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Employee Compensation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
Date: 6/25/13 at 3pm
Present: Gareth Backhaus, Muriel Lazzarini, Larry Klein, Maynard Forbes, Melissa Noe and Daniel Moriarty
Absent: Mickey Jervas
- The minutes from 2/7/13 were approved as written.
- The Committee agreed to set a regular meeting schedule which will be the 1st Thursday of each month, beginning in August at 4pm in the Town Hall.
- Maynard stated that the Fire Company reviewed the request from the Select Board to choose a representative from the Fire Department to be on the ECAC as a FD member and citizen – they have requested that Chris Tyron be appointed. This will be discussed at the next Select Board meeting. There will also be another citizen appointment made. Muriel read the portion of an email received by Jon Sylbert suggesting a different makeup of the ECAC because it wasn’t a bargaining unit but rather an advisory committee. It was agreed to increase the membership from 7 to 9.
- Memorandum’s of Understanding: At the last meeting it was stated that the committee didn’t want to go forward with researching options available if the Select Board wasn’t going to support it. Muriel reported that the Select Board is not going to support it. Maynard inquired why and Muriel stated that the major stumbling block for them was that the employees were requesting that the terms be 3 years or not at all. Along that same line, M. Noe has asked for a contract as is allowed under MGL and the Select Board wanted to know the ECAC’s thought on allowing one employee a contract in addition to the Police Chief, they also wanted the other employee’s opinions. The matter was divided. Maynard inquired where in the law it excludes certain positions from having a contract,
just because certain positions are allowed under the law does not mean that other positions are excluded. Maynard noted that there are several surrounding town highway superintendents and highway workers that are non-union and they have contracts. He will get copies of these to distribute for review. Larry inquired if we could find out why some towns would offer contracts and others would be hesitant and Dan thought this should be pursued. It was noted that this was arbitrary and depends on who is sitting on the Select Board and always in flux. The employees present noted that this is one of the reasons they are requesting contracts and MOU’s, to stabilize things. The employees know that we can’t contract wages for three years due to the way salaries are decided at town meeting but contracts would allow that benefits be held at a particular level for 3 years while research and negotiations take place instead of having changes made on
a whim. It is important for the employees to feel some sort of stability with regards to wages and benefits, not work rules as part of the contract would be accepting the town’s handbook as the work rules in place.
- Exit Interviews: A packet was sent out by Muriel for opinions from everyone on the ECAC. Opinions were received by M. Noe and M. Gervas which Muriel noted were both thoughtful. One thing that needed to be clear is there is a big difference in performing exit interviews in the business world versus in the municipal world (especially in a town with 7 employees). Performing exit interviews really requires a Human Resources Department or outside consultant (Larry concurred from his corporate world experience that the person needs to be disassociated from the daily working environment of the business). While Mickey’s suggestion of having a townsperson perform this job for a few hours a year is in theory a good one, it’s not practical because people that aren’t working in this setting everyday have a
hard time understanding the flow of things, what each position is responsible for and the dynamics of the environment. It was agreed that exit interviews may not be as helpful as originally thought but opening conversations between departments and the Board on a continued, regular basis would be advantageous. It was agreed that we need to have an accepted grievance procedure/policy and disciplinary procedure policy to follow to prevent incidents that have occurred here in the past and have dragged on for years because there wasn’t a policy.
- Handbook: The most recent copy will be distributed to all and the Board will review on Monday to adopt what we have so far.
- Health Insurance PPO option: MIIA has informed us that per MGL we have to have a PPO option on the books available to employees if they do not want to join the HMO. A new rep from MIIA is being sought and the Board will be requesting that they come to a meeting to go over all of our policies.
- The Committee is going to start researching wages for part timer’s and elected positions to make sure that those positions in town are on par with surrounding towns. The current job descriptions compiled will be given to everyone to review as well.
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Executive Secretary
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