th all five of those jurisdictions for each of the positions that she looked at. Um there are and I have to go in and look. Let's see. Um, so she does not have the data for economic development manager, housing and neighborhood specialist, park superintendent, uh, utility billing or customer service supervisor, payroll specialist, HR technician, um, detective sergeant or sergeant detective, which was at the time I think she started looking at it, they were part of the non-bargaining. They've since been removed. uh 911 manager, 911 systems manager, 911 supervisor, police records supervisor, assistant public works director, uh superintendent for streets and storm water, wastewater facilities or collections. So all of those positions have no southern Oregon or Rogue Valley data under with Dr. McGrath's data.

So that I counted 15 there. Um, and I just because I I heard it that uh McGrath could not find that information. It seems to me like um could could anyone find that information? So that would be my question. And it may have been that those jurisdictions declined to respond on those particular positions and maybe that those they don't have comparable positions. I don't know the answer to that. There could be a variety of reasons for it. Um or it could be that they just don't exist those positions. Further discussion. I got Rob.

Yeah. So I I think Joel makes a a really good point. Whenever we're done with this process where we may be done today, I have no idea. But whenever we're done with this process, it needs to be kind of legally defensible. Um that's that was one of the three reasons that we even started this was legal issues. uh retention and recruitment. Uh personally, I've already said I don't think retention was an issue, but it has to be legally defensible. And as Joel said, it needs to be fair to the employees. So, um to me, if something's going to be legally defensible, that's not something that us counselors will scribble down on the back of a napkin. This has to be done professionally. And if we can't, and we've been told already that Stephanie is not confident moving forward in to complete this process, we've got money budgeted in our HR for someone who would be potentially uh competent. But the other issue is regarding uh what McGrath studied and what what McGrath didn't study. I personally want to move on from McGrath. I don't really care anything about McGrath because I think McGrath really botched this completely. McGrath was not given, I believe, appropriate direction. They weren't gi certainly wasn't given the direction that we we just that we just gave as far as where we want this focused and I don't particularly trust a lot of what McGrath's conclusions were. So, because her proprietary formula came up with things that were 20% too high. So to me, I want to move away from McGrath because um you know that I don't believe that McGrath as far as the the structure of certain uh solving of some of the problems we had. I think McGrath uh probably did a decent job as far as the the dollar amounts. I think McGrath did a terrible job. So I'm not really interested in in moving forward with any of McGrath's data in that regard. Further discussion, I got Joel in the ninja. Jo and and real quick, um Gordon on the task force, what's I I apologize, Gordon, what's your last name?

Langbeck. Langenbeck. Yeah, this was actually his suggestion. He suggested it to me and he was on the task force. Uh and he said, you know, if you really want to do that, you you need to to uh do it right. Right. Further discussion. I got Indra. Do we have any idea when the city might have an HR manager? We'll provide an update at a future meeting.

All right. Any further discussion or motions or action um from council? I got Seth.

I would to make another motion. I think we should uh move forward with um a third party again. um you know with the expectation that council gets to you know obviously approve who we're working with ultimately we could deny it again we could say no then um but um again you know we're going to keep costing money the staff time it doesn't really matter right whatever way you look at it it's going to cost some type of money um and I think you know I would rather have a third party do it again because you know there's going to be bias naturally in the staff and that's fine that's that's human nature um I would never ask my staff to create their own pay schedule. Um I mean I think that's you know not not nothing against them but I think that's you know that's not their job duty. Um and so I think that's you know makes sense for us to again hire somebody out um that you know uh we'll do a good job. I think too like I think we all want to be fair um to the staff. Um I know I do. Uh you know and so it's not about being unfair. we just had to balance, you know, the public and spending money and saving money and um you know, making sure that we're doing it um fairly across the board. So, yeah, make it a motion. All right, we have a motion on the floor to um proceed forward with an RFP for a third party professional consultant to um uh do more investigation in regards to um the first motion on the table for more geographical location. Um I've got a couple seconds in there, so I'm going to take Rick as a second. Uh any further discussion on this? Eric, can we make an amendment to that uh motion to include um incentives adding an incentive or increasing percentages to those pain points, those areas so that we can uh at least make this uh study worth worthwhile and uh

bigger bang for the buck. I guess that's a question to the um to Seth uh who made the original motion. Can you explain it one more time? Sorry. So, can we add uh the caveat of uh for those painpoint areas to uh have them include or increase incentives uh percentages and or add an incentive of some kind to help uh with those pain points so that we're not uh o overpaying in instead offering incentives for higher pay. If that makes sense. So evaluate the incentive structure in addition to the local market.

