Good afternoon everyone. Let's call the June meeting of the town human resources board to order. Is proud and present are Diane Doyle, Mark Lman, John Fer, Anthony, Lynn Pe. Thank you
all. Chief Fisher should be joining us shortly, discuss briefly, but we have a quorum and uh let's jump into the agenda as always. First item on the agenda is to approve the minutes of the prior meeting. Diane, thank you. Thank you
getting those out. So, everyone had a chance to poke through the minutes. Yes. Is there a motion to approve? So move. There a second. Any discussion, omissions, corrections,
edits? Seeing none, let's vote. All in favor of accepting the minutes as written, say I. I. I. Thank you, Diane. Next order of business, employee issues. We're still waiting on Chief Fisher. So, D, we turn to you. anything that we
should be aware of in town hall? Nothing that's been brought to my attention. Thank you. We'll double back with the chief when she gets here. Dan, how about personal actions, job vacancies? Last month, we talked about the fact that uh there were a couple of positions that
uh still needed to be addressed. Um so, at the last meeting, there was an open position for the assistant town planner, an offer has been made and accepted, right? So, that person will be starting on July 1st. Um, the second one that I reported on in
town hall was a pending or upcoming uh retirement. So, nothing's happened on that. That job description is currently being reviewed and may come before us as our first one to kind of go through the new process. That's the assistant town clerk. Uh, the assistant assessor's
clerk. Oh, okay. Assess I'm sorry. The assessor cler. Thank you. So the they're currently reviewing that job description. Um and that should be coming potentially before us. So the principal assist with Tracy on that? Yes. Okay. Yep. Thank
you. Um I know that there were a couple of changes in the police department. So I'll I'll wait till Patty comes so she can speak to that. Okay. Thank you. Uh number five, workplace issues. Ethics discrimination is nothing I'm aware of.
No. Nope. Safety issues. Anything happening at uh No Protocols? No protocols. Everybody's feeding the heat today as best they can. Yeah. Okay. Do we do we um do anything for our
employees for a heat emergency like we're experiencing? like do we let them out early or um I believe that like obviously people that are in town hall it's an air conditioned building. So um as far as the DPW I'm not sure. I know that if we
have a building that is experiencing an issue with you know the air conditioning system there's a I think there's actually a legal temperature that you can't force people to work in. So um but we don't have any sort of Okay. Yeah. As
far as the DPW, I don't know what their protocols are, but Okay. No summer time. That's a good question. I don't There's no summertime equivalent of the close the office because of snowtorms in the winter. Furling people for, you know, like hot
temperatures or something. Well, like I said, I know in the past we've had an issue. I think we had an issue once with the library and we had to close the building because it was over, you know, the temperature under which you can require people to work. So, I know that there's There's that. Um, but most of our buildings are airond conditioned. So,
okay. Thank you. Yep. Another business. Why don't we skip down to the HR board appointments for FY26? Okay. So, I took a look at um upcoming appointments at the end of this month, June 30th. There were four appointments. Typically, we like to have two or three
per year so we don't have a big turnover, but there were four. um John Ferrara, Anthony Antico, myself, and Patty Fischer. Um so all four have submitted the um request or intent to
continue to serve on the board. Um and I know that those are going before the select board tomorrow night for approval. And then once they are approved, um we would just need to have those four people come back in and sign the book um before we have our next next
meeting. So, okay. Um, so everything is in um anticipating a full board and um thank you for agreeing to continue to serve. Thank you all the employees and the town of Newberry. Labor of love. Um
so I'll let our objective is to suffer with some fine people. So I'm assuming that things will go fine tomorrow and then after that you'll I'll I'll let you know. But you'll have to come back in and just sign the book. Sure. For your new appointment.
So needs to be signed in advance of that to make it legal, right? Correct. Okay. I'm glad that all four have submitted requests to be reappointed. It's a good It's a good board to sit on.
