Appointments Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody. I'll just call to order the meeting of the Operational Strategy Administrative Committee of June 12, 2026. Will you please call the roll?

Sheridan? Adson? Committee Member Bushnell?

Present.

Committee Member Scott?

Here.

Committee Member Walker?

Here. All right. Thank you for joining us today. At our last meeting, we discussed the City Council Action Member Random Findings Report, the meeting minutes summarizing that conversation, associated action items were included in your meeting packet right here. Today we'll be discussing the topics of city council rules and procedure and city council staffing in line with city priorities. I will entertain a motion to approve minutes of May 8, 2020 to close that meeting. Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any modifications or changes, questions, comments? All in favor of approving the minutes, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes. Next up, we have our first briefing item, which is the Council Rules Procedures. We have Continuous Improvement Officer Ben Thurgood here to discuss City Council Rules of Procedure. Today, OSTAC will be providing an edited copy of the rules that incorporates the Council's feedback over the last several weeks. This effort focuses on technical and housekeeping updates with potential changes to Rule 9, a community forum to be considered separately by Council, which we just did earlier this week. And this is a working meeting, so OTAC will be asked to provide feedback for staff. We'll prepare a draft to go before the full council for approval. Then I'll hand it over to you.

Thank you very much, Chair. So for first note, before here in the packet, I have only included the pages of the rules that had changes because this is already a thick media packet and we try to be simple as we can. And so there are additional pages and additional rules that are not present in your packet today. But because I am going to be showing the Word version of the document, you will be able to see all of the rules, all the pages that are available. OSAC has been working for a number of months looking at the entire entirety of the council rules. The rules of procedure are council's own rules that codify their behavior and how they, how you address your meetings, your duties, the work of the council. So there have been a few OSAC meetings prior and then study sessions where we provided the full council, the rules and the opportunity to give feedback. And then we've been collecting that feedback and working with the legal department and clerk's office to create this draft Redline document. There's a bit of a choice before us today. You can go through the whole document today and see all the changes, kind of work straight through it, or If that's not the right approach for OSAC, you have it in front of you. We could give time to review and bring it back to the next OSAC meeting for any questions, comments, or clarification. The majority of the changes in the Rules of Procedure were technical housekeeping changes that were required for changes that were made in the 2024 Charter Review or other little bits of cleanup. There were a few items that were more substantial, mostly around Rule 9 with Community Forum, and that's been bumped into a separate conversation and handled through the full council. One that I would call your attention to is that I should have marked exactly where it is. Rule 4 Order of business, there was a question from the council before we made the change of calling out the land acknowledgement and flag salutes separately. Did we check in with the tribe before we formalized that? And we have had the opportunity to reach out to the tribe and they are happy with and amenable to adding it onto the order of business as described here. Appreciate our government affairs policy, senior policy analysts, and you're helping us out with that one. The other rule that I would draw your attention to is on page 25 of the rules. It is Rule 8, Part B. And let me scroll for a few minutes here in Word so that those online can see it as well. This is an item that wasn't particularly discussed during OSAC, but came back through your colleagues' feedback, and so just wanting to have a conversation about this item. Receive your feedback and go into the final confirmation there. So it's this function and purpose section, and the identification of the scope of work of individual committees, and then just saying it's the whole scope of work, cleaning out that meeting schedules and meeting locations, not needing to be that specific, shall be accomplished by a process of discussion and consensus, and the former language was among the committee members. And then the change, although small in words, maybe larger in fact, would be to have that whole coordination done at the full council. So determining kind of what comes before each of the committees what the calendars look like what the skilful beach committee is with the work of the full council so that's the most kind of substantial change among the housekeeping changes that would have been prior to discussed at a no sack meeting all right um uh so for that i guess is that like right now like obviously the chair will check in and see what folks want to see on the like agenda throughout the year um

Are we saying, like, that those things are going to go, be talked about through the whole council? Or, like, I guess I'm not sure exactly how that part of it works. Is it the whole council now decide, is going to decide, like, this is what's being talked about? Or if it's, like, we know that these things are going to come up and we want to be proactive in assigning it to a committee ahead of time?

That's the question, right? So that's kind of my understanding is that it would be looking forward at the calendar and kind of triaging, especially where there's things that closely overlap between the various committees and should this be an OSAC item or a committee of the whole or a GPFC meeting. And so having that kind of forward looking view of what comes to each committee and having the council as a whole determine that calendar and scope of work.

And so, like, midway through the year, I was like, I just realized I want to talk about cotton candy. Do I need to bring that to the full council or can I talk to the chair about that?

Yeah, that would be the question.

Yeah. I, you know, it's a really good question. I think about the, you know, one-off where things come up that a committee it makes sense for a committee to be looking at for certain things like certain topics or areas that are topical at the time um and try to make sure that there's flexibility for the different committees to go think on that body of work um but then i also recognize that you know not everybody's on every single committee so we want to be able to kind of have to know what's going on i don't know if there's maybe some sort of like check-in be like hey here's this like a committee chair check in during a committee whole or a study session. Hey, here's the body of work that each of the committees are going through. Does this make sense? And then we might be able as a body to be able to ask questions of each other. Actually, I think it makes a lot more sense in IPS as opposed to CVS for these reasons. Or maybe there's some ways that current work can be happening on a topic issue that might have two separate lanes, like that's more IPS driven or more CVS driven, but it's a similar topic. And so then maybe, and then a body of work comes to mind. I'm just trying to, there's a lot of creative ways to be doing this, but I think it really comes down to, are we able to communicate and talk with each other and be aware of what's going on in all different committees? But I do like, I like the ability of the chairs to also be able to pick up things as needed. You just don't know what you don't know.

