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Employee Compensation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
Date: 9/5/13 at 4pm
Present: Muriel Lazzarini, Melissa Noe, Daniel Moriarty and Mickey Jervas
Absent: Gareth Backhaus, Maynard Forbes, Larry Klein, Chris Tryon and Fiona DeRis
- The minutes from 8/1/13 were approved as written.
- Mickey asked Muriel if the Select Board could officially advise the ECAC of any actions taken on proposals made by the ECAC. Muriel agreed that this loop should be closed.
- After receiving an email recently that accused the ECAC of focusing on employee demands and therefore it will be perceived as a committee of special interests instead of a committee whose priority should be the general welfare of the Town, M. Noe suggested that the Committee create a mission statement. The committee discussed this and ultimately felt that one was not needed. This committee to date has focused on creating an Employee Manual, creating and refining job descriptions for all paid positions. It was also noted that any suggestions made by employees have been discussed and researched properly and that not all of them have been implemented. As the committee continues working, the scope of our responsibilities and research will continue to change and it was felt that this flexibility was necessary for our
role as an advisory committee. The committee also agreed that the best way to tackle refining the job descriptions and putting them in a uniform format would be to distribute 3 – 4 to everyone at a time to review and comment on. M. Noe will randomly choose 3 – 4 this week and distribute them to all the members to review and be discussed at the next meeting.
1. With regards to last month’s minutes regarding the Principal Assessor’s job description, Muriel addressed the concerns the committee had with regards to an independent contractor being reimbursed for mileage and education – the Select Board has already dealt with this issue and the present Principal Assessor is paid as an independent contractor and has an agreement that he be reimbursed for mileage and education. It was noted that in the future, if someone else were to be in this position these contractual items could change.
2. Library staff job descriptions – with regards to last month’s minutes and the request to have the hours for the positions and duties be more defined/clear, Mickey stated that they are, it’s 0-19hrs/week and they are to assist library patrons, check in/out materials and using the state intra-library loan program which amounts to over 6,000 items in a given year. The only requirements are that you have to know the alphabet.
- PPO options: The town is required to have a PPO plan option available to employees that may not want an HMO type plan. The Committee reviewed the 3 options available thru MIIA and has additional questions on the plan summaries. There was discussion on implementing a different split for PPO’s as these plans are more expensive than an HMO. It was suggested that this should be a split different from 90/10 for current employees and 80/20 for new employees, another idea discussed was to offer to pay the same amount as is paid for an HMO and any difference above that amount, the employee would be responsible for. For example if the town currently pays $1000 for a couples HMO policy and a couples PPO plan would cost the Town $1500, the Town would pay $1000 and the employee would be responsible for the
additional $500 each month. The Committee will continue these discussions at next month’s meeting.
- An email was sent to the Select Board from Jon Sylbert regarding health insurance and contracts (attached). M. Noe sent a subsequent email to the Select Board regarding this matter. (also attached). The Committee reviewed both and Mickey provided the attached calculations from her perspective. Muriel thanked both Mickey and Melissa for the research they did with regards to the actual costs of this benefit to the Town. Melissa’s research and calculations showed just how inexpensive it is to each taxpayer to offer this benefit and how it would not save that much at all to modify the current benefit. Mickey felt differently and looked at it as a yearly savings to the Town versus a smaller impacted savings to each individual taxpayer. It was agreed that calculating the costs of this benefit
is difficult as it can change frequently based upon an employee’s family situation and employment with the town. One year we may have all family plans but the next we could have 2 families, 3 couples and 2 individuals. Muriel stated that the most important thing here is to help make the employee’s feel secure in their positions and with their salaries and benefits.
