10-30-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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SPECIAL MEETING OCTOBER 30, 2013 Councilmember Dieter: Madam Chair may I make a. Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand: The Director of Outreach, I believe $49,500. So those are all the recommendations from the Personnel & Finance Committee this evening. So, if the Council would want to entertain a motion on that before the Public Hearing. Councilmember Dieter: I would like to make an amendment Madam Chair. Chairperson White: Yes Councilmember Dieter: That the Deputy Mayor Salary instead of $98,000 it be $100,431. Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand: The problem with that would be that the Mayor would have to recommend that under State Law the Council can only reduce at this stage. Councilmember Dieter: Ok. Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand: The maximum recommended by the Mayor was $98,000. Chairperson White: At this point I want to ask Councilmembers if you have any questions nd regarding the 2 Substitute Bill 53-13. Questions regarding salaries, you will an opportunity if you would like to make any comments but the questions should pertain to the salary ordinance. Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand: Again, just a point of reference, if there is going to be an amendment that amendment should be made and then the questions to the presenter would be appropriate but then we should go directly to the public hearing. Councilmember Dr. David Varner: The point that I would like to make for the sake of better understanding is that these numbers that the Council provides are not the salaries, these are the maximum allowable salaries within the structure and the management aspects of the Mayor’s Office and the Administration they can work within the previous year’s salary and the maximum salary to find a level that suits the need if they can find the level that suits the need. So what we aren’t designating an absolute salary we are designating an absolute maximum. And I think that allows discretion in a number of instances for the salary to be at the Administration’s level rather than at the Council’s level. That’s a clarification that I wanted the public to hear. Councilmember Henry Davis: Sure, what is going to be the measurement, whoever, is going to answer this Mark Neal, Mayor Buttigieg? In speaking to this and the increases in salary the ones that have been asked for, what is the measurement of success of results for these positions. Is there a measurement? Mayor Buttigieg: So, the way we think of it administratively and I think the way you would find most organizations do in setting salaries is that you set the salary associated with a position based on the what the market says is right for that position. You set the actual salary for the incumbent in that position based on performance. So when we talk about wanting to make sure that compensation reflects results, that would be something that we would look to capture less in the legal maximum on what the salary could go up to which is what’s contemplated here, but rather as a management decision in the decision about whether to go all the way up to that cap or pay some other level. That would be a chance to contemplate properties not of the position but of the individual in it. Possibly include performance but also like qualifications and tenure. Councilmember Henry Davis: So qualifications and tenure, so how do you grade these things? For the lack of a better way of asking the question. Mayor Buttigieg: In terms of deciding how to evaluate employee’s performance? I think that is something that we candidly can do more work on. I think that there is an opportunity to develop more formalized structures than we have had historically for assessing performance of individuals. And we are working on one of the benefits of us now having a talent manager position within the HR Department. As we have more bandwidth to formalize those processes.