Yeah. And I think, I think that's a good idea. Like if we have, you know, once maybe the chairs reach out, because usually kind of at the beginning of the year when they kind of check with the folks, have some type of meeting where, you know, we do a report on so far what's on the committee schedule, give people an opportunity to say, that sounds great, or maybe it should move here, or actually I'd like to, if you'd be willing, I'd want to add this to be discussed. I think that's a good deal. My main concern is that sometimes things already take a while to kind of get set up, like In CVS, we're moving a topic to later and it's taking some time. So I wouldn't want it to slow down a process that can already take a little bit of time to get set up. And so I think my main concern is that is when things come up, having to go through a process of getting it approved by the full council, which could, especially if it's an emergent thing, could slow that process down and push us beyond what we need. So that would be my main concern there is just making sure that we're aware of timing and maybe having something in there that says, you know, in the case of like something, like a community issue that comes up or something like that, like when the Fred Meyer closed, you know, that it's, I don't know if there can be like a, you know, hey, this is the update, we're going to be working on this. If you have any concerns or questions or anything, please let us know. but maybe it's not needed to actually be like a vote that's approved, but rather just like at some point you make sure that there's that conversation at study session or committee level.

And we do do our committee reports like kind of at the end of council meetings too, but usually it's based off of work that's already been done.

Yeah, we have that section on the study session agenda for committee reports, so maybe that's something like that. Yeah, really.

Maybe study sessions, like future topic areas, like, hey, we had heard that happened, just so you know, we're going to have a conversation about that. Yeah, either a date to be determined or a topic of conversation. The reps and the council, okay, good, these guys are going to be talking about it. I'll either look back on it or if I have questions, I'll talk to you.

Yeah, I... I feel strongly that we shouldn't make rules about something that just is a communication issue. And I think to your point, or your point, it's on the agenda of study session. Maybe we just talk to the chairs about bringing the list of upcoming items to study session and just checking in once a month or even every week. I don't know. I mean, That's in our packet every week, but I think it does help to say it out loud. And I think the public would appreciate that too. So I wouldn't advocate for anything additional being put in the rules that we would have to vote on. Because of, as you mentioned, several examples of emerging issues, we have to be flexible at the committee level. And we're not making any final decisions at the committee level. So we have that catch as well. So But I do like the idea of being a little bit more proactive at our study sessions. And I think that's easy to do. We as committee chairs are deep in it. Just bringing it to each other, I think, would be an easy add.

Yeah. I think already at the end of our committee meetings, the staff liaison will give the topics for the upcoming meetings. And so maybe it's even up to the board of staff where maybe quarterly there's a more robust update. know for the chairs um but maybe each week yeah they're like these are the topics for the communities yeah i like that and yeah like to your point it doesn't necessarily be the rules it's just how we communicate so i don't know if that means maybe we need to like accomplish by a process of discussion among the council like committee members and the council um I think it's the word that told me of is consensus.

Okay, so the consensus that I'm hearing here made me to remove the word and consensus or among the committee members and then whether probably not captured in the rule, but having a conversation with your colleagues about establishing a practice around study session and packet and that standing agenda I've ever disappeared in the study sessions to just make sure that we're saying out loud the upcoming items. I've captured that. That's the main couple of ones that I would have called your attention to. If there's any others that you're seeing that catch your eye and you have questions about why that change was made, happy to bought any of those. Otherwise, my proposal for OSAC would be to leave these rules with you for the next two weeks until OSAC meets again. I can bring back a finalized version with the change that we've identified so far. But then you would have that last opportunity to say, hey, I remember talking about this and miss it or whatever. And then schedule a study session or get this in front of council as it needs a first and second reading. by the council with the reminder that rules are always open to being changed, right? So this isn't a stall for any change in any of the rules. This is just getting the first batch of pages through and up to date. So now there's some conversation about what opportunities there could be in the future if additional needs are identified. Anytime council wants to take it up, you may.

I have a question on the very final page here. We struck out the provision on council vacancies. And it says if the city does not confirm, so what struck out is that if the city doesn't confirm the point within 90 days, declare vacancy, then the RCW would delegate that power to Pew and County. Does that still in effect even with the striker in there?

Yeah, the notes here were that the city charter 2.7 covers it, and then additionally referencing RCW doesn't add anything there. The charter can stand on its own.

Got it. Okay. Yeah, so we're done with language. Before we move on, I just want to give everybody a chance to kind of rush through this and see if we can jump back a little bit. Under the expectations, the one for travel outside Washington state, is that, I can't recall, is that something that we're going to, just to submit a report, does that report go into, like, the agenda, or I can't recall.

Yes, can you remind me which page that was?

That was on page 10.

