Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to adjust the Police Auditor’s salary to Step 4 of her salary range and to make that step retroactive to her anniversary date and that the Po- lice Auditor’s salary should be increased to Step 5 after the next anniversary date in Octo- ber, 2008, independent of an evaluation. Mr. Clark agreed with much of what had been said around the table. He had some discomfort, however, with providing an automatic step increase without an evaluation. Ms. Taylor asked why they were skipping Steps 1 and 2. Mr. Zelenka clarified that Ms. Beamud had started at Step 3. Ms. Ortiz hoped the evaluation process would be completed in a timely fashion. Mr. Clark offered a friendly amendment that would commit to an evaluation process for Ms. Beamud prior to October 16, 2008, and grant the step-increase after that process. Mr. Pryor accepted the friendly amendment. Ms. Bettman did not accept the friendly amendment. Mr. Clark, seconded by Ms. Solomon, moved to amend the motion to include the language from his previously offered friendly amendment. Ms. Solomon found the notion of approving a raise without an evaluation process troubling. She under- scored that the council controlled the schedule and could direct staff to set a date and stick to it. Ms. Bettman thought an automatic step-increase was justifiable because the council was “half-way there.” Ms. Taylor agreed that October was coming up soon. She thought evaluations did get pushed out because of how busy the schedule tended to be. She averred that the council should try to do the evaluation sooner, adding that she would not support the amendment. Mr. Clark stressed that his motion had nothing to do with Ms. Beamud or the job she was doing; it was about fiscal prudence. He pointed out that they would not do this for another employee, such as the City Manager. Mr. Pryor observed that there were two competing interests – insuring that the Police Auditor received her merit increases on her anniversary date and that merit increases should be tied to performance evaluation. He said for this reason the two could not be done six months apart. He was amenable to engaging in another evaluation process in October. Mr. Zelenka was also amenable to the amendment. He had no problem with conducting an evaluation in six months. He urged his colleagues and staff to “stick to [their] guns” and make it happen on time. Ms. Holmes reminded the council that there was a commitment made at the March 10 work session that she and Ms. Beamud would meet with the CRB to flesh out some recommendations to bring back to the council for the next evaluation process. MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 9, 2008 Page 3 Work Session