Correct. For the painoint areas. Well, and and that's very specific one tool. I think a better motion may be for the consultant to review and make recommendations on any potential pain points in the deviation of such. They may have a better idea than that. And so it's very specific there. So I'd open it up to providing an opportunity for the consultant to provide their own recommendation. I like it. So, Seth, do you understand the friendly amendment to your motion? Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine with that.

Okay. So, the a motion um to put out an RFP for a third party professional consultant um with the caveat that that uh consultant will um identify pain points and have the opportunity to offer suggestions for alleviation of those pain points. That's the full motion at hand with a second already. Uh, any further discussion? All right. Uh, we'll go into a vote. Seth, yes. Um, Rob, yes. Uh, Indra, no. Rick, yes. Um, Victoria, no. Uh, Joel, yes. And Eric, yes. Uh, Kathleen,

yes. And Seth was first one. So, that one, yeah, that one passes. So we do have uh a pass of a motion to issue an RFP for a third party consultant. Thank you. As described. I believe we have direction. We have direction. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So since that was a motion that basically staff has been directed to bring back more information and and a process to provide that information. This topic is now concluded and we will go next on our agenda is to

discussion of removing the city manager from the non-bargain compensation salary structure and we have Aaron to start us off with presentation. Right. Thank you, mayor council, providing direction on the previous topic. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that today's discussion involves the compensation structure for the city manager position, which is my role. For that reason, I want to be clear that my purpose here is not to advocate for any particular outcome. My role today is to provide the council with factual, neutral, and organizationally relevant information so you can evaluate the implications of keeping the city manager within the non-bargaining salary schedule or establishing an independent compensation structure. I will present the pros and cons of both approaches, outline operational structural considerations, and answer any clarifying questions you may have. I'm committed to ensuring that the information you receive is objective, complete, and helpful as you determine what is the best long-term interest of the city for from an organization and the community we serve. Council's decision on this matter is fully within your authority and I will support whichever direction you choose. We're here to discuss council expressed a desire to discuss the placement of the city manager in the non-bargain salary structure. will evaluate whether the city manager should remain within the non-bargaining or be placed independently of the non-bargaining salary structure. The current uh structure, the city manager position is currently included in the non-bargaining schedule. It has a defined salary range and there's 10 steps to that structure. So, broken it down pros and cons for both keeping it in, keeping it out. I

tried to provide as much pros and cons as possible. Maybe I missed something and if I did, if you'd like to add or subtract, that's great. But these are for your discussion points if you so desired. Um, so keeping the city manager within the non-boging salary structure. Pros, there is some internal alignment and consistency. Treats the city manager consistently with some of the non-bargaining employees. Reinforces organizational equity and fairness narratives. There is some transparency and predictability as it is seen and you know what the step increases and ranges are. simplifies communication to employees and the public on what the city manager's range is. It does provide some budget planning stability as you know what you may look for in the future when it comes to progression of the city manager salary and it does reduce some perception of arbitrary adjustments which can be seen sometimes uh with city manager uh changes in salary from a negative perspective of keeping it in there. There is some limited executive compensation flexibility. It may restrict council's uh discretion in setting compensation because you are set within a structure already. So you don't have additional flexibility and it can constrain competitive recruitment as maybe that whole salary range is out of whack with with the the uh salary structures of others and so it does create some some issues there potentially if it was left in there could be a potential misalignment with market conditions which I was sort of mentioning. Uh and then there's a symbolic distinction. Uh structurally it may not provide the bandwidth needed to distinguish the city manager level responsibilities as compared to other department directors. The city manager is a uniquely appointed by the city council which is the only one as such. So there may be a a desire to have that separated aid from the the salary structure. Now making the city manager independent and on bargain salary structure there could be some pros that you can