Thank you. Yes, the idea is, is currently Council already has travel authorizations for planning and internal administrative purposes. The idea was to prepare a report that would clarify and transparently be available to the public to just simply say, here's where the travel was, the business intent of the travel, and if there were costs covered by the city versus the outside party and how those costs were divided. Staff are working on a draft and a process for what that would look like for council. Try not to be overly redundant with that travel preoccupation that you already have as part of your process. And the intent was to include that on the consent agenda.

Okay. Do we need to specify that beyond the consent agenda and the rules, or is that just inferred? I think it'll help cut down on a lot of PDRs because people PDR this across the board. So having it as public record, I think it's really good to help us cut this down.

I will take a note. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily, it just, it just,

It just is saying that we need to provide a report. Like, well, who am I providing a report to? Am I giving it to the city manager or, you know? So I was like, man, I just try to, yeah, it's where the assumptions are supposed to go. And then under the duties of the presiding officer, We did break out decorum due to some comments from the public around what it even means. Does preserve order? I would say it doesn't mean that, I think respect in chambers and respect to each other generally is, would fall within, from my perspective, fall within the preserve order category, but does it? Or should we have, like, something in there around preserve order and a respectful community environment?

I mean, I think rather than a rule that's almost like, you know, when you come into a meeting, you're like, let's set the intentions for the space. I think words like decorum, respect, things like that, like they can be so subjective that they just different things to other people. Cause I can say something you don't like, and I can say it in a respectful way, but you could still feel that that was disrespectful. And so I, I don't, I think what we're trying to get at is like, you know, like at the council meeting on Tuesday, like it got a little tense on dais and they're kind of, it almost felt like we were on like a talk show reality show where we're getting feedback from, people that were, you know, residents that were in the chambers that were watching, and it got to a point where it all felt a little disorderly, to use the words here, but, like, and so I don't know. I think a big piece of that is it's covered under preserving order, but But, yeah, I don't know how to put it in what we're trying to get to just because a lot of the words that would help us describe what we are talking about, what we seem to be on the same page about, might not land for residents when they read it. If they didn't hear this conversation, it might not land the same way for a whole different council who's sitting up there. So I understand that. concern or the question around it. I don't know what a better word is.

Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm struggling with because I want to make sure that everybody can feel welcome to be able to express their opinions in a way that the public can show up. Sometimes those opinions are not going to be what the majority of the room might agree with. And, you know, it's, you know, court, you know, we all need to be respectful and, you know, that should be a given, but that's not always necessarily the case. And to your point, you know, it can be a little subjective, but I almost feel like, I don't know. Yeah. So I'm just, I'm just struggling with if it's not the quorum, then like, how are we setting a positive space for people to be able to, you know, talk about their personal rights? And maybe, maybe it all does fall within present order. And again, it's still all subjective. Well, like, what does the production of the work? Yeah, right. So...

I think less is more in this document. Sure. Because I think that, to your point, there's just so much room for interpretation.

Okay.

Yeah, and so I don't know if there's... you know, like when you're in class at school or something, like the school has a girl, but then a specific teacher might have, like, the time you show up in the classroom. And so I don't know if maybe it's like looking at, I don't know. I don't want to feel like we're like being Traumatic or like tantalizing anybody or, but I, you know, maybe it is even something and it's like, we have a sign on the wall that says, this is, you know, this is what we would, this is what we, our hope, our expectation is for how you enter the space. And I don't know what that looks like, but if it's a statement, if it's a list of a few like rules or something, I don't know what it is, but yeah, I think it's hard to put here.

Maybe, maybe it's like, maybe something separate, like norms. Yeah. Separate, which is not necessarily fall within our country, but in general, Like, here's the norm with the chambers, you know, we hope that people would respect them.

Yeah, so I don't know exactly what it could look like. Yeah, I don't know.

But, you know, it's still, people, yeah, people, you know, have their first memory to, you know, speak on things. So it's just like, yeah, it's a challenge, you know. I think a lot of chambers across the country struggle with this.

Yeah, because, I mean, I think it has a lot to do with, like, How do you, essentially, like, how do you get people to lead with, even if I don't agree with you, even if I don't know you, even if I don't like you, I respect the fact that you have the same rights, constitutional rights that I do. And I don't have to like what you said, but you have the right to say it. We all just hope that you say it in a way that's not specifically antagonizing. And... Yeah, and I don't know how to reflect that here.

Well, I think to your point, less is more.

I think in the changes we just passed on Tuesday, we also included a lot of things that support this.

I know they were specific to the forum, but that's kind of when this issue comes up.

Excellent. And, Chair, to your question about the consent agenda, I did verify that it is added on page 13. It's the fourth of city-related travel by council members. So it's in the consent agenda. It's just not on the part of the travel reports.

Well, I think that's fine. It's in there somewhere. Okay.

Thank you.

I'm not actually sure we need another meeting on this at OSAC. I think if we have a follow-up with the changes we just talked about, I'm comfortable with this going to the whole council. Yep. Okay.

So I will add at the end of our meeting a motion for the consideration to forward this to the full council with the changes that were just considered.

All right. Well, with that, any further discussion on this? All right, we'll go on to our next briefing item. We'll do the motions at the end. It's council staffing, and so I'll have Ben lead it from that. We did have a discussion on this before, but... the goal of identifying a stack of models with council and an upcoming study session for consideration in the 2020 budget development process. And take it away, Ben.