Thank you all. Yes, Patty is not She's here. She's just on her way. What's that? Patty is here. She's not just on her way up. Okay. Um up those steep stairs. I also know that this board has a very positive
reputation for conducting its business on a regular basis and complying with you know open meeting the mission of which we meet and you know we we post our minutes we hold our business we
do tell yes we we have a very strong reputation in town as far as a board so that's that's a that's a word that's out there y that's good and Diane I think that you're do a nice job of keeping us on track and you know a lot of kudos go to you for keeping us on track and
keeping us in a positive light. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Now that the uh and I appreciate you saying that because I was actually going to say say something similar. A lot of the the, you know, the the
back of the envelope stuff that needs to be done, it falls to Diane and uh perhaps not uh fairly because Diane is a town hall because she's working with this stuff
all the time kind of to foster her and I'm very appreciative of that as I I'm sure the rest of the board as well. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I want to echo that. Um I think we'd be lost forever. I'm sure we'd be lost forever. So that's a given. You are
definitely the umbilical to the town. Yeah. Thank you. I apologize. We're having a we're having a love fest. Oh, good. Um we're patting we're patting Diane on the back. Nice. Um so one more thing on that. Um I was I was just going
to say I've been on this board since 2010 since I came to Newbury. I came into Newbury in 2010 and over the years I have very much appreciated um both you know level of skill and just support and learning. I've learned so
much from all the members over the years and um it's just been nice for me to have a group that I can rely on um and to move some of these things forward. I I look back on the 15 years and it's we we we're you know we're transitioning into another classification and compensation plan and there's a little
bit of work to be done there but um I look back on when I came and how much progress we've made over the years. So all I think it's a I think it's a joint effort. Um so what I was going to say is um this is also your job right and so um does
your boss need any feedback you know from the board on your performance in managing this board the way that you do right I mean I think she's kept in the loop enough that she understands what we
do and how we do it don't think that I can't think of anything in particular that she would need to know other than you know the results of the board and the things that we work on and keeping the minutes posted and um yeah just I
mean this is what we do right and so um I you know I mean that's just part of a job is getting feedback on what you do and so um you said that she doesn't probably need that feedback from us. you can see um the evidence is that you do a
great job kind of leading our team, our board, but um if she ever wants to talk to any of us, I think that that would be um you know, a nice conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Over the years, I've had more than dozens of dropins with the
mayor and I don't think one of the sessions doesn't bring up Diane's name, which she means to the troop. Thank you. Because in essence, she is that cord to the town and she has the information that we all need and I'm
privy to. Y that implies. So, thank you again. All right. Thank you, Chief. Before we u get on to the last order of business, which is further discussion of the new classification system and schedule, just wanted to turn
to you to see if there's anything that you wanted to share relative to what's happening in the PD. uh positions available, positions filled, andor anything new on safety protocols in town or um nothing with the safety protocols, but we are having um some turnover with
the officers. This is to be expected with the new um legislative changes for how police officers are hired. So, we're all of us across the board, we're going to start seeing a air turnover. um it's particularly going to impact the
smaller towns um we believe he more heavily. So right now I have um two full-time positions opened and then I know the end of the summer or um early fall I'm going to have another position open for someone who's going to be transferring to Methuan. So just a quick
synopsis um legislatively they've changed how civil service departments work. So the town of Newri is a non-Ivil service department. Whereas more bigger cities usually are civil service departments. Um civil service departments used to have to only hire
off the civil service list. Um they've changed that legislatively. So now on a 5-year look back, 50% of their hires need to be off the civil service list, but 50% can be transfers from non-ivil service department. So you can have someone come to a non-ivil service
department um get trained, get some experience. Mhm. And then apply to a civil service department if they accept. So you're a shoe in, right? Cuz you have experience and training. And then once you're accepted, you are then in a part of civil service coverage once you go.
Um so that just um kind of opened up that that's happening. So we are going to start seeing um unfortunately that happen more whereas um historically throughout my career civil service officers stayed in civil service
departments and non-ivil service officers kind of stayed in non-ivil service unless they took the test and got on a list somewhere and kind of waited for their name to be called. Um so you know we're seeing the first impact of that and this is likely not to
be a short-term problem. This is going forward, you're likely to see this pattern repeat itself. Yeah. And with um the post commission's kind of dissolving of reserve police officers, so anyone who works, whether they work full-time or part-time now, has to have a
full-time academy certification. Um, we we are still trying to absorb the hit from that because we used to have 12 full-time officers sworn from the chief down, but we could at any point throughout my career had between 10 and 16 part-time officers who worked as
well. We now we no longer have those officers. So, our our um coverage has already kind of shrunk because of that. um you know, we have um three part-time officers now and they work part-time hours, but like when I was a reserve, I
worked a random schedule, but I worked full-time for the town. Um so, what we're able to do with we're we're trying to do more with less and then having turnover in the less. It's it's a it's certainly a new kind of modern challenge
um for these smaller smaller departments. So that almost sounds like by design if or by mistake legal proitizing is aligned between townships civil versus non-ivil. Well, I I think there's a whole reason, you know, reason
why it went into place. I think people were looking to get out of civil service and this was a happy medium to not you know lose kind of civil service departments to meet a need for the larger departments that had I mean there's a shortage of police officers right now you know what I mean no matter
the size of your department. Um so I think they were looking at this as a way to get kind of that flow going between departments that never used to be there. It's just hard when you're a department of 12 full-time sworn from chief down.
