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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 05/16/07 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall May 16, 2007 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Council President Andrea Ortiz called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. She explained that Mayor Kitty Piercy was out of town. Councilor Jennifer Solomon participated by speakerphone. A. WORK SESSION: City Manager Evaluation Process Executive Director of the Human Resource and Risk Services Department Lauren Chouinard stated that the council officers met to discuss the City Manager evaluation process and had made recommendations. He reviewed the Summary of Recommendations contained in the Agenda Item Summary (AIS). He explained that the council officers recommended using the coming year as a transition year while a more effective type of a valuation based on the goals and expectations of the council was devised. He said the suggestion had been made that the council should, for the present year, use the current form but with a change in the rating scale from a 1 through 5 rating to a three-point rating scale consisting of ‘does not meet expectations,’ ‘meets expectations,’ or ‘exceeds expectations.’ He underscored that the elements themselves were the same as those in the last evaluation. Ms. Ortiz noted that she wished to discuss the cost of living allowance (COLA). She said it had been used as part of the manager’s compensation for the previous year. She expressed discomfort with its inclusion in the contract. City Manager Dennis Taylor expressed appreciation to the council for taking the evaluation seriously. He said this was an expectation of the International City Manager Association (ICMA). He felt the process that had been used over the past four years had many useful components but it had become “stale” because it had “been a while” since the council embraced it. He noted that the present council had inherited the current evaluation process. He averred that a good performance evaluation should arise from mutually determined goals. He thought the council could collaborate with him to arrive at a set of goals for the performance period that would be one of the bases for evaluation. He said the other area for consideration would be an emphasis on some of the things for which the City Manager had overall responsibility, such as human resource management. He listed the areas that were not explicitly included in the evaluation: labor relations – how many grievances were filed and employee morale - budget and finance issues, diversity, communica- tion, strategic planning, work planning, problem solving, conceptual skills, and council support. He felt that the current performance appraisal was akin to having nine different raters with nine different rulers. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 1 Work Session City Attorney Glenn Klein explained that part of the contract addressed the COLA. He said the council might need to authorize an amendment to the contract. In response to a question from Ms. Ortiz, City Manager Taylor explained that the COLA had been placed in the salary matrix when he received the contract. Ms. Bettman was pleased that the council officers recommended a comprehensive look at the evaluation process. She referred to the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) Evaluation Handbook. She felt the handbook had much to contribute to a viable evaluation process. She related that the book suggested the evaluation process be determined by the entire council and that there should be public input, especially on the criteria. Ms. Bettman shared her concern with the recommendation of the council officers to have an interim modification to the process. She felt this would lead to having different data for three consecutive years. She believed this would mean the City would lose data because the years would not be comparable to each other. Mr. Pryor commented that there were three pieces to the discussion. He said one was what to do this year, one was what to do next year, and the third was how to handle the compensation part of the process. He observed that the current evaluation was a subjective process. He stated that he would not have a difficult time drawing comparisons between the two years given that the categories proposed for the present year were the same as the categories used in the previous year and only the numbering would change. Mr. Pryor said he had not been satisfied with the existing evaluation process. He wanted it to have more narrative, rather than just numbers. He thought the LOC handbook would be a good resource for the process but he would not support a motion that required the council to use it at this point. He stated that the evaluation was a basis for compensation and was a vehicle to talk about goals and outcomes. He added that the transition process was similar enough to the previous year that he could still use that year as a basis, but it was different enough that he did not feel he was doing “a whole lot of stuff” he did not consider helpful. Mr. Poling expressed appreciation to Mr. Pryor, Ms. Ortiz, and the Mayor for making the decision to review and modify the process. He agreed that using the numbered rating scale was outdated and was not accurate. He felt it was cumbersome and time-consuming. He favored the proposal. In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Chouinard explained that there were two pieces to the compensation that the council dealt with in each evaluation: a merit decision and the COLA decision. He said the past practice had been to give the City Manager a COLA at the same rate as the exempt employees, which is as of July 1. Ms. Ortiz averred that the COLA should be automatic and not contractual. Mr. Zelenka asked if there was an existing compensation policy. Mr. Chouinard replied that compensation was supposed to be +/- 5% of the market rate. He said generally speaking compensation was such that if an employee was performing satisfactorily, he or she would receive a merit raise. He underscored that the City only withheld merit increases when faced with employees with serious performance difficulties. City Manager Taylor added that an employee only received step increases based on merit until he or she reached the top step. