Loading...
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - MINUTES - 1/8/2004 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - CITY OF MUSKEGO Approved MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD JANUARY 8, 2004 Mayor Slocomb called the meeting to order at 7:07 PM. Present were Ald. Petfalski, Buckmaster, Damaske, Patterson, Salentine, Schroeder and Clerk-Treasurer Marenda. Ald. Madden was excused. Those present recited the Pledge of Allegiance. The Clerk- Treasurer noted the meeting was noticed in accordance with the open meeting law. The Clerk-Treasurer read the Notice of Closed Session. Ald. Schroeder moved for approval of minutes of meetings held 9/25/03, 10/2/03, 10/9/03, 10/16/03, 11/10/03 and 11/13/03. Seconded by Ald. Patterson, motion carried. TEEN ADVISORY BOARD NOMINATIONS – INTERVIEWS AND SELECTION Two candidates, Kelly Sunstrom and Greg Schlosser were present for interviews. Ald. Schroeder noted these two candidates are current members of the Board and felt the interview could be by-passed. Last year both individuals filled vacant positions on the Board. There are currently four openings. Both Kelly and Greg have shown they are good members and are in attendance on a monthly basis. Greg said he has been helping with the skateboard proposal. Kelly said she has been mainly in charge of gathering information about skateboard parks, and serves as Vice Chairman. When asked how to recruit more members, Kelly suggested asking the principals to make morning announcements about the Teen Advisory Board. Ald. Salentine moved to approve the appointment of Kelly Sunstrom and Greg Schlosser to two-year terms. Ald. Patterson seconded; motion carried. Clerk-Treasurer Marenda gave the Oath of Office to both candidates and presented each with a Certificate of Appointment. Ald. Damaske suggested the Mayor submit a written request to the principals of the public and parochial schools for their announcements. Ald. Schroeder explained the recruitment efforts he has made. He noted the skateboard project is such a large project and is so all-consuming that other projects can’t be taken on at this time. Ald. Damaske questioned insurance on the skateboard park. Ald. Schroeder asked that insurance company representatives be consulted with to see if there are any guidelines as to design, height, etc. The skateboard park will be discussed again at the Parks and Recreation Board meeting on Monday. Request from Roy Smart to Recreate Legal Lot Status Clerk-Treasurer Marenda explained that her research found Mr. Smart was granted legal lot status in 2002 by the Council after receiving recommendation from the Plan Commission. That resolution subjected the approval to submittal of a certified survey map within 90 days – that piece was not complied with. So technically he does not have legal lot status, but it was every intent of the Plan Commission and Common Council to approve it. The question then, is the Council agreeable to allowing him to now submit a certified survey map. It doesn’t appear that there needs to be any municipal code changes as originally thought when this issue was brought forward because at that time we did not know that the legal lot status had already been granted. Ald. Petfalski requested that the city attorney be consulted. He said as long as we don’t have to change the ordinance he doesn’t have an issue with it. Mayor noted that he wasn’t opposed to it now that he knew the legal lot was granted within the timeframe allowed, and if agreed to by Atty. Molter, the CSM could be submitted now to the Plan Commission for recommendation and to Council for action. Once an opinion is received from Atty. Molter, he will notify Mr. Smart. Committee of the Whole Page 2 1/08/2004 Discuss Consideration to Refill Vacancy of Plan Director Position and Department Organization Mayor advised he completed the first pass-through of applications for the Community th Development Director position. Applications closed December 29. Ald. Salentine requested current staff be given an opportunity to interview for the position. Discussion followed on possibility of having a consultant for the economic development position and administrator position with economic development responsibilities. A public hearing th will be held on January 13 on the Economic Development Plan. Philosophies of what the Economic Development Director will do were debated. It was noted that economic development is only a portion of the Community Development Director position, which will also serve as the Planning Director. Concern was expressed about the availability of land to build on and that should be made available first. Others disagreed and felt the economic development individual would take the Plan and implement it and recruit developers and businesses to locate in the City. Conservation of Agrarian Landmarks Mayor stated everyone was supplied the Rustic Structures ordinance, which allows the property owners to preserve certain landmarks. It is not one where the community is saying we want those landmarks preserved. This item can be removed from future agendas. Discuss Procedure for Clerk-Treasurer Replacement and/or Department