October 26, 2005 Minutes
- Commissioners
- Presentation of Proclamation marking the Sixth Anniversary of The Whitaker Center - Byron Quann, President of the Whitaker Center
- Commissioners
- Presentation of bike winners - Pam Garver and Travis Hock
- Coke representatives - Mike Metzgar and Steve Koropchak
- Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager
- Review of the Vehicle Policy
- Faye Fisher, Personnel Director
- Review of Performance Evaluation
COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
October 26, 2005 10:00 A.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Jeff Haste, Chairman
Dominic D. DiFrancesco, II, Vice Chairman
George P. Hartwick, III, Secretary
STAFF PRESENT
Marie Rebuck, Controller; Robert Dick, Treasurer; Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk; William Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Carolyn Thompson, Court Administrator; Faye Fisher, Director of Personnel; Randy Baratucci, Director of Purchasing; Tom Guenther, Director of IT; Kelly Wolf, Manager of Solid Waste; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Melanie McCaffrey, Solicitor's Office; Robb Wentzel, Director of EMA; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Edgar Cohen, Director of Facilities Maintenance; Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager; Steve Suknaic, Director of Juvenile Probation; Sharon Way, Personnel; Elke Moyer, Human Services; Pam Garver, Adult Probation; Travis Hock, Adult Probation; Julia Nace, Assistant Chief Clerk; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office; Lena Martinez, Commissioners' Office; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office and Richie Martz, Commissioners' Office
GUESTS PRESENT
Andy Giorgione, Byron Quann, Jack Sherzer, Mike Metzgar, and Steve Koropchak
MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER
Mr. Haste, Chairman of the Board, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.
MOMENT OF SILENCE
Everyone observed a moment of silence.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Mr. Haste: We have three sets of Meeting Minutes that will be taken up at next week's Legislative Meeting.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time in the meeting for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)
DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS
Mr. Hartwick: I'm proud today to be in a position to add some comments, as well as acknowledgement to the members of the Whitaker Center that are present on their 6th Anniversary. I know that the Whitaker for the Science and the Arts is a first class cultural arts and learning facility that has really enhanced the quality of life and provided cultural opportunities that certainly add to the vibrancy and resurgence of a City that is on the move. I think it is a cornerstone of the arts and science community and I know that it's all been about a vision, a dream and a partnership that has existed between the private side, the City and the County and obviously members of the art community. That is a partnership that I think has served the residents of Central Pennsylvania well in various events and we are very proud of the accomplishments of the Whitaker Center and am proud to be part of that partnership.
Today to honor that partnership we have prepared a Proclamation. (Mr. Hartwick read the Proclamation.)
Office of County Commissioner
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Proclamation
We, the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners, are delighted to join the dedicated staff, the community at large and the region's many devoted leaders in congratulating Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts on its sixth anniversary;
Whereas, after thousands of hours spent dreaming and millions of dollars spent translating the dream into reality, Whitaker Center was born in 1997, when ground was broken on the corner of Third and Market Streets;
Whereas, this "crown jewel" opened its doors on September 9, 1999, becoming the first attraction of its kind in the country to use science as an entryway to the arts;
Whereas, this breathtaking downtown structure houses the Select Medical IMAX C Theater, Harsco Science Center, Sunoco Performing Theater, as well as Stage Two, Explorer's Club and Discovery Central classrooms, multi-purpose rooms, the AMP Grand Lobby and the Kunkel Gallery;
Whereas, since its opening, more than 2,300,000 visits have been made by tourists from around the region and across the nation to enjoy this unique experience;
Whereas, it is the mission of Whitaker Center to serve as the center for scientific, artistic, cultural and educational activities to enhance the region's quality of life and economic vitality, and that ongoing mission has clearly been fulfilled in the past six years;
Therefore, we join the 251,300 residents of Dauphin County in applauding and congratulating Whitaker Center for its devotion to artistic excellence and community enrichment; we wish its founders, leaders and staff continued success; and in honor of six years of extraordinary scientific and artistic achievement, we do hereby proudly proclaim Oct. 26, 2005 to be "Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts Day" in Dauphin County.
(The Proclamation was presented, pictures were taken and applause was given.)
Mr. Quann: Thank you Commissioners Hartwick, Haste and DiFrancesco. We are honored to have this recognition and I would say that the timing couldn't be more appropriate. In about an hour and 45 minutes, we will be convening the annual meeting of Whitaker Center's Board of Directors. This will be topic one to present them and they will be very happy to know that we continue to enjoy your support and continue to enjoy the appreciation of what we think we are trying to bring to Harrisburg and the region. I would just embellish that point to say that we do believe that we are an amenity for the region, while it is great for the City of Harrisburg, it really extends well into all of Dauphin County and to Central Pennsylvania as a whole. Most recently we had over 50,000 visitors come to see our Titanic exhibit from 50 counties and representatives from 30 different states. I think your words in your Proclamation are on point in terms of what we can do, we are happy to do it and we enjoy the great support from the public and private sector. Thank you very much for your support and look forward to it in the future and we hope we remain worthy of it.
Mr. Haste: Thank you for your partnership.
Mr. DiFrancesco: This has been a great time. I am talking about the Wellness Committee and some of the activities that have been going on. What I first want to do is give credit to the people that are actually meeting and doing the job. Each of our facilities has a representative that serves on the Wellness Committee. They basically kicked me out of the room a long time ago and said this would work a lot better if the Commissioner was not present in the room. I want to give credit to Jena who does a lot of the administrative work in keeping the committee together, but the committee in general, because this is a group of hardworking individuals.
