T o w n o f C h i l m a r k P e r s o n n e l B o a r d
M i n u t e s
Thursday July 23rd, 2009
Chilmark Town Hall
8am
Present: Max McCreery (Chair), Frank Lo Russo, Jennie Greene, Stephen Lewenberg, Chuck Hodgkinson (Staff Representative)
Also Present: J.B. Riggs Parker (Selectman representative), Tim Carroll (Executive Secretary), Marina Lent (Personnel Board Secretary)
Absent: (Unfilled Personnel Board seat).
The meeting was called to order at 8:00 am.
Approval of Minutes: The Minutes of June 18 were approved as written. Max McCreery recommended that the Minutes of July 9 be transcribed and forwarded to PB members plus others present at the meeting. Max had reviewed the transcripts and felt that some important information was inadvertently left out.
Performance Evaluations: Tim Carroll made available a final status report of personnel receiving evaluations and feedback. It showed that all employees have received their evaluations and participated in a feedback session. Hereafter it was decided that the Evaluation and feedback should be administered on employee’s anniversary date. Further, Steve and Chuck would examine how this plan could best be phased in. Finally, a training session will be developed and scheduled appropriate to the new timelines. Chuck and Steve will report at the next meeting.
Procedures Manual: All substantive suggested changes to Draft 6 were reviewed in detail. Chuck will incorporate them into Draft 7 and will, if possible, present them at the next PB Meeting. It was recognized that Chuck has a huge amount of work to be completed in other phases of his job and we are indeed fortunate that he is willing to lend his invaluable assistance to complete the By-laws and Manual. It should be noted that his burden has intensified with the resignation of Susan Heilbron.
Chilmark Compensation Plan: The PB decided that they would update the Municipal Position Evaluation Manual plan which has been in effect since 1999. Chuck suggested we obtain an updated plan outline from MMA Consulting Group. In addition, we request wage and salary data from the 6 Martha’s Vineyard municipalities. Marina will support Chuck on this activity.
Marina Lent belatedly joined the meeting. Preceding minutes supplied by Max McCreery.
Evaluation of Performance Evaluation process in 2009 The Personnel Board asked Stephen Lewenberg to meet with Tim Carroll and review all evaluations to assess them for quality, usefulness and completeness, and to report back to the Board on his findings.
The Board discussed how to transition to an evaluation schedule based on the employee’s start date, rather than simultaneous annual evaluation of all employees. Riggs Parker pointed out that the schedule of evaluations will have to be carefully tracked, and Chuck Hodgkinson suggested that the Personnel Board’s Agenda should include a rolling schedule of the upcoming employee evaluation schedule.
Compensation Plan Review Chuck Hodgkinson offered to call the Massachusetts Municipal Association for an updated version of municipal manual for determining pay rates for different Town positions, as the version currently available to us dates back to 1999 and is clearly outdated. He also offered to gather data on compensation in other Island Towns to facilitate comparison, supplementing the review of seasonal positions recently completed by Polly McDowell.
Tim Carroll reminded the Board that they face a December 5th deadline for completion of any adjustments to the compensation plan if it is to take effect in FY’11. The Board recalled a decision already taken with respect to seasonal compensation rates, and felt that this could be acted upon quickly. The Board noted that, in accordance with the Personnel Bylaw, the pay of individuals working continuously for the Town would not be diminished by any adjustments made to the seasonal compensation plan.
Questions arose as to whether a vote of Town Meeting was required to enact a new compensation plan, or whether Town Meeting approval of a compensation plan is implicit in a vote on the annual budget. The Personnel Board decided that this question should be forwarded to Town Counsel for response.
As a first step, the Personnel Board agreed the wage scale for year-round positions should be used for seasonal positions. Tim Carroll will inform the Board on the procedure for executing this change in FY2011 budget planning process.
Tax Collector Position Description Jennie Greene noted that the boilerplate language regarding essential functions or duties, and respect and confidentiality in the conduct of duties was omitted from the Tax Collector position description before the Board.
Steven Lewenberg also noted that the Tax Collector position requires cooperation with other authorities, such as the Chilmark Pond Association, who have authority to tax. He noted that Polly has always been extremely helpful in cooperating with the association, and he hoped this was covered in the position description.
The meeting adjourned at 9:43:18 am.
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