Um, you know, our short staff is very impact, you know, impactual. Like if if we if we go down too, you know what I mean? That that's a huge impact on coverage on so many square miles, you know? Um, well, what happens when you're
incumbent then with the training aspect and all the expense that that implies? How long does somebody have to serve on this this team before they can move across as some of we don't have employment contracts? So they come here,
we bear the expense of their training and I get a better offer potentially, which is why if you see the postings that I've had since I've become chief, I'm posting for people who are already full-time academy served, okay, trained. That way I take them in if if I
lose them, you know what I mean? If they if we have a turnover in their position, there's no real financial loss to the town. Um because the full-time academy is a little right around five months, 6 months long. So, we paid for somebody to
go to the academy. Now, um you know, paying for somebody the it was $3,000. They're we're waiting to find out if they're bumping that legislatively up to $6,000, but let's say it's $3,000 and then plus all of the equipment plus the salary for that person while they're in
the academy. Um, you know, for them to come out to enter into FTO for a period of time, we're looking at, you know, 9 months to almost a year before we yield a a a whole coverage, you know what I mean, in
my schedule. So, we're looking at nine months worth of investment. um in a person before we start to kind of go back in, you know, head back towards the green of what it costs to train them, which back in the day when
you if when you stayed in a department, you know what I mean? You knew you were going to reap the benefits. You knew they were going to be there for at least 2, three years, if not more. Um, now that the turnover, we're looking at turnover so quickly. It's kind of a scary investment, you know, to send
somebody who's not trained to that full-time academy. Um, because they owe you nothing if, um, you know, if they decide to jump ship after they get the experience, you know, to a busier department that has more coverage and more backup and more
opportunities and things like that than than we have here. So, um, it's definitely a challenging time for us. So we may see more kind of turnover than we ever have in the department. Um but it's it's for those for those reasons. And we
used to also kind of hire from our reserve base. So when we had reserves like you know I worked for a year for the town you you got to see what your product was going to be before you got an investment in it. And then when you came out you already had worked you'd
already been through field training. You were already familiar with the community. You know what I And so it was a faster turnover on the flip side of it. Um so we no longer have that kind of um sampling of an employee if you will um before we hire them and invest in
them. So going forward chief do you think that the bigger challenge for you for the department will be the recruiting process or maintaining status quo? Um right now the recruitment is the
issue. Uh because even the officers that I have who are leaving, you know, one is leaving because he got a job in his hometown. He can't he can't afford to live in New Relic. So he he got a job in his in his hometown. Um you know, the other one no one's reporting kind of
dissatisfaction with the job here. It's more it's it's a shorter commute. It's more money. There's more coverage. You know what I mean? You know, here we we work two people a shift. You know what I mean? You're responding to calls on your own. um you know so it's it's those kind
of answers we're getting not necessarily specific to a problem in our workplace. So I think if we're able to recruit people who kind of live more locally than we're able to traditionally recruit you know that might be a benefit but
again you know people want remote jobs. We're we're not a remote job like you know it it just across the board you know in in not just Massachusetts in every state you're just you're seeing a difficult time recruiting um police
officers. Just one other quick thing and I I apologize if I missed this as you were presenting it. What's happening? Is there no mechanism to claw back the town's investment in
training and and in the academy if somebody doesn't stay put for a minimum of 6 months post academy or nine months post academy or so so that's the thing that we're the smaller we're now looking into is it these employment contracts
and how much teeth do they actually have um because then but I mean for me right selfishly like my line items. If we're looking at crossing, you know, uh, fiscal years, my salary and wages line item is still
going to take a hit. Anything that they get recovered back from an employment contract outside, you know, outside of a fiscal year is going into the general fund. You know what I mean? So, it's still going to have a massive impact on my narrow lens. Not from a town point of view, but from a police administrator
point of view, it's still going to take a hit. you know what I mean? In our annual, you know, aotment, right, of what we have for salary and wages and expenses, um, that does not recover unless they leave in the same fiscal
year, you know, is is kind of just put back into your bucket. It goes into the general fund goes into the which is great. It's better than nothing. You know what I mean? But it still leaves me in a fiscal year financial kind of conundrum where I' where I'd rather I'd rather try to rec recruit people who
have the training and experience so that if they go I'm saying to Diane sorry for the sorry for the onboarding and outboarding so quick you know and it um but it's but that the town isn't losing the massive investment that it costs to send someone to an academy. I'm not sure
to what extent we would be able to, but if we can help in any way in the recruiting process, please don't share on social media by posting share on your LinkedIn. You know, that really is the best way right now for us to get out, especially the um the free recruitment.
Sorry, that's that's true. But you know what I mean, anyone sharing on their social media that we're that we're hiring. Um we've got on the PD website, on the town website, we've got the full links to the job descriptions. I'm transparent with what the pay range is. I don't want to waste somebody else's
time or my time with doing a background investigation and stuff. If they end up saying it's not enough, like I'd rather have them have everything up front before they fill out the background investigation packet for us and we do that cuz that's a lengthy process. Um so
I'm willing to have conversations, you know, with anyone, okay, who has the certification. Good luck with that. Thank you. Is it fair to say that most police officers don't want to live in the village they patrol? No, not not at all. We run into the issue where people just can't afford to live anywhere near us.