The reason we are here today is because we have forged partnerships. One of those partnerships that we have forged has been with Coca Cola and they have been a fantastic partner for us and a fantastic partner for the Wellness Committee. Some of you may recall we had the opportunity, not too long ago, to give out free products for one day when it was Coke Zero. We put up some stations around the County and handed out free products to the employees. Today, we have the fun task of handing out two bicycles to employees. By promoting the Dasani water product and the drinking of water, through the Wellness Program, employees entered a raffle and these were the two successful people who were drawn at random. I had the pleasure last Friday of picking up the phone and calling each of them. They were probably wondering what I wanted. Both of them were very pleased by the phone call so that was a positive thing. I do want to take an opportunity to thank Coca Cola for their partnership and we look forward to working with you in the future and to congratulate the employees that I am about to announce for winning and for drinking water and presenting a healthy lifestyle, but I also want to take the time to highlight the Wellness Committee activities. Without the partnerships that we have been able to forge, we would not be successful in doing the things that we have done to date. Things are going to get better on the wellness front because we have a lot of good things coming up. With Board and employee support, Dauphin County will make it extremely easy for their employees to live healthy lifestyles.
It is my pleasure to call a couple people forward. First I want to call Mike Metzgar and Steve Koropchak from Coca Cola and thank you again for making this presentation today possible. I also want to call forward Travis Hock and Pam Garver, both from Adult Probation. So, Adult Probation is our healthiest department, at least for today, they are drinking their water and turning in their registration forms and in fact they were successful in walking away with two bicycles, which will lead to even further healthy activity. We want to congratulate you for being the winners and we want to thank Coca Cola for being our partner. At this time the Commissioners would like to present you with your bicycles and certificates for healthy living.
(The bikes were presented to the recipients, pictures were taken and applause was given.)
Mr. Metzgar: On behalf of the Coca Cola family in Harrisburg, we just wanted to congratulate obviously the winners again and thank the Commissioners and the entire Dauphin County employees for the opportunity to be a part of the Wellness Program and we look forward to the next one.
Mr. Esworthy: We are taking this opportunity today to try to revise the County Vehicle Policy for numerous reasons. In conjunction with Edgar and Randy, we are finding out that we are having an increase in accidents that our employees are at fault. The policy was revised by the prior Board of Commissioners. At that time, there was a situation in here that accidents that occur that the employee is at fault, they would be assessed a $50 deductible. We don't want to proceed with that unless we had your approval first of all. We still know that $50 is nothing. We do see an increase in the number of accidents, especially backing, that the employees are doing, which causes great damage to our fleet.
While we were at it, we took the opportunity to add a couple things into it. For Edgar, at Section B, you will see the highlighted area for the pooled vehicles. Section K, you will see the highlighted areas where National Safety Council defines a preventable accident. That is what we will be following. In that Section also, we have the $50 as a question mark. Do we want to leave it there or do we want to increase it? Section L is a new revision. Accidents will be reviewed by a committee, not one individual is deciding who is at fault. The other Section, which was requested by our insurance carrier is Section S. Section S is inattentive driving and the use of cellular phones and other things while driving. They requested us to do this because of the prevalence of people using laptops, cell phones, etc. while operating County vehicles.
I would like you to take this opportunity to review this, hopefully for approval next week. I will be here to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Haste: How did the $50 come about? Was that just a number..?
Mr. Esworthy: Someone just pulled that number out of the air and decided to use that $50.
Mr. Haste: The thought would be and maybe I need to also have Faye listen on this, if we did it, accidents do happen. A lot of them can be preventable, but shouldn't we put it in such a way that it is progressive meaning that the first time is $50. In one case I know of someone who has done it a couple of times. Do we need to increase it the second and third time and so forth and some how tie this in to further action?
Mr. Esworthy: I think that would be a good idea. When you have more than one accident it would increase and the operators are now paying attention. We need to address that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Other than it having to be addressed, this is kind of a new subject coming to me this morning, but yes something needs to be done, perhaps losing rights to County vehicles. Anything I say right now would need some thought. We talked about the fact that using County vehicles is more economical than paying out mileage, so I don't want to hurt the County further by instituting a policy that doesn't make a lot of sense. Certainly, we are talking about those accidents that are preventable. It is the irresponsibility of the driver and they should be held accountable.
Mr. Haste: The $50 has been there for a while. It is my understanding that we haven't been enforcing this.
Mr. Esworthy: That is correct, we haven't been enforcing that $50.
Mr. Haste: To follow Nick's thought a little bit, if someone uses their own vehicle, we have had people try to submit when they are doing County work and driving their own vehicle, we have had people submit accident claims to us. Is that correct?
Mr. Esworthy: Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Haste: We have paid those?
Mr. Esworthy: As long as they provide a police report, an accident investigation report, and we know that they were using it in their physical capacity, we will pay up to their deductible only. We would not pay anything else other than their deductible portion.
Mr. Haste: This is just a County vehicle?
Mr. Esworthy: Some of this does apply to using personal vehicles while on.
Mr. Haste: The new area, but the $50 penalty is only for.
Mr. Esworthy: County vehicles. We could institute that even.
Mr. Haste: I'm just wondering if we should.
Mr. Esworthy: No harm.
Mr. Haste: The bottom line is to try to make people. Here is what it is, people have a tendency when it is not their own to not treat it like it is their own and it is obvious when we get it back in and other people have to share and use that vehicle. When someone doesn't take care of it and the next person is relying on getting a safe, clean vehicle to go on to whatever their business is, it is not fair to them to have to be cleaning up from some slob or to be driving something that is beat up.