consider. There is uh if if the city manager is independent there's flexibility to tailor compensation. Salaries can be set based on market experience and negotiations on an annual basis. And so there is additional flexibility there. There's a clear executive distinction. It reflects the city manager's unique governance relationship with council as opposed to a a a colleagues within the organization under the salary structure. And it may from a competitive recruitment and retention perspective allow council to compete directly with the current market rates as you can change those on an annual basis easier and provides that flexibility. From a con, it could reduce salary transparency as there is not a predetermined low and high range. the city manager may make and that may be considered a con. Maybe uh require more explanation uh around rationale and methodology for what is provided to the city manager on an annual basis requires a little more administrative oversight by council as you are the one determining that instead of it being predetermined in advance. So there may be some more discussion from that perspective. A potential budget variability as it is not projected out and seen of what it might be from year to year. So there may be some var variables there that is not uh predictable from a from a budget perspective and potential perception issues uh without a structure without the clear guidelines decisions may be perceived as arbitrary uh or may be individualized as as the decision is made. So, I just put together a a small little uh scale here where uh you've got the different dimensions, transparency, flexibility, market competitiveness. Uh going down the list, it's sort of what I already went over on the other four slides when I mentioned the pros and cons. From a general governance perspective, regardless of whatever decision you make today and direction, the city manager still serves at the pleasure of the city council. Compensation adjustments do

require council approval. No matter which one you choose from, an annual evaluation process remains intact. Governance considerations as you move forward and and this is uh where I open it up for questions, but then ultimately for direction from you and and general discussion is the priority structural consistency or executive flexibility? Does council value alignment with other non-bargaining staff or more of an executive distinction and what best supports long-term organizational stability? And uh there are some alternatives there and I'm open to questions.

Thank you, Aaron. Um council questions, Victoria. So since we now are going to be hiring a consultant, I would just want to see if council wants to roll this into uh the consultant. Uh so we have good feedback from this consultant that we are going to hire. It could be just the presentation as presented here given to the cons consultant. Um, since that is going to happen, it might be a better idea to get this uh professional consultant to give us feedback.

So, I would look at that as more of a discussion item for council at this moment in time. I was just asking, is there any questions for Aaron in regards to the presentation that he just presented? I'm not going to we're going to table you for five seconds, but that's okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks. Uh, okay. Back to discussion. So, Victoria um has uh uh made discussion point and seeing if council had any appetite to roll this topic into um and put it on the plate for our third party consultant with all the other information that are going to be presented. So, with that, I'll bring it back for further discussion. Uh Joel and then Rob. Joel.

Well, first off, I think Victoria has got a good point. regardless of which alternative we select today or if we don't select an alternative to get that feedback from the consultant on the on the salary for the city manager that's a it's a very positive thing. The other thing that um strikes me is um we've put um Aaron and Stephanie to some extent um if not uh a conflict of interest the appearance of a conflict of interest and that's hard on that's that's hard and that's probably not appropriate for the uh way we do business that we automatically put our employees into that position um because that can lead to unwarranted criticism. or abuse either way. Um and uh if we had uh the city manager be independent of that and and he works for the council anyway and uh we need to compensate him appropriately, but it removes that conflict of interest in my idea. Um which hopefully will make Erin's job and Stephanie's job a little easier. So anyway,

uh further discussion. Hey, I had Rob and then Eric. Rob.

Yeah. The um the biggest the biggest con that uh or the biggest negative to having uh the manager in the uh bargaining or the non-bargaining group, but it actually becomes a bargaining group at some point. um is that um we don't council doesn't have a single employee that actually is in in a position to be neutral or unbiased and you know economists call it the spillover effect when you've got um collateral effects of one economic decision spilling over into nearby decisions. What what council I I think and hope has has has learned in the last couple years is that every single union, every single bargaining group affects every other. So when one gets a cola, another gets a cola. When when the non-bargaining group, our managers didn't get a cola, you know, it was we we've got to see on this screen that they hadn't gotten a cola, so now uh we gave them a cola. So everything is interrelated. Every single bargaining group is interrelated due to the spillover effect. Uh as a result every time we get uh we have a discussion about any of the bargaining groups essentially our senior staff are have a bias because eventually at some point as the bargaining groups uh uh push up from below it affects their compensation if not that year than the next year or the year after. So council doesn't have a single employee that is in an unbiased neutral position that could actually discuss this thing with council from an unbiased position. Um to me that's probably the biggest reason to have uh the manager uh outside of a a bargaining um a bargaining group. um you know and if you look at the example that we just had um there wasn't a single to my knowledge a single staff person who uh