Thank you, Chair. One more attempt to share here. Okay. So OSAC began talking about council staffing several months ago, so today is a little bit of a refresher on the conversation that you've had so far, and then talking about next steps. As you're aware, we're starting NQB 2027-2028 budget development process. which is heavily working behind the scenes now. The city manager's office working with the various departments to generate proposals in preparation for the city manager to transmit a proposed budget to council for consideration in the fall. So now is approximately the right window for this conversation to come so that that proposal around city council staffing to be effective in 2027 could be considered along with all the departmental proposals that are being prepared and incorporated into the proposed budget. So our agenda and goals for this process today is a refresher on the prior process and the discussions that you've had as OSAC, identify the highest priorities to address with any additional council staffing, and then really we'd like to get to where we can develop a staffing model that supports council's priority needs. That may not occur in this meeting, that may be a follow-up after you've had a chance to confer with your colleagues and those that are in the room today. So then we would align that proposal with the 2027-2028 budget development timeline and formalize any next steps including a development of the proposal and a study session for discussion with the council. So in our refresher section, the timelines today, the current staffing and council's needs, So in 2024, there was a charter review that authorized council staffing model changes, the ability for councils to hire additional staff. And that's what kicked off this whole conversation. And then in July through August of 2025, so very nearly a year ago, we started having conversations with OSAC and we had individual interviews, I conducted interviews with each council member to determine what their needs were, what the objectives or business processes that they needed additional support with, that additional council staffing could have supported. And then in September and October, OSAC continued to have discussions that we'll be reviewing today. And then in March of this year, we've continued that kind of behind the scenes work of getting the input from existing council staff and other subject matter experts throughout the organization. to create a well-rounded view of the conversation. So as a reminder, what are the existing resources of council? There's a mayor and seven council members, there are eight council members there. For the mayor, there is a policy analyst and office manager. And then for the remainder of the council, there are two policy analysts, which create a ratio we commonly refer to, this kind of four to one council member to policy analyst ratio to help with your legislative development and policy development. Then there are two office administrators that support the eight council members. So again, upward to one ratio. And these are the folks that would help more with your calendaring, scheduling, paperwork, and administrative needs. And then for the entire council, there's one constituent relations that supports all nine members. That's the existing staffing. We identified these eight bodies of work, these areas of need. And further on in your packet, there is a Word document that describes in more detail what each of these categories represent. But these are arranged, the difference in color isn't fantastic here, but kind of from left to right, top to bottom, in the order of how often it was expressed throughout the interviews as being a need. So roughly a prioritized order, just based on kind of number of comments, not necessarily the passion of each comment. So the first area that you see as the greatest concern or need for council members was more support in policy analysis and legislative drafting. And then there were needs around collective coordination of the various projects and initiatives that council members are engaged in. Constituent response, I definitely heard more of that in the interviews from council members that represent specific districts. That was a strong need. And then scheduling and administrative support. Under communications and public narrative, this is really about communications specifically originating from the council. Your message, your story, conversations with your constituents, rather than the citywide messaging and communication that comes from city manager's office and media communications team. Then there was a recognition of need for support around committees, boards, and commissions that oftentimes you're thrown into various environments. And what this meeting about, I felt being able to be a little bit more prepared for various work streams that are coming your way, which is very similar to this next one, but all council business, but especially those external meetings where you show up trying to understand what the city's position is and what you need to be bringing to those external meetings. And then one step further than that is when you are called to be a leader in an external board or commission and having that additional support. Because just because you've been elected to be a council member doesn't mean you've ever been the president of an executive board or something like that. So there's additional skills or support that you could use in those areas. So that's the order. I won't go into the more details in the Word document behind there. There's additional... ideas that you want to jump into. So the existing resources really fall into these three categories. Those policy analysts fall into that policy analysis and legislative drafting category. The office manager and office administrators fall into the scheduling and administrative support category. And then our one constituent relations professional falls into constituent response. And the rest of those bodies of work become kind of all hands on deck, pitch in and get it done kind of work. collective coordination, communication, CBC support, meeting preparation, and external representation support. We also discussed kind of rough estimates of the fully loaded costs of these various types of positions. And there's a caveat here that my HR Colleagues will ask me to highlight that these are not the formal classifications of these positions. There would be a process going through the Human Resources Department to determine what the appropriate classification is. But these are just close proximities to give us an idea. So if you think about a staff member like a chief of staff, $180,000 to $190,000 a year fully loaded. And then you can see the rest on the screen there. Policy analysts, 140,000 to 155,000. Constituent relations analysts, 120,000 to 140,000. Communications analysts, 120,000 to 140,000. And administrative staff, 115,000 to 120,000. This is their salary and benefits. It wouldn't be the additional cost of doing that kind of work like computers and supplies. And it's the full cost of an individual position. We also discussed in our previous conversations timeline factors. So if there are existing classifications within the city structure that work to address your needs, the first item isn't an issue. If we need to create a new classification that involves human resources going and getting competitors, writing a classification specification, working with our labor partners, and just a bunch of behind-the-scenes work, so that creation of a new classification can take about three months to do. And then recruiting and hiring can take about three to six months by the time you write the job posting, post it, work through interviews, they give their notice and come on board. So those are kind of the timelines for implementation that we're looking at. This next table is updated from the last time that you saw it because we're looking at a 2027-2028 final budget development timeline. So the window for Council to make a proposal here is really June and July, this next month or two. and then that will come before the full council for consideration as part of the budget process in the fall and then the budget would be authorized for that available on january 1st 2027. there are future opportunities if this is not the right timing right window for whatever reason at the beginning of 2027 there is a reappropriation window where we open up the budget and go through the process of making adjustments typically that adjustment is about carrying forward funds from 2026 for projects that weren't completed But because the budget is open, there could be an opportunity there. And then the next major adjustment of the budget is the 2028 mid-pianum modification, which occurs at the end of 2027 to adjust the budget for 2028. And that traditionally does happen a bit more quickly because by then it's been about 18 months since we developed a budget. So it allows a lot more opportunity for change in the mid-pianum modifications. So those are the timelines that we're considering. There is now a bit of urgency with OSAC and council to have the conversation over the next four to six weeks to determine a proposal and get that incorporated into the proposed budget. So that's the refresher part. Moving on to the conversation with OSAC. So priority staffing needs. Given the discussion so far over the last six months to a year and the feedback that you've received from your colleagues on council, what do you see as the top three needs for council in 2027 that could be addressed by council staff? What would be your priority? Priority as a model thing.