Mr. Esworthy: When you are driving a beat-up vehicle, and we have to remember this, most of those vehicles that we have, have the County seal on them. There are numerous vehicles that are damaged, dinged, doors banged into them and we have no idea of what is going on. Someone else gets into it and they are afraid to say something because they don't want to be held accountable.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Is this an item that under personnel action can be held against an employee. I'm thinking that it might even make more sense rather than to have progressive fines for misuse of a vehicle that in fact there is a procedure where the first offense there is a write-up that goes in the file, the second offense maybe looking at days on the street. Again we are talking about irresponsible activity, not so much the mishaps that happen that are either no fault or the other person's fault. Do we have the means right now to use these as personnel actions?
Mr. Fisher: The way it is written now, no. I think that is something that we can incorporate.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I'm thinking that might be a better way, because then we are showing too that there was counseling after a first offense.
Mr. Haste: Are you saying to leave it at $50?
Mr. DiFrancesco: Leave it at $50, but then actually institute a policy where people can get days on the street if they handle County property badly. I would suspect that the pool of people who are not responsible of County property are a very small pool.
Mr. Haste: It is and that is the problem. The problem is they leave it in bad shape for the next person.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It is our responsibility to follow-up.
Mr. Haste: Do we have a vehicle inspection report? I know if you rent a vehicle they will do a walk through and they will note the dings and dents. What I am thinking about and again something you said has caused me to think out loud, if we institute this $50 that may encourage someone to not report it. One of the things is how are we able to find out who in fact put the ding in there to hold them accountable?
Mr. DiFrancesco: There are policies in place in some departments. I don't know if they are County-wide. I know the Juvenile Probation Department has a form that every time a probation officer goes down they do a pre-inspection to identify if there is anything wrong when they got the car and then they do a post-inspection and turn it in. Therefore, there is accountability there that if someone doesn't report something the next person that gets the car, they can pretty much identify who did the ding.
Mr. Haste: Do we have something like that for the pooled vehicles?
Mr. Cohen: Not for the pooled vehicles, but there is a monthly inspection just to make sure the tire pressure is okay and oil is okay. A physical inspection of the vehicles there is not.
Mr. DiFrancesco: So, we would not be able to hold anybody accountable? It would be whoever used it in the last 30 days for a pooled vehicle that is going in different hands, we would not be able to identify who caused the dents, etc.
Mr. Cohen: As a pooled vehicle, no.
Mr. Haste: I think we should work on that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: And again I'm sure there is a policy in place that we could just copy and use on a County-wide basis.
Mr. Haste: The key would be who does the inspection and how we do that.
Mr. Esworthy: For the most part, the $50 will be held to those individuals who actually cause damage to either additional property or additional vehicle where they have to report it and that is the only way we do know that. We should do something. I'll get with Faye and Edgar to incorporate something else into this policy. I'll put the additional information in the progressive discipline, which will be in the Personnel Policy also and the inspection report.
Mr. Saylor: I also want to look at labor contracts in terms of what is stipulated in there and if there is something that we may need to negotiate into the contract.
Mr. Esworthy: We can do that. I think, if I'm not mistaken, the policy itself, we addressed that when it was first approved. This does not apply to those areas where it prohibits in the labor agreements.
Mr. Saylor: The other item for your information, you had given direction that we wanted to take a look at the overall policy of having a pool versus paying mileage reimbursement. We are still searching and trying to find the best way to quantify that and present that information to you. One interesting idea that Garry actually came across was the concept of actually renting, going through a car rental agency and how that cost compares to renting a car for a month versus paying a lease payment. That gets to this whole idea of handling and monitoring damage and the condition of the car. It is an interesting concept as well to look at.
Mr. Esworthy: It would eliminate the leasing costs and we wouldn't have the maintenance costs. There are facilities where we can just send the employee out there when they know they need the vehicle. We still keep the insurance under us.
Mr. Haste: Will you be bringing this up at budget time?
Mr. Saylor: That would be the goal. We are working very diligently. Greg Schneider is working very diligently to put this together.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Chad, can you get me a list of everybody who has a car assigned to them? Not a pool car.
Mr. Saylor: You mean like directors or are you talking about in a contract?
Mr. DiFrancesco: No, everybody, both. If it is by contract that they get a car assigned to them I would like to see that and also if a director has one.
Mr. Saylor: We did look at that earlier in the year and I think there are only two directors that have vehicles. I will double check that.
Ms. Fisher: Several months ago, our department was asked to revise the Performance Evaluation System to allow an opportunity for employees to be rated on their specific job responsibilities. Hopefully, the proposed system that I am presenting to you today accomplishes that assignment. Each of you should have a copy of the Revised Performance Evaluation Policy, as well as the Revised Performance Evaluation Form. This is in draft form. The main concept of this proposed evaluation system is to rate employees based on the essential job functions of their positions as outlined in their job descriptions. Under this proposal the employees will be rated on six core categories. The six core categories are: the essential functions of the job, communications, initiative, problem solving, inter-personal relations, work habits and supervision management, if applicable. The essential job functions will be taken, for each of the positions, directly from the employee's job description. This is the only section of the evaluation form that will differ from one evaluation to the next. All of the other six categories, as well as all of the factors listed under each of those categories will be consistent from one evaluation to another.
The factors listed under each of the core categories, with the exception of the essential job functions were developed from our department. For example, on page 2, under communications there are five performance factors. Again these factors were created from our department, by our department. If there are additional factors that you would like to add under each of the categories please share them with me.
We are also proposing a change in the ratings, allowing more flexibility for the managers and supervisors when it comes to rating their employees. Currently there are three ratings, needs improvement, satisfactory and exceeds expectations. We are proposing five, which would be outstanding, commendable, satisfactory, needs improvement and unsatisfactory.