Yeah, we're an expensive village. You know, I feel Newbury are all expensive. Yeah. If you look at pay verse pay verse property, right, to own a home, it's
it's very very difficult. um so mo most of our employees live in New Hampshire um and and commute from there because that seems to be where it's reasonable um and available reasonable and available. There's nothing there's no
place for anybody to live here unless you're buying an established property. I think if you went town books and saw the last 25 homes built in this town, not a single one of them broke ground for less than a million and a half. Yeah. And
even even if you look you're looking at $700,000 for you know what I mean for an ASIS, you know, ranch, you know. That's right. So, um Yeah. You also had um in addition, so you have two full-time open
positions currently. You're going to have one more in the fall. You also had a change in the emergency communication dispatcher. One one's leaving and one's coming back. Yes. Um so we had a part-time dispatcher who we knew when we took her. um she'd worked for us for a while. She had taken a break. She had
started law school. Then she came kind of back to us um for scheduling, you know, picking up shifts as she could around her law school schedule. Um she has successfully completed law school and she's going to be studying for the bar exam. So we knew we only had her during her time in law school. Um, so
she um is leaving her part-time dispatch position, but coincidentally um someone who used to work part-time dispatch for us went um did another job um or actually he worked full-time for us went and did another job is asking to come
back again for full-time. So that I'm thrilled because his training and certification and whatnot to be an emergency communication dispatcher are still valid. So, he'll just need a refresher on our new dispatch system and then he'll be able to get up and running. So, uh so that kind of that
wash is that wash is good. You got a full time full time. He's coming back full time. No, he's coming back part time. He was full-time when he resigned. Um but and he's asking to come back um just to pick up shifts on weekends, which is perfect. Well, the movie part,
right? Yeah. Yeah. So I have a question going back to the beginning of the conversation, civil versus non. Yeah. Okay. And then you mentioned, you know, there's more people to take shifts, there's more opportunity, there's What about pay and benefits for civil versus
non. So benefits when we look at police departments are all pretty much the same throughout the Commonwealth. You know, um, you know, here in Essex County, we're all an Essex County regional retirement. some benefits. I mean, we have a good benefits percentage pay here, you know what I mean? Um, you
know, so the percent you pay for health insurance might vary slightly, but not enough to change the game on whether you take a job or not, especially with, you know, hourly rates, you know what I mean? Kind of varying. Um, so it's we
are in the lower end of we're constantly struggling in that. We're the lower end of pay and we'll have a contract then bring us up to closer like to to low mid, you know what I mean? And then some everybody else will negotiate and then we'll be low again. So, so we do toggle
in that low to mid-range um for like-siz departments um in the area and where um other departments like Georgetown is just putting on two or three more new officers. So, in this phase of um no more reserves working, no
more part-time officers, right? um you know, departments are are putting on more full-time staff to kind of accommodate for that coverage that the part- timerrs that all of us non-civil service departments depended on. Um and
we haven't been able to do to do that yet. I have a question on on inter town cooperation and usage. If if you if you have something going on, whatever it might be, a police
matter, and uh uh you you do a a quick study and say, "Wait a minute, we don't have the people for this. Is there any possibility that that you can I don't know whether you can do it legally or not, but but cooperate with the the town and say, "Listen, I really could use
four extra people for these two weeks or something like that." So, we pay into Netflix is what it's called. Let's call it NMAC. Nec. And so what that is is it's a it's a um a collaborative of Essex um of um police departments and
it's in the northeast. And so like you pay into NML, we have X amount of officers. So I have to have one and a half officers who are on a team somewhere on within the within all of the NLE structure and we call them out. So a lot of times when you hear from
social media or in the public like oh my god there were 9 million police officers in the neighborhood like that's usually network. So we do they are on call they get paged out. So if we have a massive you know public safety critical incident they can come. We have access to their motor unit. If there's a critical
incident in the school they have a stars program where they can bring in counselors dogs. So there's a whole variety of services that so we are in that. And then we also have anou with the Essex County Chiefs where we can provide mutual aid upon request
to to go into other jurisdictions. Um so our our jurisdictional boundary isn't I mean it for a day-to-day purpose it's it's our jurisdiction you know but we do have resources if we have a critical incident and a lot of times like you know if we need to set up a perimeter
around something we're absolutely calling other towns to come in. Uh but again we're you know for the most part we're surrounded by a small town. So I might be getting one officer from West Avery, one from Georgetown, one from Raleigh, leaving them with one one and one in you know in their town depending
on coverage. So um you know it's it can be tricky but it is we all especially in this northern part you know I can't speak highly enough about the partnership that we receive from other communities. you look at Plum Island, you know what I mean? You reporting us, we work really well together to make
sure that it's, you know, that it's it's being called. Um, you know, that you're getting an officer there and then we figure it out afterwards. So, it's good that we keep those um current. Good. That's good. Yeah. Positive thoughts for
a full staff and and send it out into the universe. Thank you, Chief. Yeah. No, no problem. Share it on social media everyone. It's on every So what do you LinkedIn right? Um connect with you connect with the
Newbury Police Department. Uh Newbury Police Department is on Facebook. You can um I do like these quick like um images basically if you will and then the link is there so that people can just share those on their LinkedIn if they want to as well. I'm on LinkedIn so you can follow mine and share directly
from my LinkedIn page but the PD doesn't directly have a LinkedIn. the and again the links are on the PD and the town website, okay, with all of the information how to apply um and everything and anyone can reach out to me. So again, that seems to be at least
in the 2 and 1/2 years that I've been doing this part. It's people's social media that seems to get the word out to other people in other departments who have the training we're looking for. Um is where I I seem to that seems to be the best bang for our buck is social
media. Okay. Okay. Outside of LinkedIn, are you doing Facebook, Instagram? You privately or? Nope. That I would also think your officers who have been on board know other officers
that maybe they went through the academy with and maybe they're also reaching out. I mean, you've had a couple of really good hires. Unfortunately, both of them are leaving, but that sort of kind of came out of nowhere. um you know so um I knew with one of them um before
he took the job and he's amazing um he did say just so you know if if my hometown which is civil service if my hometown ever calls he's got little kids you know what I mean like um to work in the town where your kids are you know is you can't you can't replace that value
so I knew when we hired him if if his civil service hometown I mean he's amazing um ever came knocking that that he would go. And that's not a done deal yet, but I I don't see why they wouldn't take him. He's phenomenal. And he is not you're not able to keep somebody like
that PDM locally. Traditionally full-time officers. So like I have the ability to order in my full-time officers for a public safety event. Um and where every department is kind of running short staffed right now. The you've got orderins, you've got, you
know, forced overtime and things like that going on. So they don't really like the pay difference between if he could pick up a overtime shift and still zip home to grab dinner real quick, you know what I mean? He's going to make way more money than he's going to make it a straight part-time ring for me. Um, so
it just it doesn't end up being very cost effective for the officer to stay on, you know, part time. It just it it's not it's not worth that, especially when you add in the queue. Okay. Yeah. So, no. And a lot of chiefs don't allow.
