Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mr. Clark said the council officers discussed the potential of creating a less arbitrary, more structured evaluation system for all council employees, including the auditor. He said given the manager had declined an increase this year, there was less urgency for the council to act, and he recommended that the council discuss further refinements to the system and postpone action at this time. Responding to a question from Mayor Piercy, Mr. Klein said the more flexibility the council built into the evaluation process the more it moved away from an objective system. Mr. Pryor supported Mr. Clark’s recommendation. He appreciated efforts to take arbitrariness out of the system. He wanted to be able to strike a more effective balance and reach common definitions on the terms being used, and he did not object if that took more time. He spoke to the standards used, and said that in many cases evaluations were using the term “successful” as opposed to “fair.” “Fair” implied below average to Mr. Pryor, and suggested one was not doing as well as one could. He suggested the council consider using “successful.” He suggested the council consider how it could objectivity to flexibility to come up with an effective system. He commended the work done by staff. Mr. Poling asked that the phrase “performance is at a level that it’s a stretch” be discarded in favor of something more clear. He suggested the element in the “good” category reading “demonstrates very high level of performance in all areas” be moved to the “excellent” category. Ms. Solomon referred to the weighted average ranges reflected in Attachment B and suggested there should be nine. Ms. Holmes agreed and said she would do more work on that section. Responding to a question from Ms. Solomon about the apparent lack of a tie between deferred compensation and the manager’s performance, Ms. Holmes suggested it was a one-time adjustment as opposed to an adjustment for good or excellent performance. Staff could consider a sliding approach but it added to the complexity of the system. City Manager Ruiz said that the benefit increased with longevity. Ms. Solomon suggested that the benefit represented a sort of bonus. Ms. Holmes did not see the benefit as a bonus but rather an increase to the current compensation package. She said that all City employees were eligible for deferred compensation. Ms. Holmes recalled council discussion of deferred compensation as an incentive for the manager to stay. She confirmed, in response to a follow-up question from Ms. Solomon, that the manager could chose to add to the deferred compensation. Mr. Zelenka was comfortable with the changes made by staff in response to council direction. He said that deferred compensation was commonly used as a way to add to employee’s retirement fund. He liked the idea that it was tied to longevity. Mr. Clark agreed with Mr. Zelenka about the issue of deferred compensation. He said the manager was doing an excellent job and he did not want the public to think the council’s questions reflected on City Manager Ruiz in any way. Mr. Clark asked that in the future, staff provide the council with comparable information about the compensation for managers of similarly sized municipalities as well as executives of private organizations of similar size. Ms. Holmes recalled the remarks made by Ms. Ortiz about the need for market data, and said the City currently used public sector comparisons. Mayor Piercy was fine with confining the analysis to the public sector comparisons but wanted to ensure that the comparators used were similar to Eugene. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2010 Page 7 Work Session