I see one. You want to make sure. I did have one question because I noticed on the, as far as the history of how we got to where we're at now. So looking at that, we did the council staffing need interviews back in July and August of 2025. I wanted to make sure that we've checked in directly with Mayor Ibsen and Council Member Poffer.

I have not conducted additional interviews in the same way that I did in August. I'd be happy to call through and do that. Mayor Ibsen definitely has been involved in the OSAC conversation.

And Council Member Poffer was on the charter review, so... understanding, but I wasn't sure if her thoughts have been able to be incorporated. I don't know if that was the issue with Ben.

So Ben, my assumption is that we're looking at the eight areas of council need on slide six and trying to prioritize those.

Yeah, so I can kind of think about it that way and we'll be a little loosey-goosey here for a minute. So staffing model development is where we're going to head. And looking at these different things that we've talked about, like enhancing existing support or new types of support that you might want. And so I'm trying not to jump to what are the four positions you'd want to add, right? But like really trying to get to what those positions would do first is what I'm hoping to attempt with this question. And so if I hear then that, well, really the number one thing that we need is... legislative development policy support then the next conversation becomes easier because we're looking at a policy house versus whatever other need you might say is the highest priority so just not jumping to positions yet but the need is okay thank you i haven't had people first here thank you um

So I think putting the public-facing pieces first would be my priority. And I think that if we have more support in those areas, which I think because they're public-facing will be more visible. that will free up time to do more policy analysis. I think if we were to jump right in with more policy analysis, we would have a, there would be like a joke point in the, the flow that we wouldn't be able to then move those pieces into the public space. So I think I land more in the constituent response and engagement and the communications and public narrative piece. In my mind, scheduling administrative support is right in there because that's how we show up in community. And when we don't get it scheduled right, we show up in very weird and uncomfortable ways. or don't show up when we're supposed to. So those for me are kind of the three that I think would be helpful to prioritize given limited budgeting support. And then I guess I'm always going to be a fan of support for those outside boards and commissions that I represent Tacoma on.

Definitely hearing strongly the public-facing and then really with communications, constituent report, and then making sure scheduling where you need to be in the right frame of mind. You want to show up?

What else? Yeah, to your point on bottlenecks, you know, one of the challenges that we have, especially with the constituent response engagement is oftentimes the app. For us, it's more... questions in nature, and it does take an additional layer of departmental response. So that does take itself. The constituent coordinator itself may not have the answer, but they have to go out to different departments, and they have to collect whatever information to get to them. And so there's still a bottleneck there, especially when it comes to particular responses. And sometimes the response that they get is not necessarily satisfactory to them, which can't make everything what we want. But I just was thinking about that. So there are other bottlenecks. So even if we were to have more policy analysts or even much like drafting, that doesn't necessarily mean more things get implemented because other departments need as well. So that's another bottleneck. And so to your point, I think I agree that the public-facing support makes a lot of sense in terms of prioritization because that is something that we do have a lot more flexibility and control over and not necessarily have as many conflicts, especially when it comes to outreach and fax information or soliciting feedback and things of that nature. But then also something that I think if you need to specific council members and probably why, probably at the end, is that external representation and leadership support. I found that some of the boards that I'm on that having additional support needed, especially when it comes to regional things. And I know you're on the Sound Transit Board, the NRC and other things. I'm on the Clean Air Agency as well as the Health Department itself. And there are things that occur in those things that are not necessarily completely related to city of Tacoma. Like, as a chair of the Clean Air Agency, that's a four-county region. That's Nahomish, Kane, Pierce, and Kittap. And so I'm engaged with stakeholders all across the region in that capacity. And sometimes, you know, they have their staff that help me with that, but then there are things that I need to, like, have more information about in terms of how I'm representing Tacoma, specifically on the sports, that dwell on our perspective. And so sometimes I'm not always completely clear on that. And then being in a leadership position on it as well, there are certain skills and knowledge that's needed, especially if you're new to it, that might be a skill gap that, you know, especially you want to be really good steward with these regional bodies as well. So if you are on an executive team at one of these, chair, vice chair, whatever, there are certain, you know, things and criteria that still you need to learn and know if you want And that's not something that they teach you at those boards, but that might be still effective as well. Just some examples. I don't know where I'll go with that.