asked who who spot checked any of McGrath's work there wasn't a single staff person that said to McGrath how can I how can you justify that um being 20% above southern Oregon averages or above even state averages how can you justify that how can I take that back to council. There wasn't a single staff person that that that checked that work or that that asked for that clarification or certainly got that clarification before they wrote the check. So, as long as we have the guy that's writing the check be inside the bargaining group and inside the group that's being studied, um there's a major conflict there. The person who writes the check and is dealing with the contractor and gets explanations from the contractor has cannot be um needs to be unbiased. It needs to be working for council, needs to be working for the taxpayers. And that's not what happened last time. And um I don't want to see that. I don't want to repeat that mistake. I already made that mistake once. I want to correct that mistake. So I want to see the manager because I think that he'll do be able to do a better unbiased job for council, for the taxpayers um if he's not involved uh with every other bargaining group one in a in a one way or another.

Thank you. further discussion. I got Eric and then um Victoria and Kathleen. Eric, so I guess um I want to go ahead and agree with u um what Joel said and what Victoria was talking about with the um with the consultants for this. Um I I agree with that. But I I will say that um you know what Joel was saying about um that we we put the the staff in a in a not in a good position. Well, I I just want to point out it wasn't us that put them in the position. It was the

the history. So, um we we're doing the best we can to try to make this work. And uh we're trying to make sure that the taxpayers don't get the short end of the stick here. Um and as far as as far as this goes, I I think it's we do need if if we're going to hire a consultant, which we just agreed to, let's include this decision in there as well. Thank you. Uh further discussion, I have Victoria and then Kathleen. Victoria.

Um, it may be a good idea to separate the city manager, but since we are going to have someone, we're going to pay someone, we should get their expertise about that before we make this decision. Further discussion, I have Kathleen. Well, so I'm not clear if uh that is separate. I mean, I'm in favor of an outside salary schedule, but does that exclude that if we put this under the uh uh consultant?

So, as some of the council members stated, you could still choose to have and in the end the city manager standalone and not in the salary structure. you could utilize this uh consultant to give you at least a range of where the city manager should be and then you could you can have that removed and and dealt with fully independently, but you'd at least you'd have the information on what the range may be that you'd be working with.

Perfect. Any further discussion? I got Victoria and then Seth. Victoria. So I would just like to make a motion to defer this action uh and put it towards the consult the action defer it till after the consultant gives us the information um about it and then we can bring this back as a discussion point with that information if that is clear mayor.

Yes that's clear. So, we have a motion on the table for um to add uh to the third party professional consultants plate um to evaluate um city manager being taken out of the salary structure and to give recommended ranges. Is that what you were talking about?

Well, just yes. I mean would it in the consultant's um best uh judgment would it be a good idea to do this or not and and why and then we can we don't have to take their advice at at that point we can you know discuss it from there. So for clarification, your motion is to um ask the third party professional consultant to evaluate um taking the city manager out of the salary non-bargaining salary structure.

Yes, that's um well not only but but also I the other option would be for the for them to give us feedback on on what their salary should be. So, uh, it's I just want to get the range of possibilities from the professional. So, I I would like the professional consultant to evaluate whether or not our proposal that we're putting forth today, which is to take the city manager out, is in their best estimation a good idea. But then they also probably should give us information if it isn't in their estimation a good idea what the salary range should be. Does that make sense? Yes. I was just getting clarification. Okay.

Um, so we have a Do we have a second on that motion? A second from Rick. All right. So, you have a motion to have the third party professional consultant evaluate um taking the city manager out of the non-bargaining compensation salary structure. If their recommendation is yes, then to provide council with um salary ranges for city managers.

Yeah. Yeah, I Yeah, I think originally it it sounded like the motion was to include the city manager in the study, the city manager position in the study and then to come back and consider whether or not to pull or not the what to do with the city manager after that the city manager structure. But does council this the I think the amendment to the motion was that they also make a recommendation on what to do. Is that correct? is is

yes that might be a difference without a distinction but um I would say more the opposite is do they think it's a good idea for to us to take the the city manager out of the pay scale and uh out of the bargaining unit non-bargaining unit and uh so that's their one recommendation and then they would also yeah so I guess it is a difference without a distinction you were just putting one before the other difference that that I was I think.

Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Um I guess I will just look at the faces of counselors. Do you understand the motion? Okay. Uh further discussion on this. I had Seth and Indra and Joel. Seth, I think I'm good for right now.

Thank you, Seth. Uh Indra and then Joel. Joel, I mean Seth, I mean, sorry, Indra. I I don't know why we would defer. Um I I I don't see any significant cons to taking the city manager out and I see a lot of pros and I don't know that the consultant uh would have could tell me uh anything different for why to take them out. I I think Aaron gave a really good presentation on the pros and cons of that and uh I don't know that that the consultant that would be their charge. They're looking at the salary structure and then if I'm not mistaken um we even if we take uh the city manager out now we could still include him in the consulting work to give a good range of where city managers are. So I don't see any uh pros to deferring this. I think if we know what we want to do, we should just decide that now and I think we can with the information we have

further discussion. I have Joel and then Seth. Joel. Well, I think Victoria had a good idea and making sure that the consultant comes back as long as he's he or she is doing the work and coming back with a range of salary. if the it comes back at 200,000 or 300,000 um that really doesn't influence this decision in in my mind because it's a conflict appearance of conflict of interest that we need to deal with um in a timely manner. And so regardless of whether um uh the city manager gets reimbursed at whatever level um I think we need to remove that appearance of conflict of interest. Further discussion ahead, Seth.

So I mean if we take the city manager out right now, then we would still have to come up with our own structure. Correct. Well, the discussion would be so far that that would just this this the position of city manager would also be included in the study. You'd have that information. You do it independently of what you do with the non-bargaining, but you would have a range that would be recommended. Well, I know. But if we take you out, right? Like let's say I nothing nothing there would be no change to what's to what's right. I'm at I'm at step 10 right now anyhow, but there's there would be no change to to to my salary if I was if I was independent or if I was in the bargaining unit.

Okay, got it. Okay. Um, any further discussion, Victoria? So, um, I think that if we are going to go ahead with a consultant, they probably would be able to add some valuable information for us that we may not have thought about. and uh there's no harm in getting more information. And then I I am not stating at this point that I'm opposed to this action. I just think it would be a really good idea to have someone who works in that area to give us some feedback about it. Since we're going to do it, we may as well take advantage of it.

I completely understand what you're saying. Cross the tees, dot the eyes. Uh further discussion of Rob. Yeah, I think uh Joel hits the nail on the head. We have uh at a minimum a perceived conflict of interest every time we discuss anything to do with with um uh compensation with any of our bargaining groups um in with our current situation. That's and whether it's an actual conflict uh you could even make a case for that and some possibly. So, you know, do we want to get rid of our proceed or possible actual conflict of interest? Um I mean I do you know and it's uh frankly um that that that's really really simple to me. Um further discussion I have Indra.

Yeah just a final comment. We defer a lot of things. So I think if we know what we want to do in this situation we should just make a decision now on that. All right. Uh further discussion. We currently have a motion on the table to um add a city manager's analysis to the already um approved motion for the third party consultant. Uh with a second and I will go into vote. So Victoria, yes. Um Joel. Um with respect, no. Thank you Joel. Uh, Eric,

yes. Kathleen, yes. Seth, yes. Um, Rob, no. Uh, Indra, no. And Rick, yes.

Okay. So, we that does pass for going forward. So, the motion passes to add uh the city manager evaluation to or analysis to the third party consultants plate. Thank you very much. So, that would I would perceive um table this to a date certain. And so, that concludes that discussion. And next on the agenda is agenda review. Within agenda review, we have parks advisory committee motions. Do we have those?

Do we have any perks? I apologize. I'm not seeing it. Can we read it? Yeah, if you could go ahead and read that for us, Erin, that would be most

parks advisory committee made a motion. The motion made to uh recommending to adopt regulations restricting unauthorized motor vehicles on Dollar Mountain that include dirt bikes, ATVs, and UTVs. Call to action, ask for a council workshop, put on a council business meeting, or take no action. Um they made a motion recommending to re-engage with Beacon Hill Park Development and uh wanted to know future council action for workshop or business meeting or take no action. I believe we are handling the one which is the dollar mountain uh and updating the the code to provide for additional enforcement from that perspective. So the one motion for followup would be recommending to re-engage with Beacon Hill Park development. And I believe that's also on your agenda to have a discussion about Beacon Hill Park. So I think both of these motions are taken care of. I'm I'm I'm seeing Bradley shake his head. You are currently addressing both of these motions.