With the system, an employee's performance will be tied into the type of merit increase they will receive. Therefore, our proposal is to assign points to each of the ratings. If you look in the policy, just as an example, and these can certainly be altered depending on what the Board wants to do, but on Page 4 of the policy we have assigned points to each of the ratings. The way we foresee it working is supervisors will have access to this form on line, they will rate the employees on all the factors listed under the six core categories by placing X's in the boxes. In addition, supervisors will indicate an assessment method, which measures each of the performance factors. For example, under communications, the supervisor will need to note what assessment method was used when determining that factor. Was it observed, was it based on outcome or comments received. Once all the information is in the system we will tally the number of points, as well as the number of factors and divide the two coming up with a point system. Depending on the direction that you all want to go with the type of merit increases moving forward that will determine how many points the person has and what type of increase they can expect to receive. On page 5, this is just an example of what someone from our office put together just to show you how it would look once laid out. This is just a sample that we are providing to you, but again, depending on the direction that the Board wants to go with the increases we will change this information.
Mr. Haste: This is a very good job. How would we distribute this to the employees so they understand it? My concern is I would not want to, even though we list this as an example, we can put all the highlights and bolds we want to as an example, if we don't do that we will have certain folks come in here every year and say no because of this I get a 4%, 6% or whatever raise. We need to have the ability to determine those percentages each year. How are we going to explain that?
Ms. Fisher: How will we explain that you all have the ability to.
Mr. Haste: To the employees so that they understand this.
Ms. Fisher: I think we can note it in the Policy for one and then it would just be a matter of communicating this Policy to the employees. We will figure out a way to do that. The other piece of that is we were looking into training. We would like to have someone come in here to provide supervisors and managers with the training on how to complete performance evaluations and setting standards, etc.
Mr. Hartwick: Two reasons why we started this. One, Bill Flannery suggested that we match actual job descriptions up with performance. That has proven to be the most effective way to have these performance evaluations stand up in Court. Two, it gives you a number of detailed things that you need to be looking at in each job description and evaluating them. Providing training to our supervisors, I think we all said this from the very beginning that we have certain supervisors that come in and say that all of our employees are outstanding. But, then they come into me and they say I can't stand the way this person is doing the work, they are just falling behind and slacking. Well, where was this reported in the performance evaluation? Well you don't have to work with them every day. That is your job to be a supervisor. You are not supposed to be someone's best friend. You need to be giving constant feedback, allow for growth in the job and let people know where they fall short in the process. If you are not doing that then you are not being an effective manager. Therefore, in your evaluation it needs to be reflected, because you need to be doing that throughout the course of the year. This gives a tool I think to the managers, but more importantly, we need to train the managers to let them know just that. It is your job to assess what is currently going on. It is not a negative thing. It is about allowing the employee the feedback and the opportunity to grow as an employee and let them know honestly what your concerns are as a manager. Sometimes you can't be everybody's best friend, sometimes you have to be the bad guy. That is the job and the role of the manager. We need more people who are going to manager rather than be someone's friend in County government. I believe this is an effective tool to do that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I would like to commend you on the job. This is well done. One, when we did the evaluations last year and I received the evaluations for the first time that we would be evaluating our directors by, I looked at it and in some cases looking at whatever the highest rating was on last year's form and in a lot of cases exceeds expectation is basically they met all the requirements of their job. This is just wrong. This, as you are proposing, gives someone the ability to truly rate an individual on a fair standard. The one thing that I would suggest and this is only one Commissioner's opinion, on page 4, I would suggest a different rating system in that if someone rates an unsatisfactory, which is different than needs improvement. I'm assuming most managers would say look you need improvement in a certain area, and they consider that as someone that is working to improve their work. If they mark unsatisfactory and their performance is that poor I would suggest that be a minus 1. I would actually adjust it so that the scale looks more like a 4, 3, 2, 0, and a minus 1 for unsatisfactory. I think that would better reflect somebody who really needs to get a message, again that goes then into the formula. You may be unsatisfactory in one area. You may be incredibly proficient at your job and just not able to get along with anybody in your office. So you would still get the benefits of all the performance measures yet you would understand that you need to learn to communicate and play more nicely with my co-workers and it is very much something that is governing my merit increases. That would be my one suggestion.
Mr. Haste: I like that idea.
Mr. DiFrancesco: This concept looks great.
Mr. Hartwick: The issues related to IT and trying to enter job descriptions, could you give us an update on where we are with that?
Ms. Fisher: We actually again this past weekend, Tom Guenther was involved in the meeting, and we have set a deadline date of November 18th for IT to do what they need to do, if not before then. It is in their port to allow us to put an access data base together to allow us an opportunity to enter all of the job descriptions.
Mr. Hartwick: This gives us another opportunity for our managers to think, to review and to see exactly what the job descriptions are for the people that work for them. They can find out what their duties and responsibilities are. Tom, are you going to be okay with that deadline?
Mr. Guenther: Yes.
Mr. Haste: There is no 2.
Ms. Fisher: Actually Dave crafted this part and I asked him and I believe we just modeled this after Chambersburg Hospital. We can change that and add a 2. It is not a problem.
Mr. Haste: If we use Nick's way, it is minus 1, 0, 1, 2 and 3.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It doesn't matter because the average will be what you are looking at. That way by adding a negative number it actually shows that if you put down unsatisfactory there is a negative impact that happens.