I think you're just advocating that that's maybe higher on the priority than it should be.

Yeah. And I think, again, it depends on what boards and commissions certain council members are on. And, you know, for me, some of those external awards do take up a lot of time. You know, my packets for South 101 are upwards of 100 pages.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think, you know, policy analysts and like analysis and legislative drafting and then even collective coordination. A lot of those are probably like we deal with them as council members a lot. And so we probably have a lot of thoughts on those, which is why they show up really clearly here. But yeah, that part about just even if there's more, it doesn't mean more gets done. Part of that is capacity, part of that is budget, part of that, you know, there's various things there. But so I agree. I think ultimately a lot of this, even the coordination piece, the policy piece, it's about that public-facing piece of how we engage the community, how well we are being responsive to what we're hearing, what we know the needs are, and things like that. So, I mean, I think, you know, Charissa does a great job at what she does, and having some support there would probably, one, help her out, but two, you know, make sure that folks are feeling like that response is quicker or it could be more thorough or whatever it might be, but I think it would definitely enhance that. And yeah, I think, you know, we have options as council members to, as far as communication, like our newsletters, we can do like a release statement, we can do an op-ed or something like that, but I don't think that we utilize those as much as One, because it feels like with everything else, at least for me personally, when everything else is going on, sometimes that feels like an added thing to throw at your analyst to kind of help you with. But it also might not be somebody's strong point. Since it's not used often, you don't think about it as much when you're thinking about how do I get this information out. And so I think help there is going to be really key, especially because I think the less we say, you know, outside of when we're on the dias for study session, like, it gives people a lot of room to assume what we mean or what our intention is or that something just came up out of nowhere. And I think that that would help us, like, one, just keep people abreast of what's coming up, what we're working on, what, you know, what their specific council representative is thinking and, you know, do I need to reach out to them and say, like, maybe consider this or should I reach out and say, hey, this is great, that's what I'm hearing, too, or something. So I think that that's going to be a really big piece of it as well. So, yeah, I mean, I would agree that essentially what you both have already said.

Yeah, part of what I think about also is, is this something that's necessarily needed for, like, obviously it's a need for the council, but is that something that's an addition to the council's staffing, right? Or is that more of a plus episode? in order to accomplish that SEO main one, right? They're building out a podcast right now, which I'm really excited about. It might provide more of those opportunities. Yeah, right. And communicating out to the public, kind of getting the perspective of different folks. And, you know, I don't know. I think that gets to the challenge that we're trying to address, but I don't necessarily think it necessarily needs to fall within a council staffing office, right?

Yeah, go ahead. I think that it's really important to have someone who's tracking what we're working on and what our priorities are communicating that. I think MCO is designed to communicate what the city wants to communicate, and that's a really, really important part of city communication, but they're not invested in our talking points at the diet and how we send that out in our newsletter after, how we facilitate conversations. And that is so integrated in with our policy analysts. And we have policy analysts that do a great job at that. But to do it for four of us is a lot to track each of our policies. And I think that that's the link that I see missing is the individual thread between what we're working on and what's getting communicated out.

Yeah, that's a fair point.

I just want to clone the people we have now because they know all these things.

Yeah, I mean, working with my policy person, they know how I speak. We've been having conversations back and forth. They get the intent of what I'm trying to do and all these things. Would it help to have maybe media training, additional media training for an existing person?

For council members or for staff?

For staff. for staff at a reporting company? Like, is it a specialized person or is it in addition to the existing body of work? Or because maybe the portion of it will be additional training in order for them to help them have the tool they need to communicate intent appropriately through the legislative process.

I don't think that would be bad to have that knowledge, especially if... that analysts are currently honoring by the future feels like it's a space where they could use more like help with just like being on an external board. Like I have some general skills that allow me to be here, but I could use some more specified training to get this skill up or this one up. But I, so I don't think it's an either or I think like that training might be helpful, but I think the more we lean into getting people to feel ready to do those things, whether it's on the staff side or the council side, that will increase the workload. So I think having an additional person there would also be helpful.

Just trying to think of different ways to do this.

Ben told us not to.

Oh, no, I'm just there.

It's great.

It's literally the next slide. Yeah, I think we figured out. I think we got to our priorities.