Correct. So, we brought that to your attention just to verify that we do have those two um recommendations from the park advisory committee on our future agendas for um workshop um discussion. Any dis any questions in regards to that? All right. Thank you very much. Um any uh within the agenda review uh anything anybody wants to discuss or has any questions in regards to the upcoming Wednesday business meeting Kathleen? Well, it's not necessarily um it was a request. Can we make requests right now?

The question is is for do you have any discussion or questions in regards to the upcoming business meeting agenda which would be within the packets that you've already received or had been available printed so you could digest. We will move on to your recommendations in a little bit. Joel, anything about Wednesday's meeting? No, this would be in addition to that. Okay. again anything about Wednesday's meeting. All right, thank you. Um, next would be any items in regards to calendar events or agenda setting. That would be where you guys want to talk. Okay, Kathleen first and then Joel. Kathleen.

So, I wanted to make a request that at labor negotiations, we could have two council liaison as observers. According to OS 243.650, 650, the PEBA act. Yes. uh we'll take a look at that OS and but right now from a legal perspective we want to make sure we're seeing what you're seeing so we can respond to you at um at the next upcoming uh business meeting under management council staff.

Okay. Or via email. Or via email. Y

Okay. Uh Joel, uh we have the 250th year anniversary of our country coming up. Um, we've got the Fourth of July coming up. Um, traditionally there's been some expenditures for fireworks. I don't know what our plans are, but we need to ask that question. The other thing is uh, and Brad, you may know of this, you may not. It may be uh um, with um, your subordinate. he knows u I think it's the garden club but a group of citizens have raised money to uh purchase some trees and they would like to plant them on the 250th year anniversary of our country um uh and coordinate it with city staff as to where those would go and I think there would also be a proclamation coming for you Clint uh to make on that and then I had another person and I don't know if we want to do this or not it it it would involve staff time but uh other cities place um and we don't need to answer it now and I don't want it on the agenda now because I got to do some more work so we can make an informed decision and it's right for discussion but manners of people who have served in our armed forces and perhaps have even given their lives. Um there's several towns I think of Sherwood where the family can purchase a banner and like along the Parkway you have uh but I don't know if we even got places to put them. Um they're very good banners. It's very well done. It commemorates all the uh the family has opportunity to commemorate their uh own members of their family that have served in our country and in our interest. Uh but I'll do more work on that before we put it on the agenda. But we need to do those those other things especially with the uh because it's coming up.

So there was three points here. I just want to make sure that we're clear. Fourth of July, we still have fourth of July planned. We have money's budgeted. We're moving forward with that. If you want to have specific discussion about the fourth of July, I don't need any specific discussions. And the second one were trees. I I believe we could work as a as a ceremony. We can work with people the the people I think if you could please have them contact Bradley and I think they've already contacted Josh. Yes, they have been in communication with Josh. Okay. So, it looks like moving forward with that. And then your third item was the the veterans com commemorative. Uh that's something you said you were going to work on and maybe bring back later.

Yes. Cuz I think there's some unanswered questions there. And then the other thing is uh to make a proclamation uh a public proclamation of the 250th year of our countries. I have a proclamation for Tree City USA or something like that. Um but yeah, that's that's another one we can entertain. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Clint. Thank you. Um further discussion I got Rob.

Yeah, I just wanted to um uh report back to person sitting next to me, Indra. She had mentioned and I brought it to agenda setting that she wanted to uh have the city potentially uh reach out to the county commissioners to try to we'll say normalize relations between the city and the county. Um the last few years I we we used to have I guess monthly meetings I think between the mayor and the city manager and the commissioners and so forth. And uh for a variety of reasons, those broke down. But um uh I think that the uh the mayor and city manager uh agreed that they would try to um uh rein re u reinstill that uh that sentiment that we want to work with them and possibly even have the was it monthly monthly meetings again with them?

