10-10-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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fact base with more information on the record. We don't make decisions based on a ten (10) to fifteen (15) minute presentation. Committeemember Ferlic stated that with all due respect to John Voorde and the job he did, he did a great j ob as City Clerk, I think that Kareemah has come in and really done an amazing j ob with the City Clerk's office. The staff is just outstanding, the time they put in, the amount of meetings they attend and the support they provide is outstanding. There are some jobs that if you take a look at the time they involve and the skill they involve, and you compare them to jobs in the private sector, I don't see any discrepancy between the amount of work that goes on, then talent involved in that work, and the salary that she is requesting, so I'll be supporting this. Committeemember Williams- Preston stated she would like to talk to Councilmember Broden more about what she was saying. She thought she heard Councilmember Broden say that when she is ready to make a decision on something and vote on it, you really want the information in advance and time to consider it. I think that is true of a lot of things. Given the hot topic that this has been, given that it was on the front page and as public as this has been, and as many people who have been commenting, it was certainly something I wanted to know and understand more about to make sure I had a sense of where I was going. I really sought out information personally to have a better understanding of it. It does sound like a lot, and this is the only thing we are hearing about, especially when Council is only taking two percent (2 %). I think when you investigate it more, it's not hard to see at all that there is serious pay inequity, just by looking at the chart of the salary comparison. I've had lots and lots of conversations with constituents and it has been made clear to me that there is a difference between an elected position and a department head, and we could draw all sorts of arbitrary lines between this and that. But the thing is, the Clerk's position has a tremendous amount of responsibility attached to it, and most people don't know that, and so I can certainly understand the firestorm that has been raging, but as I understand the work that is being done, the expectations of that work, and that I see that the staff has been going above and beyond all hours of the night, literally, responding to texts and emails. Even outside of that, when I look at the directors and department heads together, and I see that the current salary is $59,000 and the next closest department head or director is like $79,000, I'm thinking wow, is there really a $20,000 difference between what the expectation is from the Clerk's office to any of the other department heads? To me that just says right out that maybe we need to take a look at this. This is not a personal issue, this has come to our attention now and the question is does that seem to make sense. I feel like it is really important to make sure we are looking at this in terms of j ob responsibilities, and that things are going even across the board. I also think about the directors within the departments, and even the deputies are making somewhere around six (6) figures. I want to understand that more, and I know that information is forthcoming for a decision at a later date on those salaries. Then there is the issue of comparing the workload and neighboring cities, and I think there is a lot of evidence that is just practical information about what a clerk does, and what the different salaries are when you look at a comparison with the department heads and a comparison to other clerks around. I think there is plenty of evidence there to say that we need to make a substantial lull