Yeah, so during those priorities, right, definitely seeing the external facing and communication, hearing about the ratio between council members to the individual support staff and just the time and capacity to accomplish various things. But then also heard good comments about your capacity versus the organization's capacity to implement. So then starting to develop or think through what would a staffing model look like? And our goal really is going to get down to the level of eventually a budget proposal that says I need this classification, this many, right? So that's where we need to get. But starting out, those different model considerations. So one of the things that you, Osek, have talked about before is enhancing existing support. So like a two-to-one ratio instead of a four-to-one ratio. You've talked about additional constituent relations support, communication support. And some of those are those new categories, right? So there's enhancing the existing where the system of instructions are already there. It would just be adding headcount to create more capacity. And there's that second category of things where it's like really a new role, a new function that council hasn't specifically had before. Maybe it was an ad hoc or other duty as assigned for existing staff, right? And that would be that dedicated council communications position or topical experts by a council committee, right? Right now your policy analyst or generalist supporting four council members versus... We did talk in earlier meetings about what if there were a policy analyst who specialized in each of the four standing committees, the new four standing committees of council, and could navigate the organization more adeptly as they become experts in that area. We also talked about coordination and staff supervision. So right now with council staffing, reports to the city manager as that grows or changes or the work is different, then does there become a need for that third box personnel management, right? Do you grow within that existing structure? Heard repeatedly from OSAC and from all the interviews that in general, we shouldn't be relying on elected officials each to manage staff correctly. The body can manage somebody who then manages the individual staff is a strong feedback that I heard. And then just the timing scale and implementation of the financial impact. And then scaling operations and developing processes. I can tell you my experience at the city, been able to grow or change a few functions. It's actually really hard to bring on three different people who do three different things all at the same time and try to onboard all of them. So just then thinking about that kind of phasing as well. So given kind of those four areas, What are you thinking about a specific model, including positions phasing, that could be included in a proposed patent model for council's consideration? Leaving time for if we did come back at the next OSAC meeting later this month, that is the Friday before June 30th, I believe it's the 26th, or July 7th, so kind of targeting those seven sections in case we needed to end tonight. meeting that finalized the proposal, which I imagine you will. But with really kind of that goal of mid-July, giving that information to the Office of Management and Budget to include in those conversations that are happening around the development of the proposed budget, with then obviously the whole proposed budget coming before the council later in the year. So the question at hand, what model, what would you like drafted up by staff for consideration there?

Before we go into that, I'm curious, because we have the areas that council need identified, but what I didn't quite hear was where are these currently being met? How do council members feel where they are currently, and where are the gaps in that? It sounds to me like there's, based on the conversation earlier, some of the gaps that we've been talking about, communication, and external board support and different response and kind of more public things and things. Do we feel that these other areas are being met or is that just how we want to prioritize?

I don't think any of them are being met completely. Many things are happening. Great things are happening. I think we identified these eight as gaps. And then that conversation was just the priorities. So if we can have it all, we would fill all eight of those.

Yes. Okay. That's, that's what I wanted to, I just wanted to kind of have that question. So like, I'm trying to figure out what problem are we trying to solve here? And all these needs gaps.

Yeah, that was the framing of the interview questions. Where is the gap? And so it is roughly prioritized that way.

Okay.

So in terms of a proposal for the council, I think the full council is going to be really interested in seeing everything. But I do think that if we, because I'm looking at your backup materials, Ben, because it's just really nice to visualize sort of options. And I think that would be a good place to start the conversation. But I do think it would be really helpful if this body came out and said, based on all of our conversation, we're leaning towards this. But I don't think that this is a topic that we could go in with one proposal. I think our colleagues really want to see our work. So that being said, I would I don't know that any of these quite get there at the moment. I'm thinking about prioritizing that forward-facing. And so this might be a request, Ben, to come back with one that really needs that because I think it's a little bit of a hybrid. Yeah. Based on the conversation we just had.

And then just for the viewing audience, I'll just kind of very quickly go through what you all are flipping through in the packet there. These are from prior conversations. So we talked about where additional classifications or types of staff might be needed in the communications or a chief of staff type of position for staff oversight and coordination. had a very quick conversation about the option of either just adding two policy analysts into the existing structure to change the ratio from four council members to one policy analyst to two to one, or we talked about the option of having those policy analysts each tied to a standing committee so they have that subject matter expertise, and then all council members would access the policy analysts. based on what policy or interest they were working on. You could still, under that model, have a dedicated analyst for your general support, but then they would each have their area of expertise. We talked about the reporting structure, right? And under the current system, mayor and council manage the city manager, and the city manager manages everybody, including council staff. And if that might stay the same or if it would look different where the city manager reports to mayor and council, but then so does the chief of staff. And then that chief of staff would be the day-to-day manager of council staff. And then we, in our prior conversations, talked about just per year what might these packages look like in total costs and so the idea of adding two ftes policy analysts or otherwise you're thinking of three hundred thousand dollars a year six hundred thousand dollars when you get into that three fte range and this was expanding considered relations and communication support which i hear is maybe more where the priority is now would maybe be that kind of second Bucket of work with constituent relations and communication support. 420,000 a year, 840,000 by annual. So stand independent of anything else. Creating a shared pool separately. So you increase the ratio and then add four more policy analysts. It's just 600,000. Four instead of two. And then the last one is you kind of all in everything that would have addressed every need, which would have added the chief of staff, added six policy analysts, added two administrative support, three communication, and four constituent relations. That was 2.3 million a year, 4.6 million per site. And so just letting the folks online in the room know that's what the back end material is. But hearing that may be a next step and looking for confirmation from... Sorry, I got lost in my clicking there. Looking for confirmation from... OSAC of wanting this entire information to get in front of the city council before coming down to a single proposal, or maybe like, that's one block you were saying, having, here's all the information and a proposal to go from them. I think if we flip through the timeline really quick, it'll help us. So June 9th, the year forecast, this means that the council And then we're looking at either on the 30th or the 7th, having a council study session, but maybe we pull that up and have the more preliminary council study session going over everything. So that we could have a council, a corporate council to give the kind of final proposal over to their consideration in the budget. Knowing that coming up on July 13th through 24th, not specific to the council staffing process, but Teresa Green, the assistant finance director and budget officer will be meeting with each council member about the budget process. So you'll have that conversation coming up around that same window. And then you can see the remainder of the budget timeline into the fall, looking to adopt a budget by mid-November there. So looking for next steps, would you like me, staff, to go back and develop a package that focuses on the external facing things and come back to OSAC two weeks from now and continue on this timeline? Would you like to have a check-in at a study session before that conversation?