- Employee contracts (the Select Board has decided not to pursue MOU’s): Muriel informed the Committee that she has sent some questions to Attorney Collins regarding the health insurance benefit and protecting the Select Board’s decisions each year for a town/employee split from being amended on town meeting floor. Attorney Collins informed Muriel that his office is currently handling a case that the Supreme Judicial Court has scooped as a big case regarding Board of Selectmen and Town Meeting setting the contribution rate for health insurance benefits. It was noted that our town has a bylaw that allows the Select Board to set this split. Attorney Collin’s office says that it is the Board of Selectmen that determines this and they prevailed in Superior Court. If that ruling is upheld in the
Supreme Judicial Court there is no need to worry about town meeting underfunding as there is a special provision in MGL Chapter 32B that mandates funding.
- Instituting employee evaluations: A suggestion to institute employee performance reviews to provide better stability for both the employee and the town was discussed. M. Noe stated that the Board of Selectmen had done performance reviews in the past but they became problematic for 2 reasons; 1. Because the Select Board was writing performance reviews on 3 positions that they did not regularly observe and in some cases were not even aware of all the responsibilities of that position and 2. Negative comments had been written and the employee was not aware of any issues until the open meeting to discuss the evaluation. It was also noted that it was unfair to the 3 positions (Chief, Director of Operations and Executive Secretary) that had to have their evaluations performed in an open meeting when the officers and highway
personal did not as they are performed by the Chief and Director of Operations respectively. Several suggestions were discussed:
1. Asking the current employees for their opinions and suggestions on how to perform evaluations.
2. Instituting peer to peer evaluations.
3. Having one Select Board member be responsible for evaluations to avoid having them in an open meeting. It was agreed that this could prove difficult as one member may not be aware of all issues or compliments given and with an ever changing Board you may have a Board member responsible for doing them that isn’t as active and it will reflect in their evaluation.
4. It was discussed and agreed that it would be difficult to tie these evaluations to any sort of salary increase and would only be for improving your job functions and acknowledging any praise or concerns.
Ultimately, the Committee felt that the current system of meeting with the Director of Operation, Chief and Executive Secretary on a regular basis and dealing with any issues as well as acknowledging all concerns and praise during these meeting is the most effective way of addressing items and keeping the lines of communication open. Muriel is going to encourage the other 2 Select Board members to continue to pass along concerns and praise when necessary and that we will keep the process of “evaluating” the 3 managers informal rather than structured.
- Mickey will follow up at the next Library Trustees meeting on the status of the signed employee acknowledgements for the Employee Handbook. Mickey noted that they also have some suggested changes/amendments to the Handbook.
- M. Noe requested (after speaking with the other departments this applies to) that it would be helpful to have a check and balance on the tracking of vacation and sick time. Currently the Department Heads track this, it used to also be tracked by the Accountant while entering payroll but this has not happened in several years. M. Noe contacted our Accounting software provider and they have a module that would track this and print it on each employee’s check. The module would cost an additional $500/year for support (we currently pay $6,232.09 in support, $2,866.78 of which is for payroll) and a one-time training fee of $250. They stated that the support fee would only be $250 for this year if we decided to implement it now. Everyone thought this was a great idea and that it was important to have a
check and balance of the time tracking. Muriel will speak with the Select Board on Monday to see if they are interested in purchasing the software and giving this responsibility to the Treasurer.
- Muriel asked M. Noe to add Fiona’s name to the ECAC section on the website.
- It was suggested that the salary subcommittee should add a few additional members (from our new additions to the Committee) and start their meetings soon in preparation for the FY15 budget.
- Muriel brought up looking into retiree health benefits and looking into limiting employee retiree health insurance coverage to employee’s who were on the town’s plan as of the date of retirement and limit coverage to the type of plan that was available at that time (MGL Chapter 32B Section 14). Muriel’s suggestion was to alter this somewhat to limit eligibility to employees that have worked for the town for xx number of years to prevent someone from working for Monterey for 10 years, leaving and going to the private sector and then collecting retiree health insurance from Monterey when they reach retirement age. M. Noe was asked to call Berkshire County Retirement for more on this.
- A suggestion was made to pay eligible members of the Committee thru the Senior Tax Abatement program – Muriel will address this with the Select Board.
- The Committee will meet next on Thursday, October 3rd at 4pm.
Adjourned: 5:30pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Executive Secretary
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