Reorganization upon Retirement Ald. Salentine asked the aldermen if they are interested in discussing an administrator or business manager position and reducing the pay of the Mayor to part-time wages. She’s not opposed to separating the Clerk-Treasurer position since it does make sense to put the Treasurer with the Finance Director. There are different scenarios to look at, such as a Mayor paid part-time wages; Administrator/Clerk; Deputy Clerk; Finance Director/Treasurer and Deputy Treasurer. Ald. Schroeder is not opposed to looking at other scenarios, but after many weeks no other proposals have been brought forward, other than ‘let’s just think about doing it differently’. Ald. Salentine noted during the budget process she requested salary ranges for different scenarios. Ald. Petfalski stated he is willing to look at alternatives, but would not support the combination of Administrator/Clerk. Ald. Schroeder felt we could proceed with separating the Clerk and Treasurer, and could still look at the scenario of Administrator/Clerk. Ald. Salentine noted three advertisements for Administrator in the last issue of “The Municipality” all called for economic development qualifications. Ald. Salentine said we need to look at the big picture of the organization of both the Planning Department and the Clerk-Treasurer. Mayor noted the Planning Dept. is short-staffed now, and in April the Clerk-Treasurer will be gone, leaving only the Deputy Clerk to do her own job plus the job of the Clerk. Ald. Petfalski didn’t understand why the Charter Ordinance couldn’t proceed to separate the Clerk and Treasurer, and continue discussion on how to fill the position. Mayor felt splitting the positions gives more flexibility in continuing the ‘what-if’ scenarios. Ald. Schroeder and Ald. Patterson agreed with proceeding to split the position. Patterson stated mixed emotions on hiring a City Administrator, but you can’t Committee of the Whole Page 3 1/08/2004 expect an Administrator to also do the full-time job of the Clerk. We need a person doing the Clerk’s job and a person doing the Deputy Clerk’s job. We don’t have the luxury of waiting to decide this until we decide on the Administrator position. Ald. Buckmaster asked for the reason the proposal was made to separate the position. Mayor stated at this point in time with a City of its size and the various responsibilities we have at the various department levels that putting the Treasurer function, which is an accounting/finance function under the Finance Director seems to be a logical way to go. Ald. Buckmaster said the only reason he has been given is that the current Clerk- Treasurer is retiring. Clerk-Treasurer Marenda responded that years ago the City did not have a Finance Director. When the former Treasurer retired, it was thought at that time the Treasurer should be combined with the Clerk position, and the Comptroller function of the Clerk would be transferred to a Finance Director. Now that we have a Finance Director, we talked to the City auditor who felt that financial matters should be under the Finance Director. The skill sets necessary to be Clerk are administrative-type duties, not necessarily financial-types. It has worked fine the way it is – it’s not wrong, and it could continue. But it would be better if financial matters were under the jurisdiction of the Finance Director. Mayor also noted when you review other communities, you see that combined positions are typically in communities under 20,000. As the community grows, within the Clerk’s function there comes significantly more responsibility just because of the size of the community. At that point it works very well to have a Clerk who is strictly in the Clerk position. Also when trying to fill the position you have a larger field of candidates to choose from because you won’t find as many experienced Clerk-Treasurers in the 22,000 population communities. Ald. Buckmaster said he could appreciate taking an opportunity at this time if it makes sense. However, from his perspective this is also an opportunity to look at the Administrator/Clerk or some other shared function. Mayor noted it takes a Charter Ordinance to separate the Clerk-Treasurer position. It doesn’t take a charter ordinance to put Administrator with the Clerk. Mayor responded if the Charter Ordinance passes and there are no petitions, and after all the appropriate time periods, the Treasurer function will be under Finance. What the Council chooses to do with the Clerk position is still under discussion. Ald. Petfalski asked if the separation of Clerk-Treasurer was a way of stopping going forward as proposed to do it with less numbers. Ald. Buckmaster said he looked at it as a way to force other options. Ald. Buckmaster said his concern was if the position is split and a new Clerk is hired, discussion about bringing in an Administrator would stop. Ald. Petfalski noted that either way the position needs to be split. Ald. Buckmaster said he still hasn’t seen anything to warrant splitting, since the current Clerk-Treasurer has said that the Treasurer position is an oversight position of the Deputy Treasurer, who is doing the actual work. If the issue