Yeah, I'm concerned about kind of like going down a certain direction when it comes to staffing models because our colleagues might not necessarily agree that public facing is the most appropriate prioritization source applications. And so I almost feel like we do have to have a conversation.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that like Um, it'd be nice to talk about it before, um, beforehand for sure. And like, cause I think, I don't know how long it'll kind of take to put something together. It would, I think it'd be nice before our next OSAC meeting, if we've at least heard something from our colleagues, whether that's they get the information is shared and they can share their thoughts via email or getting in touch with somebody on the committee or been, um, but yeah, I think it's sooner rather than later. And I, I mean, I, I don't think it's a bad idea to have like, here's the whole host of things. Um, and like, this is what we talked about in perspective. So, uh, just maybe like if people don't agree, they can say like, I don't agree that these are the priorities, but if they agree, it kind of gives them an idea of like, all right, I'm generally in agreement with that, but what's laid out here, I I have some changes on. So I don't know what's helpful, but I think having a conversation with the rest of the council is going to be important before we keep moving forward on our end.

So if we had a conversation and study session on the 23rd and then came back to OSAC on the 26th, then we could have a proposal based on all of that information. by the council meeting on the 7th. That would still keep us on this timeline. Does that seem realistic?

We can certainly make that happen.

And I would love to put forward or just maybe talk to Ben after this meeting to just take a stab at that proposal based on public-facing priorities. conversation we just had here so that maybe we could add that in for discussion if we're doing like this for our colleagues it's like here's what we talked about in March here's what we talked about in April and here's and I'm happy to own that to say this is Council Member Walker's first stab at what came out of OSAC but we want to hear from you colleagues to narrow this to a proposal that we'll work on at OSAC and bring back something like that Just so we don't, I don't want to have done all this work here and not have something tangible for them to react to.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, no, I like that. I would consider just an additional option. Yeah. I think that's good. I just, the other part of this is, like, I don't want to, you know, the big elephant in the room is our budget. Okay. And, like, is there a way that we can still accomplish the goals we're looking for within the existing framework budget? Maybe for sort of transportation. So I don't want to dismiss that because especially when, you know, what's going on there, I think that's really important. Maybe there's opportunities for here's what it looks like if in better budget times we can plus that. You know, that kind of thing. That's just something I've been thinking about. Nothing to do with that right now.

I think that will be a good consideration kind of with that implementation and back timing. Do you add something or change something in 2027 versus 2028? It might take a little time to ramp up into what a full model could eventually look like. But what I'm hearing is the motion after public comment would be to forward this to council on the 23rd, working with Councilmember Walker on one more addition that would include first model or look at what public facing could look like. Does that sound like a good next step? Okay. That's the timeline. That's the end of that presentation.

All right. Additional final comments? All right. We're going to move on to public comment. Thank you for everybody that stuck around with us. Moving on to public comment. Please read.

She requests to speak during public comment for items on congenital. Please sign up in the front of the room if you have not done so already. If you are speaking virtually, please press the raise hand button near the bottom of your seat window or star nine on your phone. Your name or the last four digits of your phone number will be called out when it is your turn to speak.

All right. Thank you so much. Clerk, has anyone signed up to speak virtually or in person? If you are online, please raise your hand.

No individuals in person and no individuals online signed up to speak.

Anybody in the room wishing to speak? Give it one more second. All right, I will go ahead and close public comments. And next up, as we close the meeting, I want to appreciate everybody's contribution. And we'll review the action items, confirm consensus for the next steps for the briefing items. Ben, can you walk us through the briefing items?

Yes, Chair. So the first motion for OTAX consideration would be to direct staff to prepare the amended Council Rules of Procedure due forward to the full Council for consideration.

Second. Second. Second. Any questions, comments, or modifications? Hearing none, I'll be replaced by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passed.

And the second and final motion would be directing staff to prepare a conversation on council staffing for a COW or a study session on the 23rd of June with follow-up at OSAC on the 26th.

Second. So moved and it's been seconded. Any questions, comments, or additional contributions? Hearing none, all in favor please support by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes. All right. Thank you for that. And for the summaries, is that it for your summary?

Yeah. Just noting that additionally the follow-up work with Council Member Locker on. I'll keep doing that, but I didn't feel it needed to be in motion.

All right. Any final comments from the committee? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, please comply by saying aye. Aye. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Have a great day.