Yep. Monthly monthly meetings with the uh the manager. I think it's the manager and the mayor. I believe manager and the mayor was it. They were historically the manager, the mayor, and the council president. Okay. Manager. Okay. So, volunteering myself. Um the manager, mayor, council president to try to reestablish um kind of a normal working relationship or at least ongoing communication with the with the commissioners again.

So, thank you for bringing that up, Rob. Um yes. Um, I do want to state over the last uh the first 12 months of being in office, there was a very strong outreach to county commissioners um to do more coordination and organization. Um, we started to do a little bit but it kind of fell through because of the political turmoil, but we won't go into that. But I'm going to say uh drop the mic moment if you want to announce it. Well, I don't know what date it is. You go ahead. Uh yeah, the board of commissioners have agreed to meet with us now. We're going to be meeting on the fourth Tuesday of every month uh and have discussions. So we're starting those relations again.

So ask and you shall receive. All right. Um I got uh Indra, Kathleen, and Rick. Indra.

Yes. I just want to put a little nudge. So I'm still hearing about crime problems downtown and in different areas of the parks. And so I we've had this municipal court since December of 25. I I understand that Stephanie's been very busy with things, but I I see things on that we are putting on the calendar that in my mind are not nearly as important as that coming to a workshop. So I just want to nudge that, you know, along a little bit if possible. if you have any um thing to say about that. But also included in that a long time ago um Mayor Sheriff talked about exclusion zones that some surrounding cities have them and we don't. So I would like that to be I don't know if that's part of the discussion with municipal court or if that can be a separate easier quicker thing to do. if it's a quicker, easier thing to do, I think we should get the exclusion zone on there first. Um, and then the municipal court.

So, I'll address the exclusion zone. Something the mayor's been talking with me and staff about. We will be doing a memo on the exclusion zones for you and that's that's one of our top priorities from a memo perspective. And then I'll let Stephanie address the municipal court thing, some of the decisions you made.

Let me preface really quickly. Um, so those two items you brought up, yes, have been a topic of discussion in almost every agenda setting meeting that I've part um participated in uh since those topics were brought up. And there is a mountain which uh Stephanie's going to address here. There is a mountain of information that needs to be researched and developed for municipal court. And I believe that our staff is doing to their best ability to gather that information. Um, so but but just to reiterate, we I have continued those conversations on those two items on almost every agenda setting meeting that that has happened over the last year and and up to this point. Um, we had a pretty lengthy discussion uh just this last one with Kathleen and and and Rob in regards to that. So Stephanie, if you could give us a little bit more on the municipal court.

Uh with municipal court, given council's direction today to bring in the third party consultant on the non-bargaining, I'll be able to shift my focus and start bring and bring that to you as soon as possible. Yep. Again, ask and you shall receive. Um I got Kathleen and then Rick. Kathleen. Um I was part of the vote that asked for the natural playground at Riverside Park, but I'd like to reconsider that vote. I I think I was part of the majority that wanted that, but I was wanting to bring that back to reconsider the vote. Um, how do we make that happen? So, I believe that we're having some discussion on that.

Is that is that associated with the pump track also? Okay, that thank you for that clarification. We do have the pump track listed on here on the agenda for discussion. So it is sort of bringing back. We currently are sort of on a pause when it comes to the natural playground versus pump track there. Recognizing there is council that may want to have that direction. So we're sort of waiting for this next discussion item about the pump track to provide additional direction before we move forward with anything at Reinhardt Volunteer Park. Okay. Uh I got uh Rick and then Joel and then Rob. Rick, I'm good. Thank you.

All right, Joel. Um, just for people's knowledge, I I think you know about it. It was in your email, but there's a lot of emails. Um, there's going to be a recreational needs assessment and Brad, you probably are aware of it. Uh, I think it's Thursday. Maybe it's Wednesday. Wednesday. Wednesday. You're right. Wednesday. Um, cost five bucks to go. I guess it pays for the guy that's going to facilitate the meeting. It's sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, but they they do a it's a very common meth methodology where they look at the recreation and they'll look at mountain biking and pump tracks and hiking trails and natural playgrounds and all those kind of things and uh look at our needs uh wants and uh desires. So that uh that will hopefully provide some good information for us and if you want to come respond to that email. All right. Thank you, Joel. Um, further discussion I had uh Rob and then uh Victoria and Indra. Rob.