Mr. Hartwick: Are we going to try to budget for training? Do you want to think about that for the managers on how to do the performance evaluations? I can ask Faye to get a proposal from Mr. Flannery, which actually happens to be a certified trainer for this particular process. I guess that is something that we can talk about in our budget discussions.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It is a subject that I would like to speak to just for a moment, because I think it is incredibly important. Commissioner Hartwick touched on an issue that is in fact a problem in Dauphin County. We have managers who don't feel comfortable at times counseling employees when things are happening that are not satisfactory in the workplace. One of the missions that I am on is to make sure that our department heads know and anybody in a supervisory capacity knows, that is part of their job as much as whatever their professional path is. In order for the County to work efficiently, and the departments to operate effectively, those managers need to know that if they want a supervisory management position they have to supervise people. Sometimes that means getting down and dirty and telling someone something that they don't want to hear. I'm hearing to many examples where people don't want to, they're not comfortable, oh I don't want to offend somebody and at the end of the day the performance of an organization shows and reflects the fact that nobody is in charge. That has to change. Our management team needs to understand that very clearly. I strongly support training the directors, because then the directors are responsible to train their staff within their department. If a manager does not want to bear the burden of managing people they need to give up the manager's job. That is part of their responsibility and when that breaks down, systems break down and problems happen. Right now I am dealing with a facility that we are trying to restore structure and management too and if we had that management structure in place we probably wouldn't be in the position that we are in today.
Mr. Haste: That is not unique to Dauphin County.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It is not at all. It just happens to be a sensitive.
Mr. Haste: When I was in the Commonwealth that seemed to be rampant there. There are ways to deal with that. As you will recall at the last Prison Board meeting, we had a Sergeant who is now back to a correctional officer for that very reason. He was not able to supervisor. That is part of the job and if they can't be a supervisor then they need to go back elsewhere.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Employees need to understand that attitude does matter. The way you interact with your colleagues, the way you treat the public matters and I don't care how good a professional you are, if you cannot serve the public you need to find a job someplace else. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who are very good professionals and could be very good employees if a supervisor would interact with them and do their job - counsel, try to teach these people why it is important to do X, whatever the topic is. Some supervisors or managers feel that I have been here a long time and I just deserve the job. No you don't, you need to be a manager if you are in that position. Unfortunately, we need to send that message more. If that means training people, counseling people, I'm all for that. I want people to be effective in their positions, but at the end of the day it has to happen. Right now it is not. This is a great product.
Ms. Fisher: I would like to give credit to some of my staff members who also assisted me with this project. One last thing, I need you all to give thought to what direction you want to move into in the future as far as the increases next year. We need to decide if we are looking at a January/July increase again. You don't have to tell me that today if you are not sure.
Mr. Haste: That is my intent.
Mr. Hartwick: Mine as well.
Ms. Fisher: The other thing is the evaluation period. Remember this past evaluation period was January through April to try to get everybody on board in doing the evaluations.
Mr. Haste: Wasn't that a once and done? Wasn't that to catch up? Shouldn't we be on an annual cycle?
Ms. Fisher: We can. We should be. So, the question is.
Mr. Haste: I thought we rushed to get everybody on schedule so that we are on an annual basis now.
Ms. Fisher: So, what would you be looking at for the evaluation period - January through December?
Mr. DiFrancesco: You mean what is the period of time that we would actually be evaluating performances?
Ms. Fisher: For the next time.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Last year was very confusing for me, because there were certain individuals who for a fair evaluation there had to be comments on the evaluation form outside of what we qualified as the window evaluation. It was very confusing. Literally, I felt like I had to ignore certain things, because that happened, good or bad, it didn't happen within the window. I definitely think that these performances should be set up, not on a period of time, but on your work performance, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whatever your job description is. It should be included on this.
Mr. Hartwick: Just a comment with that. If we want to do it that way, we are going to have to wait until this upcoming year to implement this system of performance evaluation and use last year's system of performance evaluation up until December 31st, if that is going to be the cutoff date.
Mr. Haste: Why?
Mr. Hartwick: In three months we are going to expect these things to be implemented and people able to be evaluated. I thought this was supposed to be a system of providing feedback to employees. There is only a 2% increase that is actually going to be based on merit, based upon what we did last year. The 2% in the beginning of the year is the cost of living adjustment that we are sort of required to do. The second 2% is really where the merit increase comes from. If that is going to be given half way through the year, if you use a full year, using the system of evaluations and end it in May you are going to be able to use this tool up until May to do that evaluation for that second 2% increase. That was sort of the rationale behind it. If not, we need to implement this and have this in place and have every manager do a performance evaluation before the end of the year, which will be kind of challenging.
Mr. Haste: I don't care when it is, but it should be a 12 month period.
Mr. DiFrancesco: It is not calendar year, it is a 12 month period. It could be 15 months or 8 months based on when the last one was done. At that point it then becomes an annual event.
Mr. Haste: That is part of the reason I thought we did that hodge-podge last year, because some had done it and some had not.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That is what I thought as well.
Ms. Fisher: That is correct. The proposal, according to this, is still a 12 month period. Because of the last rating period, I thought it could be from May 1, 2005 through April 30, 2006.
Mr. Haste: We ended the last one as of April 30. I'm just saying that it should be a 12 month period.
Ms: Fisher: There are still some things that I need to clear up. I need to run this past the Solicitor's Office. I provided Carolyn Thompson and the President Judge with copies as well for their review. This is a start.
PERSONNEL
Ms. Sinner: The first few items in the Personnel Packet are Salary Board requests. We are eliminating a Linen Services Worker position at Spring Creek. In DJ Solomon's Office, he is creating a Legal Clerk II position. They will be promoting a Legal Clerk I into that position. This is one of two positions that they had put into their budget a year or two ago and never created. Now they would like to create it.
Mr. Haste: Are we not eliminating one at the same time.