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 2 Work Session In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Chouinard stated that a market survey was conducted every year for the position. He noted that most of the comparables did not feature salary ranges for city managers. He said the organization treated the city manager differently from other employees of the organization. Mr. Zelenka asked why the council officers were suggesting a change in rating to three levels. Mr. Pryor replied that it came from a desire to change it from a more cumbersome rating process. He said it looked like a way to simplify it. Mr. Zelenka preferred the one through five rating scale because he felt it provided a better gradation in rating and would be more useful. He said he liked “360” evaluations. City Manager Taylor remarked that as part of being a credentialed city manager he had to undergo a “360” evaluation every three years. Mr. Klein stated that it was also proposed that the process be changed so that the councilors would rate the categories and not each one of the indicators. Mr. Zelenka thought the proposed transition represented a substantial change to the process. He said if the council was going to change the whole evaluation process then it should do so. He added that he reviewed Ms. Bettman’s proposed motion and liked it, with the exception of the inclusion of the handbook. Ms. Ortiz suggested that the council form a subcommittee of four to work on the evaluation process. She thought a transition year was important. She reiterated her discomfort with the past two evaluations. She wanted to look at compensation separately from City Manager Taylor himself. She averred that the City needed to look at how people in other places were paid for the same type of work. She stressed the importance of offering attractive wages and benefits to get qualified employees who were passionate about their work. Ms. Taylor did not know why the rating should be changed from a one-to-five to a one-to-three scale. She said when she did not know how to answer a portion of the evaluation she simply indicated that she did not know the answer. She commented that the council did not have any access to what goes on inside of the City’s departments. She indicated that she would favor eliminating the things in the process that do not pertain directly to the council’s evaluation of the manager. Mr. Clark said he would not feel comfortable serving on a subcommittee given that he was a “new guy,” but he would favor convening a subcommittee to review the evaluation process. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved that the council maintain the current evaluation procedures for this evaluation cycle incorporating the recommendations for a work session on the compensation, the self-evaluation, and the explicit goals and expecta- tions for this evaluation cycle; and select a council subcommittee to recommend to the full council a draft framework for an improved city manager’s performance evaluation that can be implemented for the 2008 evaluation. The framework will consider the League of Ore- gon Cities “Handbook for Evaluation of the City Administrator” and incorporate at a mini- mum, the following: ? Provision of an opportunity for input of managerial and non-managerial staff on criteria for evaluating the city manager; MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 3 Work Session ? Provision of an opportunity for public input on the criteria for evaluating the city manager; ? Development of tools to solicit high volume and high quality feedback on perform- ance from managerial and non-managerial staff. Ms. Bettman opined that it was appropriate to retain the existing criteria for evaluation until new criteria had been developed. Mr. Pryor observed that the “world would not end” if the council used the old system for the current year. He said the most important thing to him was what the new system the council would come up with would be. He wanted it to be effective, useful, and to reflect what the council wished to accomplish. He did not perceive anything in Ms. Bettman’s proposal that would preempt this. He was glad the council was discussing a change in the evaluation process. Ms. Taylor thought the ideal time to discuss a new system was after an evaluation because that was the time councilors were most cognizant of what did not work in the current process. Regarding compensation, she was not sure whether the City of Eugene should be compared with other places. She believed in “that extra paycheck we get.” She commented that there had not been any shortage of applicants when the job had been open and that it cost more to live in some places. Mr. Clark said he would appreciate having the opportunity to have a subcommittee delve into the process prior to the evaluation. He stated that in the absence of this, he would be happy to trust the council officers in their work to try to bring it to a revised process. He felt that either way the council would be able to get to a reasonably similar outcome for the present year. Mr. Zelenka reiterated his preference to retain the current process for the current year while a council subcommittee worked on revising it. He agreed that the best time to revise it would be just after completion. He added his agreement that the COLA should be automatic and not part of the contract. Ms. Ortiz offered a friendly amendment to include bullet points 5, 7, and 8 from the Sum- mary of Recommendations, as follows: 5. The City Manager will provide a written self-evaluation. 