So if I have a full-time officer that goes and works part-time for another agency, they get hurt there. Yep. That doesn't impact their f their regular schedule and their overtime and their regular coverage. I get hit. So, a lot of chiefs, we don't traditionally allow our officers to work um in a police
department um elsewhere because of the high risk for injury and and the negative impact that that secondary employment would have. All interesting. All very interesting. Yeah. Sort of like professional ball players are not allowed to go skiing. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel there's anything the town could be doing that it's not doing to help you in this reg? No, it's I mean it's the t the town has been great and especially I mean Jonathan with it is phenomenal. You know what I mean? So if
I ask him to put something out it's I mean I've sent him emails on the weekend and I get an email back on the weekend that says just did it like you know what I mean? Like he's it just the partnership I feel like is is really good. It's just kind of spreading the word of the mouth and getting new
repeates openings above the algorithm out there between, you know, all the other agencies that are have openings, you know, as well. So, if it's universal in the Commonwealth, what's the reason for it? You have a sense? Oh, yeah. I mean, this the stigma against police officers is just starting to kind of
repair, you know what I mean, over the last five five or so years, you know what I mean? And um people want remote jobs. They want highpaying, you know, highpaying, high day off, remote, flexible schedule jobs. And and I'm telling you, you're working on your
birthday, you're working on your anniversary, you're working nights, weekends, holidays, and oh yeah, I know you're sleeping, but we just had a critical incident. I'm waking you up, and I'm ordering you back in. like it it it's a it's it's a um you know it's a it's a a unique job nowadays compared to
um other entrepreneurial opportunities that people can have going and it used to be you know the benefit to that kind of tough schedule was used to be you got you had really good benefits you had a pension and you got really good pay you
know I you know I remember when I first started like police officer spouses didn't have to work, right? Cuz they got to stay home and take care of the kids when the other parent was out and about. Now, um now in the scheme of profession across the board where we're not a
highpaying salary job, like you have an opportunity to make a lot of money, but you're going to be working 60 to 80 hours a week. You know what I mean? Opposed to other professions where you're making that same dollar amount, you know, for less. And then, you know, add in the safety risk and the public
scrutiny risk and, you know, all that other stress and young people just don't want to do it anymore. Yeah. And then 70 hours of showing up showing up alert and Yeah. And it's, you know, it's just it's it's a lot, you know. It's it's
definitely it's definitely a lot. And to for the pension to be worthy, right, you got to start with your Yeah. you know, you you've got to be able to get your time in to hit your 80%, you know, to make that piece of it at least attractive and worthy. So, we're not
going to get somebody in their 30s who's lived life and had experience who's all of a sudden like, "Oh, I want to be a police officer and give up my social security to come be in a pension that I'm not going to yield a high percentage back from." like you know so we've got
to get people in young in order for it to be worth it in the long run for them. So thank you. Appreciate you sharing all those. Yeah. Okay. The last one of our business today and I'll turn it back over to Diane is is
the uh the ongoing challenge of being able to come to closure on this new classification system. Um, you know, a month ago, I thought it would let's just look at a position and
and see compare the apple to the orange and if everything's good, we're off and running. Naive on my part. So, Dian, let me turn it over to you and explain some of the challenges that we we probably need to to hold on any discussion of exactly how this is going
to work for obvious reasons that Diane will discuss. Yep. So, um, following the final, um, presentation of the new classification plan and so forth, um, at the last meeting, I provided login credentials for the website and binders
with I what I called off was what I thought was the most important information. Um, which is sort of the start to us transitioning to this new classification plan. Very similar in process, but different in the sense that we have different grades. Um we have a
13 point or I think it's 13 point factors 14 14 point factor system versus um 10 um and basically how do we go from our old system to our new system? How do we move from the old system to the new system? And so we talked about the
integrity of you know well is this new system going to meet our standards? Does it apply? and we talked about picking a job potentially and looking at both um ratings and then we started delving into that a little bit and it's like well those those comparisons aren't going to
be apples to apples because they're weighted differently. They're there's more factors. So to do that, we thought, well, you know, that would be great, but we're not going to get a assistant treasur collector that's going to be a
16 and transition to an assistant treasur collector who's going to be a 16. It's it's potentially going to be a different grade. So then we talked about well if we look at the hierarchy of the jobs so in other words if we look at and that's sort of what I gave as a draft do
we if we look at the hierarchy of the jobs under the old system versus the new system is the hierarchy in similar order um and if they were rated under one system and rated under another system and they sort of have the
same hierarchy then maybe we can assume that the process process and the um the rating process itself has integrity because of the hierarchy of positions. So I I think at the last meeting we
talked about taking the old system and comparing it to the new. So that's what this was an attempt to do. Um, and then as I was preparing this, I was I started to notice a few things um, in terms of there being a couple of jobs that were rated under the new system that we don't
even include anymore. Um, and then I started to think, well, is the new rating um, a result of the new system or is the new rating a result of potentially it hadn't been rated in a
while. So they started to raise questions about what does this all mean and how do we make that transition. So I guess that's sort of where I I got stuck a little bit. Um I thought that you know I'd open