Ms. Sinner: No, I pulled that one. I actually assumed that they would be eliminating that one, because I had no vacancies on my vacancy listing, but when I talked to Bob Hawley I found out that he just knew that they were budgeted for these legal clerk II positions and it is not their intent to eliminate the legal clerk I. They were going to fill that. They actually could have used one or two more legal clerks. As I said they had them budgeted, but they didn't fill them. They were making due all this time, but the workload has become.
Mr. Haste: That is not my understanding. When they did this reshuffling of the DJ Offices and we got new DJ offices, the complement was not to change. If we do this we are changing the staff level.
Ms. Thompson: That is absolutely correct. We got the message that Commissioner Hartwick asked that Bob be here. We can't find him. If we can leave this on, we will make sure all the details are worked out. The staffing level is absolutely supposed to be maintained. I think with some of the caseload reshuffling and my guess is.
Mr. Haste: And that means that there should be a spot eliminated somewhere.
Ms. Thompson: Absolutely. If it is not his office it is somewhere else. We will get to the bottom of it. I'm not sure what the logistics are, but we will work that out.
Mr. Hartwick: The question was related to DJ Solomon's request in trying to bring on another clerk and where in fact was the elimination going to occur to keep the current complement.
Mr. Hawley: We have not changed the complement at all. He has had all year two vacancies that have been budgeted for that he has not filled to date.
Mr. DiFrancesco: This shows that we are creating a position.
Mr. Hawley: Yes, because apparently the prior Board while they budgeted for this and it was approved in the budget for the two positions, he did not fill those immediately and the paperwork was never sent over to the Salary Board to request the Salary Board to act on the creation of those positions.
Ms. Sinner: Mr. Schreiber indicated what the complement was, but I don't have it with me.
Mr. Hawley: It is basically showing that he currently has two vacancies and they are legal clerk II positions.
Mr. Hartwick: I'm just trying to figure out how you have a vacancy for a position that hasn't been created. They wouldn't be on the books. If the position was created there would be a vacancy and you would need to come to the Salary Board to make a request. You would just be coming to make a request to fill the vacancies that currently exist.
Mr. Hawley: The basis for filling the new position is that he has somewhere around 13,500 cases that he is dealing with for this year. Sometime ago, this was anticipated when they redistricted. There was supposed to be two positions moved from some other location to his area and that is what appeared in the budget. It is my understanding from Kay that you are supposedly to simultaneously submit to the Salary Board a request for those two positions to be officially created, that placing it in the budget and having it approved in the budget is not sufficient.
Mr. DiFrancesco: But, they have to be eliminated from the other office that they were shifted from.
Mr. Hawley: Correct.
Mr. DiFrancesco: That is what is not on here.
Mr. Hartwick: There is no elimination.
Mr. Haste: To create a position in Solomon's Office you need to eliminate one from somewhere else and that's what's not here.
Mr. Hawley: All I can tell you is the total complement has not changed within.
Ms. Sinner: I believe Bob is basing the complement on these two positions that were budgeted too, is that correct?
Mr. Hawley: Yes.
Ms. Sinner: I know when departments budget for positions, they then consider that they have created that position, although on my listing it doesn't show.
Mr. Haste: If it happened in the budget, it should have been created because remember we had every position, when we went through this whole exercise at budget time where positions were eliminated and positions that were budgeted for were to be part of the Salary Board, that whole packet we approved. So, if it was part of the budget it should be part of the Salary Board because that is what we did. If it showed up in the meantime, either we didn't have the document accurate to begin with or somehow they got added.
Ms. Sinner: Sometimes Mike Yohe would tell me. He would have something on his listing and I wouldn't. He would say well this department budgeted for this position, obviously if you don't have it on your listing then they never created it.
Mr. Haste: That is what we supposedly did at the beginning of the year.
Ms. Sinner: I was cleaning up my vacancy listing. We were not asking Mike to pull things out of the budget that departments had budgeted for. That was for them to renew from the budget the next year when they did their budget. If I had a vacancy that was on my list that for years hadn't been filled, then we would abolish the position. Actually I have some vacancies that have become unfunded. Those are the ones that need to be removed from my vacancy list. We are talking about ones that have funding that haven't been created.
Commissioners: There shouldn't be any like that.
Mr. DiFrancesco: They are not on our list either.
Ms. Sinner: For instance, Juvenile Probation was carrying one for a fiscal position, they actually created that one and we eliminated that one because they had that one created and we never used it and funding stopped so we eliminated it.
Mr. Hawley: Back in 2003 when they had the redistricting that took place and they were budgeting for 2004 there were documents produced at that time which said alright Judge Zozos, Stewart, Pianka we are going to move from their location to Judge Jennings, Postelle, Solomon, these various positions and then since Jennings didn't open his office until November 2004 that part of the shuffle, obviously Judge Postelle's shuffle is still pending. That hasn't taken place. The complement was not increased with the exception of the position that Judge Wenner and Judge Lindsay that Judge Lewis spoke to the Board about that you had authorized in 2005. Outside of that if I sit down with Kay I think I can go down office-by-office showing her those changes which occurred and probably need to flush it out and bring it before you so the administrative order and her records coincide. All these have not actually shuffled from one location to the other. That is why it is confusing.
Mr. Haste: It is very clear to me. It is not confusing. The number needs to stay the same and if we are creating one in one office that means there is one being eliminated some where else.
Mr. Hawley: I think that has already taken place. From the budgetary side, I don't know if it officially has on the Salary Board side.
Mr. Haste: In that whole shuffle, the number is the same.
Mr. Hawley: I gave Commissioner DiFrancesco a breakdown of all the ones, twos and threes currently, showing the vacancies, the filled positions, some of the anticipated news of folks. I don't know if he shared it with the other two of you or not.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I don't know if they got that, but that wouldn't impact this at all. At the end of the day, again, the complement has to stay neutral. I know that there are going to be positions eliminated from other offices and jobs shifted. We did a lot of that when Jennings' Office opened up. That is what we are looking for that elimination to go along with the creation of shifting an employee from an office to another.