Yeah, just a a slight further clarification. I I know that uh uh municipal court is definitely high on um uh Clint's priority list. Um what what we discussed at agenda setting um just to be a little bit more clear is that um just briefly you know from brief discussion with Stephanie we had heard how other municipalities part of how they fund the municipal courts are very often with um uh red light camera revenue and then we had also discussed the fact that uh it was it SB48 uh the problems that the sheriff has potentially with the jail. So there was about four different discussions that are all part and parcel of the municipal court uh discussion. Other words, how would we fund it if we were actually to uh arrest more people? Would would we have any more teeth? How, you know, all all those things. So it's it's it is um and now obviously Stephanie's saying she has uh more potential time to be able to focus on it, but it's about four things that are going to have to dovetail together or at least be discussed together. So, um, we can look forward to all that in the future.

Thank you, Rob. Um, Victoria and then Andrea. Victoria. Yes. Yes. I not sure that I see it on the agenda. Uh, it could be in here just written differently and I just haven't noticed it. But I was curious about uh, Chief Sanchez about the Medic Zero. Um, I I think maybe we're going to be getting a presentation on that and if that's something that could be put on the agenda for workshop or just maybe a little bit of an update on that. I Yeah. So, I'll I'll let you take it from there, Chief Sanchez.

Well, thank you for asking that question. Um, we do monitor that. That is data we get from 911 regularly. There is stuff that is coming down the the pipe in the future that we'll more than happy to present you with, but uh based off of everything that's been going on with the agenda setting and stuff when we're ready and the X team gets together, we'll be happy to discuss any questions you have with that. But yes, that is something that we regularly monitor. Oh, is it is there a possibility for um our department to be able to um with you know budgetary concerns to be able to fund Medic Zero in a different way or something like that? I I may have just been totally off. you're you're telling me you just monitor the the Medic zero and I remember that it is pretty high but it seemed I don't know where I heard it but there was a possibility for our department to be able to have funding for that. So when you say funding, Medic Zero is a measure in the in the county city as a whole to where when you dial 911, then the current ambulance service company that we have here within our city is unavailable. Um, now with our professionals, we respond to all of those calls within our jurisdiction and we are there every time either before them usually and we're providing that same level of service if not higher, I would argue because our guys are very well-trained professionals. So, if you're going to go the funding aspect of it is when we talk about that in the future, I'll put a whole package together. There is a lot of cities that um we bill insurance uh and that is something that we can discuss in detail and I'd be more than happy to provide a whatever the city manager wants a memo, email, whatever you guys would like with that.

Oh yeah, I would love to have more information on that. That that's what I was getting at I think and and thank you so much for that.

I think if council's concerned with the the medic zero the calls that we're getting I and we're concerned also I think maybe this would be a good topic. Ambulance services are is done for the county through AMR. Now, of course, we respond and we have paramedics that can respond and do those kind of things and that's great, but ambulance services is not at this time a city responsibility. It's a county responsibility and we should really address it there first. So, I think that might be a good item for us to put on the agenda as a first discussion point uh coming up at the end of this month is maybe we talk about the the county. And I know the county is looking at their AMR contract also. So I I think it may be good for us to approach that and have those initial discussions with the county on this.

Okay. And then have a memo on that possibly uh letting us know about providing updates on where it goes on that. Mhm. Thank you. Um further discussion. I got Indra and then Joel. Indra.

Yes. But I just wanted to mention uh Friday the Chamber of Commerce awards uh banquet which was really nice and fun and um I know Seth and Joel, myself, Erin, Brad was there, got to sit at his table. Um but just a great event that honored so many individuals who um work in our community to help businesses and a lot of business owners. and it was just an honor to be there. Thank you. Uh Joel,

I'm not sure it needs to be Well, I'm sure it doesn't not need to be an agenda item, but if we could have a memo when it's appropriate and timely and I your your judgment would be appropriate. Um updates on the what is it? The first 200 feet or whatever they call that the urban renewal project. The first 40T

first 40T in northwest Grants Pass. Um, and uh, we we could uh, if you wanted to, if it was significant enough, we could make it an agenda item or at least a memo when it's when it's when there's something to report. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion in regards to agenda review? All right. Going once, going twice. All right. I think we're done. I don't see anything else on the agenda. So thank you very much for your participation and it is time to go. Thank you.