7. Set a date certain work session for the City Manager to return to the council with an articulated set of expectations and goals for the coming year that would be agreed upon by all. 8. Conduct a market study and decide on compensation policy prior to the evaluation work session. Ms. Bettman accepted the friendly amendment. Ms. Ortiz indicated that she planned to offer her services on the subcommittee. Mr. Pryor said if the motion should fail because of the first sentence he would be willing to put the same motion on indicating that the transitional process would be used in the current year. In response to a question from Mr. Clark, Ms. Ortiz explained that the transitional process was less bulky and involved less finger-pointing. Mr. Pryor concurred. He said it focused more on the subjective elements of having an evaluation that was based on conversation and discussion rather than just numbers. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 4 Work Session The motion failed, 5:3; Ms. Taylor, Ms. Bettman, and Mr. Zelenka voting in favor. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Mr. Pryor, moved to adopt the motion that Ms. Bettman proposed with the following substitution: “use the one-year transitional process for this year” in the place of “maintain the cur- rent evaluation procedures for this evaluation cycle.” The motion passed, 5:3; Mr. Zelenka, Ms. Taylor, and Ms. Bettman voting in opposition. Mr. Poling offered to serve on the subcommittee. Ms. Solomon signed off at 12:49 p.m. B. WORK SESSION: An Ordinance Concerning Setting Fees and Charges and Amending Sections 2.020, 2.442, and 6.411 of the Eugene Code City Manager Taylor explained that the ordinance was coming before the council as a result of recent court decisions. He asked City Attorney Jerry Lidz to elaborate. Mr. Lidz stated that a recent decision made by the Oregon Court of Appeals struck down a fee that the manager had adopted for a failure to comply with the code process, and in particular Section 2.020. He said the section generally authorized the City Manager to set fees and charges for City services, licenses, and so forth. He related that it described the notice and comment process and it directed the manager to consider five factors when adopting fees. He added that other sections of the code often set additional standards. He said in the recent court decision city staff or the manager, based from work done by staff people, adopted fees to recover the City’s cost of managing permits for various utilities to do work in the City right of way. He noted that there was a specific code section in Chapter 7 that stated those fees must fully recover all of the City’s costs for processing the permit and inspecting the work done under the permit. Mr. Lidz further explained that based on an analysis staff had conducted on what the City’s costs were the City Manager adopted certain fees which had been then challenged by Comcast. He related that one of the numerous grounds for the challenge was that the City Manager had not specifically compared the City’s fees for this purpose to fees adopted by other cities. He indicated that staff had not considered this comparison to be relevant given that the City had language in the code directing the manager to recover all of the costs and most cities subsidized those permit programs. He said the Court of Appeals did not agree with this and declared that the City Manager must consider what other cities had done. Mr. Lidz explained that the proposal in front of the council was intended to say in those cases where it would be a “meaningless step” to consider one of the factors listed in the code the City Manager need not do it. He felt that in practice it would have little effect with the exception of, in rare cases, saving some staff work. He stated that the “safeguard” was that the City Manager would have to make a written finding explaining that he considered a certain factor to be irrelevant or not applicable and why. He stressed that the Court did not require the City to make the change; should the City not make this change the City would have to jump to a hoop that was in some cases meaningless and in some cases would require a lot of staff work. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Taylor thought it sounded reasonable. She asked if the written findings would come to the council. Mr. Lidz replied that it would not necessarily come to the council, but the findings would be posted. City Manager Taylor said it would not be difficult to ensure that the City Council received copies of the findings given that fee orders do come before the body. Ms. Taylor indicated that she would like to have a provision that the council would receive the findings. Mr. Clark asked what the particular fee in this particular case was related to. Mr. Lidz replied that it was for communications companies to do work in the city rights of way. Mr. Clark asked if the City’s fees could be characterized as higher than those in other jurisdictions. Mr. Lidz responded that he would not characterize them thusly. He did not think the change would affect the amount of fees. Mr. Zelenka asked if the ruling had resulted in the exact same fee. Mr. Lidz replied that it would have done so, but staff had not redone the fee at this point. He said the specific directive from council that the fee had to recover all of the charges was still in effect. Ms. Bettman said she had no problem sending the item to public hearing. Ms. Bettman asked if the ordinance would give the manager the ability to waive or discount specific fees after the fee schedule had been adopted administratively. Mr. Lidz replied that it did not. City Manager Taylor said all fees were consistent with the ordinance. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to send the recommended ordinance forward to a public hearing with an amendment to require that any written findings would be part of the notice sent to the City Council. The motion passed unanimously, 7:0. The meeting adjourned at 12:59 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson ) MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 16, 2007 Page 6 Work Session