Ms. Sinner: Unless you are saying you listed these vacancies.
Mr. Hawley: No, this is not something that I placed on the document that I gave here. This is something that actually occurred prior to my coming on board where those switches actually were supposed to have taken place from one of those other offices to Judge Solomon's. That is why he is carrying those two vacancies all this year and those dollars have not been expended for those two legal clerk II positions in Judge Solomon's Office. If you were to look at the budget you would see that those dollars have not been expended.
Mr. Haste: If there is a vacancy then why are you creating one?
Ms. Thompson: May I make a suggestion. How about if Bob, Kay and I sit down and sort through all of this and get the answer for you.
Mr. Haste: I strongly recommend that you involve Mike Yohe.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Then we can figure out what we are trying to accomplish.
Ms. Sinner: The next Salary Board request is the creation of a Domestic Violence Coordinator.
Mr. Hartwick: The only question I have related to that. What is the grant funding that is being used for this position, when does that run out and how does the County pick up the tab in the future?
Ms. Sinner: I will have to get you that information.
Mr. Hartwick: Because that is what I see in that budget where these grants are running out and then expenses are going up because after the third year the County has to pick up the full expense.
Ms. Sinner: In the Personnel Transactions, we have several vacancies we are requesting to fill. Those vacancies are for a Housekeeping Aide at Spring Creek, a Deputy District Attorney, a Correctional Officer and Sergeant at the Prison, and a Department Clerk in Recorder of Deeds. We actually are filling the Department Clerk in the Recorder of Deeds and the Housekeeping Aide at this time. In Adult Probation, they are requesting to fill a Department Clerk I and they do have a hire in the packet for that. Also they are requesting to fill a Probation Officer Aide 2 position. There is also a request to fill a Judicial Assistant vacancy and we have the promotion in the packet for that. Domestic Relations is requesting permission to fill a Client Service Representative position. I have a listing of the New Hires, Personnel Changes and Separations.
Mr. Saylor: Commissioners, the last hiring window for this year is November 30th. A number of these, Spring Creek and the Prison, are outside of that date. I have sent emails out to the directors regarding that and I have been getting responses to that. Kay, you may want to check back with Mr. Zugay. I did talk to him about that and he may be able to change that start date. For next week I should be able to have a full report on some of these positions.
Mr. Hartwick: Kay, could I have a copy of #18 and #21?
Ms. Sinner: Okay.
I have overtime reports. I also have the 2006 Holiday Schedule, 2006 Pay Schedule and an overtime request from the Prison.
Mr. Haste: You are going to include those as part of the packet next week for approval.
Ms. Sinner: Yes.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I had requested copies of the exit interviews. I haven't been getting a lot of them.
Ms. Sinner: I think I sent you one last week. We haven't been getting a lot of them.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Is that to assume that people aren't just filling them out?
Ms. Sinner: Correct. We still send them out every time someone separates.
Mr. DiFrancesco: I see the amount of people leaving and I only get one or two.
Ms. Sinner: Sometimes they come in bunches.
The Judicial Assistant is starting October 31, 2005. I actually need a vote on that today.
Mr. DiFrancesco: What number is that?
Ms. Sinner: Purchasing also has a hire effective October 31, 2005.
Mr. Haste: What numbers are those?
Ms. Sinner: New Hires #19 and #33 in the Changes.
It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board approve New Hires #19 and Personnel Changes #33; motion carried.
Mr. DiFrancesco: Can I see #24 also?
Ms. Sinner: Yes.
PURCHASE ORDERS
Mr. Baratucci: You should have received your Purchase Order Packet yesterday. In addition to that there should have been a Requisition attached to it from Voter Registration for some sample ballots for the Election coming up. I wanted to get that added to the Packet, because if it waits until the next round the Election will be over. It is better to get it approved prior to the Election. After that, I got one more. It is for the Schaffner Center for some clothing for the residents. They also asked if I would add that to the Packet. They told me that they are getting a special deal on some of these items and it is only good for a certain amount of time. I will have both the Voter Registration and the Schaffner one added into the approval Packet. In addition, all the budget issues that you might see on the Packet will be cleared up prior to then. Are there any questions on the Packet?
Mr. Hartwick: Page #4, what is the camera going to be used for?
Mr. Baratucci: I'm not sure, but I believe Tom can answer that for you.
Mr. Hartwick: Page #10 and I'm not claiming to be an expert in hanging doors, but $1,800 for material and labor to install one door and frame sounds like a lot.
Mr. Baratucci: Domestic Relations told me that they have an office over there that is completely open and they need to make it private for some meetings that they are going to be having. The labor involved sectioning it off and installing the door comes to that quotation from Hershock's.
Mr. Haste: Can't Edgar's staff do that?
Mr. Baratucci: I can check on that between now and next week.
The question is could you do some work here that Domestic Relations wants Hershock's to do in installing a door and separating off an area? I don't know if you are familiar with it. Probably the best thing is to let us check on it, because I'm sure this is the first time Edgar has seen it. We can review the proposal, which I have attached to the Requisition and see what work is involved and he can let us know.
Mr. Haste: It is under Edgar's job description to be responsible for the buildings in this complex and that includes those over there. The work should not be done without Edgar knowing about it.
Mr. Cohen: I will check into it and will let you know next week.
Mr. Hartwick: It is the old idea of government paying so much for toilet seats. $1,800 is a bit much unless there is an extensive amount of work involved.