was the workload was too overcoming or time consuming that would have been a reason, but that’s not what we have heard. The Mayor wants to take this opportunity to change due to the retirement of the current Clerk-Treasurer, and that is an opportunity and probably one of the better times to do it. However, he also sees it as an opportunity to either keep it as a Clerk-Treasurer and possibly assign Administrator duties elsewhere, maybe not even hiring one, but looking at other areas that might be capable of performing an administrator-type function. Committee of the Whole Page 4 1/08/2004 Ald. Schroeder stated if the job gets split he will keep an open mind and press forward diligently without reservation and look at all those options and consider them seriously. Ald. Petfalski said again if we’re going to do something we need to split this position, but we seem to be coming in different directions as what we do once we split it. Mayor said that was his sense. Ald. Petfalski agreed that if the position is split we need to have the discussion about an Administrator. Ald. Schroeder said the discussion should end here and wait until closed session as he’s missing something that Ald. Buckmaster wants to say out of open session. Clerk-Treasurer Marenda noted this issue is not noticed for the closed session tonight, which is to discuss the salary survey and how it applies to individuals, so the Administrator position cannot be discussed. Ald. Buckmaster said he could relate his discussion to compensation. Ald. Petfalski reiterated although he has stated he is opposed to the Administrator/Clerk combination, he is willing to listen to discussions about it. Marenda said she would like to see a position description for what would be expected for Administrator/Clerk and staffing beyond that, because if you have an Administrator who is to be in charge of all the departments and dealing with all the issues of all the departments, how would they be able to continue the full time job responsibilities of the current job Clerk, or other position if it’s combined with another position. She felt the only way it could be done would be with additional support staff. In the case of Administrator/Clerk you might need two deputies to get the work done. Ald. Petfalski referred to the materials submitted by the Clerk-Treasurer of positions, noting that for communities our size most are split, or in one case have a Clerk- Treasurer. Ald. Buckmaster said this is what he envisioned if we were to hire, or possibly not hire. We have a Mayor, with the public safety departments reporting directly to the Mayor, and then you have an Administrator, or current department head with Administrator function who would actually act as a conduit to the support departments, and that would allow the Mayor to, as far as community development, which goes back to the Planning organization which could be as currently done now, but when you get to the CDA and economic development, just going by what our draft plan which pretty much wants the Mayor as active as possible in economic development. He’s not sure that by doing that to have some sort of conduit between these subordinate departments would help out and in the future would prevent any mis-administration or things dropping. It’s going to happen if this City is faced with the growing workload of economic development and the Mayor is critical to that. He feels this Council has to seriously look at a conduit from the Mayor to supporting departments. The salary and duties of this can be done in closed session. In concert with our economic development plan this is nothing more than an opportunity. We might not seem ready for it, but we have two department heads that have or are leaving. That alone is an opportunity to look at this. Ald. Salentine referred to three ads in most recent issue of The Municipality for an Administrator which all advertise discipline in financing, treasury, budgeting, purchasing, labor relations law, regulations, strategic planning, public administrator desired. Another one says knowledge of TIF, finance, budgeting, economic development, union negotiations, park and development, grant writing and strong inter-personal consensus building. The last one was financing, budgeting, personnel management, inter- governmental relations. She felt that a lot of these duties are what the Clerk-Treasurer is presently doing. So maybe you wouldn’t need a Clerk and a Deputy Clerk. If you had an Administrator, then the Administrator would be taking over some of the Clerk’s Committee of the Whole Page 5 1/08/2004 duties. Marenda noted she did not do many of those administrator duties now, things like labor negotiations and budgeting. Ald. Petfalski noted it’s important for an administrator to have experience in the matters they supervise, it doesn’t mean they do it themselves. Ald. Petfalski requested that if the separation of the position is voted down at Council, that another proposal should be brought forward for action. Ald. Salentine questioned why it had to be voted on now. Marenda said the City must have a Clerk and the workload includes a presidential election this year. Ald. Salentine noted in