10-28-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBERT 28, 2013 Eric Horvath: Yes, we had discussed this before and I think my belief is that it is very important to have a Deputy Director Position because we have so many diverse work functions between taking care of the Water, Waste Water, Sewers, Streets and the largest capital plan in the City’s history, Solid Waste, Central Services, with over 1,000 pieces of equipment and the need is there for making sure that we continue to look at day to day operations and our (inaudible) is engaged and continue to finds ways to perform better. To provide a higher quality for our residents but also to find ways to operate more efficiently and there is also a need to continue to do things like assess vulnerabilities, more planning, strategic steps, looking for new customers, creating plans for growth, things like on the water side determining the least cost source of water that the Director will have some time to do with the Deputy taking things and looking at things like efficiencies in the system like pump issues and how do you have efficient pumps, how do you have more efficient operations, taking 10 hours shifts and making them 8 or 12 so that we can provide staff work to provide the same value. So, you know I can give lots of example, but the bottom line is, I think that there is specifically to have somebody very focused on day to day operations and employee engagement and continuing to work on performance, employee performance and also somebody in this role who is looking at strategic vision and growth and long term planning for the city. Councilmember Oliver Davis: How are those activities being done now? Eric Horvath: We are doing the best with what we’ve got. And I’m here to tell you that I don’t think that we are doing an adequate job. You can only do what you can do, and you can get to what you can get to and there are things that we would probably love to see done in the City, that you just can’t get to because there isn’t enough manpower. Councilmember Oliver Davis: Thank you sir. Councilmember Dr. David Varner: Several times in the discussions the Mayor mentioned to the Council to look at the salary and equity issues and I just wanted to make clear that those discussions have been actually going for probably several years prior to that, because I believe we have identified what we considered were some inequities at the time. At least for my attention and I can only speak for myself that it was within the salary structure that existed and we weren’t necessarily looking at other communities to see what they were paid, so that is certainly a step that has been taken further what I think beyond what our request ‘s were. For the sake of clarity, my understanding going forward was equities within the existing salary structure now modified. Councilmember Dr. Fred Ferlic: No questions. Councilmember Schey: No thank you. Councilmember Henry Davis Jr.: You know that I expressed earlier I wish that all of these things changes should have been made last year or the year before, when all the other increases were made. I go back to the letter that was written to me, I don’t know who that person was. The level of morality with some of the employees of the city is maybe the way that they are being valued as employees. We do understand that folks need in order to get the recruitment that we are looking for, we need to increase the salaries, but when you increase them high like that, you know at one pop, it causes attention to other workers. Now, could we do that for every worker, no, there is no way possible could we do that. But, in being responsible and the way that we are doing it to make sure that we keep good worker moral and to continually ask to increase salaries over and over again and thinking that something is going to happen miraculously, I just think it is a bad way of governing. Will this be the last one? Are we looking to increase anymore salaries? Mayor Buttigieg: Well every year there will be a salary ordinance. Councilmember Henry Davis Jr.: Right, but what I am asking. Mayor Buttigieg: Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t stand here and guarantee to you that for example no salary would be raised more than 2% in the future in this administration. I do feel like this would get us a lot closer where we need to be in terms of these positions. But we are probably going to find out that there are other positions especially if they are more junior positions in the city, 18