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Human Resources Board of Chilmark
August 2, 2018 APPROVED MINUTES
Present: Jennie Greene, Chair, Bruce Golden, Max McCreery, Don Leopold, Chuck Hodgkinson, Employee Representative
Not present: Molly Glasgow, Jim Malkin, Selectmen’s Representative, Tim Carroll, Executive Secretary
Public/ Board or Comm. Members:
Staff: Jennifer Christy, Admin. Asst., Melanie Becker, Treasurer
Meeting called to order at 8:00AM
Minutes:
- May 3, 2018: The minutes were approved as written.
New Equal Pay Act Information:
- The Board discussed the new information provided to the Board regarding pay equity from the Massachusetts Personnel Association. Ms. Christy participated in a webinar on the new pay equity law.
- Mr. Leopold inquired whether there may be areas regarding pay equity where the Town may be out of compliance. Mr. Hodgkinson stated that he did not think so and also wondered if there may be needed a review of the contract employee equity.
- Mr. Leopold inquired whether there may be departments that primarily employ female employees and wondered if the Town would want to look to see if those jobs are or are not classified differently from other departments and he mentioned the library department. He suggested that the Town may want to confirm that there isn’t a systemic bias that may affect the pay equity between departments. Mr. Leopold noted that he is not requesting a specific action in this area, but inquiring in order to explore whether the Town may have any vulnerability regarding pay equity.
Payroll Change Notice Procedures at Year-End:
- Chairperson Greene inquired of Ms. Becker if she would be able to address this issue. Ms. Becker stated she is aware that Mr. Carroll may have a proposal for a change to the payroll change notice procedure at year-end, but she has not been provided with the proposal.
- Ms. Becker described the process as it occurs today:
- Employees are evaluated every year
- There is a two page evaluation form and the second page is where the supervisor identifies if the evaluated employee will receive a step increase
- This form is passed on to the Treasurer with a form called a Payroll Change Notice
- The Treasurer keeps track of this paperwork which has become somewhat burdensome and there are sometimes possible gaps in the provision of the paperwork to the Treasurer
- The auditor requests the payroll change notice forms each year and it is necessary to have these forms filed regularly and as required
- Ms. Becker stated she is interested to hear from Mr. Carroll whether he has devised a proposal to improve the payroll change notice procedure with the goal of further ensuring that the process is without error.
- Mr. Hodgkinson stated the current procedure grew out of problems that were noticed with the recording of sick and vacation time and wondered why a change is needed. Mr. Hodgkinson stated that the issue that Ms. Becker has is that each year, before the new fiscal year begins, there are approximately ten people who are without payroll change notices and that these employees have not been evaluated. Mr. Hodgkinson stated he has not been evaluated in his time at Town Hall.
- Mr. Leopold noted that the completion of performance reviews is a problem in the private sector as well and asked if it might be considered that the supervisor would not receive a step increase unless the employees have been evaluated. It was noted by the Chairperson that the Human Resources Bylaw provides for that action already.
- Mr. Hodgkinson expressed some concern that Supervisors who are employed under a contract may not have incentive to complete performance evaluations.
- Ms. Becker explained her process for encouraging the execution and completion of the necessary tasks and paperwork necessary for a payroll change to occur.
- More discussion occurred regarding possible changes to the process that would be beneficial.
- Mr. Leopold asked Ms. Becker if there are any changes to the process and /or forms she would suggest.
- Ms. Becker suggested that one page of the process could be eliminated. If the employee being evaluated is not a new hire, Ms. Becker suggested that the evaluation could be one page with the evaluative statements and, at the bottom, the current step, new step and rate and signature lines.
- Mr. Leopold noted that the top portion of one of the pages could be eliminated at the very least if the employee receiving a step increase is an existing employee.
- Mr. Leopold and Mr. Golden confirmed that the step increase form does not include the conclusions of the performance evaluation.
- Mr. Leopold asked what percentage of employees do not receive a step increase. Ms. Becker stated that one employee during one year did not receive a step increase. It was noted that the step increase process appears to be, for all intents and purposes, automatic.
- Mr. Golden stated he understood now why supervisors may not be completing evaluations in a timely manner due to the fact that there is a significant effort needed to complete each performance evaluation.
- Ms. Becker stated also that there is some confusion regarding the completion of performance evaluations when it comes to employees who may have multiple reporting entities. She further noted that an employee may work for four different Boards who would need to perform their own evaluation of the employee and then a final step would need to be completed by the Supervisor and it is possible that this multistep process does not encourage timely completion of the task.
- Mr. Leopold noticed that there are two issues:
- Should the form be revised to clarify and simplify
- Should the performance evaluation system be reviewed to look at how it is executed and whether it should include “developmental” information for the improvement of the performance for the future.
- Ms. Greene commented that if an employee in Town is completing the duties of their job description, then there may be difficulties with completing the evaluation in a useful way since the evaluation currently is often about how the employee has performed in the past year.
- Mr. Leopold made suggestions regarding how the performance evaluation form could be adapted to a more realistic format and wording.
- Mr. Leopold asked if the issue of performance evaluations and whether they are completed or not is of a concern to the employees of the Town.
- Mr. Hodgkinson stated he ignores the performance evaluation process since he feels he does his job and it is a personal thing.
- Ms. Becker stated employees are very interested in knowing if they will be receiving a step increase. She noted the TriTown department has approximately 30 employees and it likely is a burdensome task to complete 30 well-considered performance evaluations. More discussion occurred.
- Ms. Christy stated the performance evaluation process is somewhat artificial and what is more useful is the regular meeting throughout the year with the Supervisor.
- Mr. Golden suggested that the payroll notices could come from the HR Board as opposed to the Treasurer in order to take some of the pressure off of the Treasurer to collect and process these documents.
- Ms. Becker commented that Mr. Carroll may have specific concerns and ideas about how to adjust the payroll change process.
- Ms. Greene stated that Mr. Carroll be invited to attend the next meeting of the Board on September 6, 2018. Ms. Becker noted that there are two issues that she sees: a possible need for a change to the payroll change notice form and a possible need for an understanding of year-end payroll change notice procedures
- After more discussion, Mr. Leopold wondered if it might be good to consider making the step increase process at the end/beginning of fiscal years an opt-out type of procedure rather than the opt-in procedure that is occurring now.
Topics Not Anticipated by the Chairperson at the Time of Posting:
Next Meetings:
- Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018, 8AM
Documents:
Meeting adjourned at 8:39AM
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