the interim, look what we’ve done on the other end of the building – we’ve expected a whole lot. Marenda noted consultants have been hired to do a lot of their work. There are no consultants that can get the poll workers, issue the liquor licenses in June, and get Council packets prepared. The Clerk’s office doesn’t have the kind of duties, like review of CSM’s, that can be turned over to an outside consultant. Marenda encouraged the Aldermen that whatever they’re going to do, to get it done. She stated she heard conversations tonight about changing the Community Development Director position, who is now going to be in the process of being interviewed for a job that maybe would no longer be responsible for economic development. That process would have to start all over, because the change in the job description could attract a person with different skills and a different group of applicants could apply. All this takes time and the City will suffer in the meantime. Mayor noted that after April, the Council packets aren’t going to be much. We will get behind as other things must be statutorily done in the Clerk’s office, and there’ll be one person there to do it. That’s what it’d be like all through the summer and into the fall with all the elections. Those things are mandatory to do – you can’t miss an election, but you can sure have Council packets that are incomplete. Ald. Salentine noted there is an Election Clerk, but Marenda noted she can’t do the whole process alone during Presidential. At this time the committee recessed. The committee returned in open session at 9:00 PM. Ald. Petfalski moved to convene in closed session pursuant to: 19.85(1)(c) Wis. Stats., Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercise responsibility, more specifically review of the salary survey and how it applies to individual employees. Action may be taken in closed session. The Committee of the Whole will then reconvene into open session to continue with agenda items. Ald. Buckmaster seconded; motion carried 6-0. Finance Director Gunderson was invited to stay for part of the closed session. Ald. Petfalski moved to reconvene in open session at 10:27 PM. Ald. Salentine seconded; motion carried 6-0. Discuss Salary Study Adjustments/Benefit Information Ald. Petfalski moved to defer. Ald. Patterson seconded; motion carried. Review Pay for Performance Plan Ald. Petfalski stated the effective date of the change in the scale of the performance plan needed clarification. The Council resolution changed the top of the scale from 5% Committee of the Whole Page 6 1/08/2004 to 4%, but did not indicate an effective date. Performance Reviews for performance in 2003 are now in process. When goals were established for 2003, it was with the understanding if their performance achieved the highest rating, they would qualify for a 5% increase. He agreed with the reduction to 4% for the future, but think it should take effect with the 2004 performance. Ald. Schroeder moved that the 0-5% performance range stay in effect for the 2003 evaluation, and the 0-4% range go into effect for the 2004 evaluation. Ald. Petfalski seconded; motion carried. Review and Consider for Recommendation 2004-2008 Capital Plan Mayor requested deferral for two weeks. Finance Director Gunderson distributed worksheets developed by the Mayor and herself. The Aldermen requested an electronic version. Ms. Gunderson noted they have not yet met with the fire departments. Ald. Salentine moved to defer. Ald. Schroeder seconded; motion carried. Discuss Fire Department Agreements Ald. Schroeder reviewed the agreements and stated he understood the MVFC agreement and has no questions. On the TCVFD agreement regarding the disposition of assets upon the City terminating the agreement, are any of the items on attachment A items that were capital purchases, not purchases made by TC through their operating money? Mayor stated the majority of trucks were capital purchases. TC used to be active in fund raising, and used those funds for purchases. Ald. Schroeder commented if this agreement only applies to items listed on “A”, nothing purchased since this agreement is covered by this agreement. Mayor responded as an example, a new truck not on this list would not have to be paid for by the City. Ald. Schroeder asked if new station #2 would revert to the City without any payment to TC for the appraised value if dissolved. Ald. Patterson said the land would still be theirs. Mayor said however the additional land purchased and the improvements would revert to the City. He said the City could get a letter of understanding by Tuesday regarding this. Ald. Petfalski would like to look into the possibility of requiring that anything capitalized from this day forward be in the City’s name and leased for $1.00 to the fire department. There may be a balance sheet issue with GASB 34 regulations. Mayor indicated it will have to be researched. It was noted the fire department maintains insurance now and that would have to be researched as well. Ald. Patterson moved to adjourn at 10:47 PM. Ald. Petfalski seconded; motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Jean K. Marenda, CMC Clerk-Treasurer