Mr. Baratucci: We will get you some more details on that for next week. There is a detailed explanation from Hershock's, but we will find out.
Mr. DiFrancesco: This is the second time that this type of issue has come up. Our department directors need to be aware when activities are taking place within maintenance of the building, Edgar needs to know about it. When things are taking place that impact Information Technology, Tom needs to be aware of it. The decisions that departments are making have an impact far greater than their individual operation. Chad, you may want to make this an agenda item, because if I am going to keep hearing about this I'm not going to be real happy about it, people need to think about what impact their decisions are having and notify the appropriate individuals. If the building is changing or a project that needs to be addressed then Edgar needs to know about it. That is the department's responsibility to make sure Edgar knows about it. More and more every single aspect of County government is having an impact on Information Technology. Some way it is going to affect our capacity on our systems upstairs. Departments need to understand that and they need to make sure that Tom or someone from his staff is being brought in when decisions are being made. Security is a big one, because a lot of what we are doing now is being driven by technology and it is putting tremendous loads and burdens on the systems that we have. We just have to make sure that people are reporting in and that they are thinking who is this going to impact and who needs to be notified.
Mr. Baratucci: For the IT stuff right now that policy is in place. No requisitions come to you for IT, anything, unless Tom has signed off on it. How about if we extend that policy to include Facilities Maintenance issues and have Edgar sign off on them. I will put something out to the departments telling them that we are going to do the same philosophy that we do with IT with any building maintenance issues.
Mr. Haste: Edgar needs to have some say. Even stuff that is being done at the Prison or Spring Creek, quite frankly Edgar should be at least in the information loop, because one of the things that I tried to do, for example, the Prison needs to repair its roof, well Spring Creek or the Courthouse may need to repair its roof and if we combine that into one bid and coordinate that better we may get a better price. If everybody goes out and does their own thing we are not getting the best price. Edgar can say it is not time to do this or that, but if he doesn't know that he can't make that call.
Mr. Baratucci: It is working well with the IT stuff and I think Tom can verify that. Why don't we just extend that and I think it will work well there. I won't bring any requisitions here that Edgar hasn't signed off on.
Mr. Guenther: Commissioner DiFrancesco made a good point in regards to security. Some of these IT related projects are moving outside of the traditional umbrella of just installing a PC and a server. I need a little bit of help and Randy does too on some of the projects. We need to be included. Putting a new security camera in over in the Veterans' Building that wants to be tied back in over the fiber network and these network resources that might not look like a technology purchase, but just a camera purchase, now needs to be considered into that package. We need to have some other level of observation that this affects some of the other resources. I'm not sure that even traditionally we had that coming through our office. That scope of service is expanding a little bit. We all need to be considering that fact.
Mr. Baratucci: On that same line, Mr. Hartwick had a question on this item here, he wanted to know what the digital camera is being used for.
Mr. Guenther: That is for the web designer.
Mr. Hartwick: I just wanted to make sure that it had a functional use, because I don't want a lot of other departments making camera requests.
The last question was with the budget issues on #12, if we got money in the Forfeiture Fund or we don't. What is the deal?
Mr. Baratucci: The budget issue there is Mike does not put a budget in for any of the Drug Forfeiture monies. He can probably give you an explanation better than I on why he doesn't. He does monitor how much comes in on the revenue side in a different way. That 151 Fund does not have a budget and never has had one.
Mr. Haste: It is not a County.
Mr. Baratucci: There is some financial reason why. He saw a copy of this and knows that there is enough money in the revenue side to pay for these things.
Ms. Rebuck: The Drug Forfeiture goes through the District Attorney's Office and the Controller's Office also keeps track. We make sure that nothing is getting paid unless there is money in that fund to pay it.
Mr. Hartwick: Thank you Marie.
Mr. Baratucci: I have another BlackBerry request, which should be in your Packet. That is a request through the District Attorney's Office for five of these units. It is also a request to pay for them from the Drug Forfeiture money. A while back Solicitor Tully gave us an opinion that the Drug Forfeiture money is pretty much controlled by the District Attorney. I would say this request is almost like a personal request that comes through where people pay for the BlackBerrys with their own personal accounts. Although this is not a personal account for Ed Marsico, it is according to our legal people controlled by the District Attorney's Office and they are allowed to decide again with the idea that there has to be money there to pay for it how the money is spent. He is requesting five of these units. We wanted them to go through the approval process, because they still will have to get networked with IT.
Mr. Hartwick: I'm going to remain consistent and vote no on all of these.
TRAINING PACKET
Mr. Haste: Chad, is there anything on the Training Packet that needs approved?
Mr. Saylor: No.
ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION
Mr. Haste: Under Items for Discussion, we have the Parking Lease with Dauphin County and IDA.
It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board approve a Parking Lease Agreement with Dauphin County Industrial Development Authority to provide parking space for Graystone Bank; motion carried.
SOLICITOR'S REPORT
Mr. Tully: There are no changes to the Report. I would point out that there are three areas dealing with Solid Waste, Items #5, #6, and #17. Mr. Giorgione is here if there are any questions on those three items. He didn't want to do a formal presentation, but wanted to be available should you have any questions.
REPORT FROM CHIEF CLERK/CHIEF OF STAFF - CHAD SAYLOR
Mr. Saylor: Commissioners, I have one item. I met with Sharon Way and I believe she has also met with Commissioner Hartwick. One item that we are going to be bringing before you in the near future is that of the Opt-Out. These are the payments that we offer to employees and their dependents to opt-out of our insurance coverage. We have looked at some numbers and I am going to ask her to share those with you and then probably at the next Workshop will bring some proposals forward for you to consider.
COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS
(There was none.)
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
(There was none.)
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business, it was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board adjourn.