it up to see if anybody had looked at the website or if they had looked at the binders had information had questions comments. Um, and then the last thing I'll add is that we're closing in on the end of fiscal year. We've got seven days
to the end of our fiscal year and multitudes of work to do between now and you know the second week of July. So I think that what might make sense is that we table sort of a big discussion. Um, and
you know, we we need to look at kind of delve into this a little bit more as far as what the transition looks like and how do we get there. I thought u and I know I missed um the last meeting or even two possibly but I in my mind when
we had discussed this kind of timeline of I forget if we landed on three or five years of kind of re-evaluating jobs you know reevaluating jobs as there's turnover but then the jobs where there's longevity that we kind of need to be taking the initiative to kind of
re-evaluate those to make sure everything is kind of creeping. I guess in my mind I kind of thought that was where the transition between the old system and the new system was going to happen. So as polls came were reevaluating and kind of changing the date on when this position was
evaluated. And then when um when a manager came forward and said, "Hey, like I'm renegotiating the chief's contract or you know what I mean? Like we haven't looked at the treasur collector in a long time. like in we choose to kind of go down and look at the dates to see if everyone's like I
thought that would kind of be the integrity in the transition um and almost pardon me but like less heavy lifting in the now knowing that over the next 3 years or so it was going to happen anyway right yeah we did have
a discussion around that yeah I think I agree to Dian's point I think the first step was just to ensure for that there was nothing out of whack here. Mhm. That you know there there going to be tweaks here and there 14 facets
versus 10. something might slide up a notch or down a notch. As long as as long as there wasn't a free fall or as long as something didn't get artificially bumped up from where it had been then to your point Betty I think
when it's the integrity is there it looks fairly consistent and then you do a peace meal as a new position comes up or as as as an existing position needs to be reclassified right so that's I I think we're I think
we're on that same page. Lyn, I was going to just turn to you and ask I mean I think you probably have more experience with this kind of stuff. Certainly I do. I don't want to speak for anybody else. So I mean do you have strong feelings one way or the other
about how to go about ensuring that once we transition over here that we're solid footing or um so some of the things that we do are market reviews right and I'm just thinking of a couple that have been
done recently and this is systemwide so you know 60,000 employees right and um so the market review is done and then it's rolled out and so you're going to have some discrepancies, right? You're going to have some compression and so
you would um look at those as kind of, you know, an individual case at that point. And I'm just thinking about a couple that have been done lately. Um so, you know, you go and like some of our um adjustments are like a 13% adjustment based on the new market data,
you know, and the new scale that comes forward with that market data. So um and of course during that time too you know you're looking at job descriptions and are they still appropriate because they get outdated you know new things come into play you know whether it's in the
lab whether it's security whatever and um so looking at the job descriptions do we need to re um do we need to adjust the job descriptions and then base them you know like the new position into new categories right that are going to
ultimately result in um a pay adjustment, you know, based on where those new job codes fit into the hierarchy, you Yeah, this doesn't even have the paid grades on it. I know. I was looking for the paid rates. the pay
grade is in it is in the binder, but for 25 um you you'll find it. But I'm just saying like we you know we also need to take a look at okay you know x job went from this grade to this grade and this job now would fall within the pay grade for the new rating. I know I'm trying to
compare some of these. There's a lot of very fine details that I think, you know, after fiscal year ends, we're going to need to be flushing out and seeing. And I think to Patty's point, as we go through this process, those outliers, those things that don't don't make sense or don't fit are going to
rise to the to the top. Yeah. But we did talk about we did talk about looking at job descriptions every year. We did talk about a every three to five years. I think there was decided on I think we landed on three years paying for a
market data survey. Um so I think we're on the right track of you know keeping up whereas this hadn't been looked at in significantly a long period of time and there were jobs that were rated that significantly jumped or we found were not keeping track with the market. So,
we sort of made the transition from the old system to a new system with new market rates and we're going to have a we have a plan in terms of what we plan to do moving forward to make sure that we're keeping it current. So, I I yeah, I would defer back to you, but those
rates are in that the binder. So, these rates here, the colored ones. Yeah. So, well, the proposed Yes. And so we really don't want to get too far into the weeds, but you know, of course,
because we really, you know, we need to spend some time in Oh, yeah. No, I I mean, I don't want the big discussion. I'm great with the high high level um conversation because this is going to get into the weeds. Um, so where is which
page 14? Page 14. Yeah. So, it's current FY Oh, yeah. 25 range, market average, proposed FY25. I'm page 12. So, this I think there's a couple of pages of um color. Page 12
gives you the range. Yeah. Yep. I I saw that. So then I wanted to see like this is the proposed and so this is actually more relevant to me I think you know um because it's current FY range FY25 range and then
market average and then our proposed FY25 ranges right so this is um makes more sense to me you know is so is the current range so is the current range this yes okay and this I thought this
was proposed. Well, this is what we we adopted that we were going to go to this new system which would include this. Okay. All right. And so what I'm what I'm saying is we I have to spend some time and look at every single job to say this was the old range, this is the new range, this is the new rating. Y who is
impacted by are they within range? Are they not within range? So there's a lot of details that need to be sort of looked at and a lot of um administrative work that
needs to go into. Okay, we're starting fresh with all new job descriptions, all new pay grades, all new pay rates, and making sure that the jobs fall with where they should. And are we do we have any that we need to then bring back to the board to take a look at? So, I think
this one significantly. So, it's a lot of administrative work that needs to be done. we just felt like after July 1st is is you know it's a summer project at this point. So I totally agree and I'm sorry to kind of belabor the point but um this one it's so you have the current
FY25 range which is page 12, right? Which obviously will go to a 26 range. Yeah. Yeah. With the cola. Okay. Um and then market average and then proposed FY25. I can you explain to me what is the
difference between the current and the proposed? I would have thought the current was the proposed and now it's adopted this. Yeah. So, but then why are we then reproposing another whole column? Well, we 26. It
needs to be updated for 26. Then I come over and kind of just like point and click. Um, so this one So right this is page 12. Yep. This is page 12. Yep. So this
these columns are page 12. Right. Okay. And then the market average whatever. But then this I would have thought that this and these two were like almost the same. Well, this is the working document that went into So here's here's here's
their old rating. Yeah. So these are both FY25, right? Okay. So why do we have a current that we just adopted like last month? And then why do we have a proposed? This is this is our current these are our current. But are those page 12? No,
these right here. This would be our fiscal 25 that we are currently using under our old classifications. This one? No. Okay. So, this does not appear on there, I don't believe. So, this would be this. This column would be this.
Well, it wouldn't be because these are this is this is all of our job grades as they were, not as they are. Yep. Um, so this I think this is what she's saying. This is the current fiscal range, proposed
fiscal range. They're all they're the the exact same. This is not this though. So this is this is as the jobs were classified previously. These are the new classifications. This is a proposed
min max min and max which would be equal to in our old system this that had the pay rates on it. Mhm. Yep. This for 25 for 25. But what I'm saying is this now needs to be updated for 26. Correct. This is under our old system. Okay. And
this must be under the old system. I don't I don't have that with me. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just don't see what the difference is with this. You know, current FY25, this is our old system, right? But still, this is one of the sheets that we're looking at. So,
current FY25 range proposed, which is that, right? But these are our old ratings. So, this this is not so I think what we have to compare is this to this classification which has our fiscal 25 rates which is
in our old binder. And we have to look at each job to see where they were slotted and where they are now slotted to make sure that they don't fall outside the range in either side. Does that make sense? I think so. Yeah. Okay. So, we going to we're going to have to
look I'm going to have to like look at each specific job. Yeah. Print every single job description, date it July 1, have every manager look at them. Yeah. And put the new grade on them. And then that's our starting point. Yes. and then
compare where those jobs are, who's filling them, what their pay grade is to make sure that there's no one. Yeah. And then we go up, we move towards, you know, starting to use the new 14 point factor.
Um, but it just got a little in the weeds. Um, and so I that's a huge under. Yeah, it is. Oh, yeah. But after July, we'll have Yeah, we'll have some But I thought this would tell us, okay, we
we've undertaken this project. Here's what the hierarchy was before. Here's what the new hierarchy is. It seems in pretty similar order. I know, for example, there were a couple positions that did move, but one of them is a job that we will be looking at in late
summer anyway, and it hadn't been rated in a while. So, it didn't surprise me that it moved. But I started thinking, well, why did they move? Is it because she rated them under a new system or is it because they hadn't been rated in a while or were there other factors? Yeah.
Would it be helpful to ask Sandy to come back in and join us for a working session on this? Well, as I think in the last meeting, the two of you weren't here. She also agreed to sit in on a job grading and she would do it via Zoom. She's
available. She's willing to help us in any way as we transition. Um, so we certainly could retain that when we do our first couple of job ratings to make sure that we're as they exist now. Yeah. Well, like if we have one 10 factors and all all that other stuff, right? If we
have one coming up in August, sort of be on hand to help guide us through the new 14 factors quickly rather than get her in here in advance and just explain the methodology and she would she would do a specific drug as a tutorial.
I mean I think the what did you just say you explain the what was the word that you used the methodology I think the methodology has already been sort of proposed and and and documented in the fact that we're moving into this new plan she just had mentioned that as we
move forward and we do some of these new ratings she would be willing to sit in whether it's on Zoom or in person to help us as we as questions arose or we have questions about the process she more than willing be willing to come and and help us with that. Obviously, as
part of her contract, I think the old is new again, though. That that's every time we sat here doing a classification rating on a particular job and I'm just looking at these pages and what what changes uh the
monies change, you know, uh etc., etc., but these on page 15 all of these was very close to what we've always looked at, you know. So, but I thought in the beginning it was, you know, how the town of Newberry can can uh you know, keep
track with with with current current payrades, etc., etc., and how to attract, you know, people etc. who might not be aware of that. That's what I thought we we were doing. the the bottom line uh
supported this thing was, you know, is we can't get the the best help because we're not paying paying them anything. You know what? Things like that. Yeah. Well, that was all the data that she collected that went into determining, you know, what the average pay rate was.
Where do we want to be? I think we said we wanted to be in the 50th percentile or 75th percentile. And I think the end result is this new schedule with new pay rates and obviously updated. So what I'm saying is not that much different from what we have done. We just we we're just
looking at some updated renov renovated figures. Correct. In taking the subjectivity out of our old system is the thing that stuck with our our old system there was a little bit too much wiggle room for subjectivity that could be perceived as discriminatory. And bear
in mind, Sandy did say on a couple of occasions that that within reason she felt we were in good shape. Yeah. As it relates to the marketplace, I remember hearing Tracy say, you know, this whole process showed us that we were kind of a
little bit better off than we had anticipated perhaps we were when we went went into it. and that we just need kind of better maintenance I think is you know paraphrasing like she said of of the jobs where we have longevity is kind
of yeah her net net was that was that you know we could probably tweak some of the min and the maxes but having said that she felt like we were not far off and secondly that it
was important going forward to the point you made earlier We need to make sure that we're we're up to date with this stuff every two to three years max, which we hadn't done, which we have done, which you got to say also because
we were adjusting our pay grades by the cola, but the market was borrow cola, right? And the jobs were, you know, not being rated consistently. So I think that was the biggest piece that I took away was looking at the jobs more
frequently, doing the market analysis to make sure that you know it's not just a cola, but if the market I mean the market over the last 5 to seven years has just been insane, especially for me as a bull. Yeah. So, I've seen many jobs go through a rating process and and and we've addressed those issues and in the
hiring process, but it's just keeping current with it and that was the guidance from Sandy quite frankly. Yeah. And to have the love fest continue. She did also speak very highly of the board and the integrity of the work that we have done consistently to rate jobs,
look at jobs, be proactive. You know, not every community is doing that. So I was looking for another project. Did I hear? So when you said two every two to three years, we're not we decided on three for a
market not a full it just a salary data. Okay. Not the whole compensation job descriptions all that. Where would we um get information for a market survey? Because the municipalities aren't doing a survey project these days. Were you
here? Maybe it was at the last meeting that I explained that I No, I don't. Um, so MMHR, which we had often said, did the market surveys and they had been doing it for many years and we looked to them as a resource. Well, it was interesting um that they are now
partnering with a company that's doing it. Okay. um very similar similar in some ways to what Sy's doing but um really applicable more to big cities and and communities um price point attached.
Yeah. So what they were asking so I attended a session through MMHR that basically said we've been the reason why we stopped doing this is because we were in the process of partnering with this company that's now doing this and the
price point is just under 10,000 per year. Um but they require a three-year commitment. So, you're signing on for a 27 to $30,000 data, you know, over a three-year period and and um providing updated data and so
forth. And it was explained that the reason why they wanted to do that was so that you didn't jump in on one year when you needed what you needed and then you jump back out. Um or you were in entertaining a collective bargaining agreement, you just wanted the data for one year. They wanted communities that
were going to continually use this information. So cities and towns, large cities were sort of their their market. But again, all the bells and whistles, which you're going to spend $30,000 over a three-year period to have access to their data, which you know, the time you
bring is not going to I mean, the cost, you know, in a community like Lel or Lawrence where your collective bargaining agreement might warrant, you might save yourself two basis points by having the data available would pay for itself by signing on to their agreement
or their their product. But for a community like Salsbury or Newbury or Rally. We're just not we're not going to reap the benefit reap the benefit of signing on for a 27 to 30,000 contract. I think they prorrate it like by population size. If your population size
is this, this is what it's going to cost you, you know. Yeah, that that seems like it would be Yeah, cuz like you said, the larger the larger agencies are going to benefit more than the smaller ones. Yeah. So, you think their price point would reflect that?
But no, we we decided that we were going to I think we'll look back in the minutes, but I think it was three years to just get a market salary, you know, survey from I mean, if they price it, if they price it like like users, individual uses licenses, you know,
whether it's LinkedIn or anything else, you know, that that's one thing, but but you know, the town is an entity, I don't think there's any appetite to spend that kind of money over a threeyear period. Um, have we determined a cola That was already approved back in at the
town meeting. Yeah. Okay. And what is that? It was 2%. Okay. Unless contractually otherwise. Okay. Okay. So I think the the so it's the guideline is to wait till after the fiscal year starts Sunday in June and uh
have Sandy on hold ready to go and as soon as we get a a position that's that's worthy of a classification or a reclassification have her engaged Tracy with us as well. I think Tracy would like to be part of the process. Yep. So good. And then test
drive. Good. But continue to look at it. I like I said, if anybody had comments or I I just felt there was one spreadsheet that needed a date like when it was reviewed. Yep. Um you know if there's anything else that you see or suggestions
I know Lynn you haven't really had a chance to look at it. So if you you know go in look at the website bring yeah bring as we're as we're taking our documents and moving them to this new system you know if you see things definitely let me know. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you for all the work that you've done in on this. Uh I think that anything else any other general discussion? Seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second. Second. Any
final discussion? We're ajourned.