##VIDEO ID:NPI6DgM6VlA## good afternoon all welcome to the August meeting of the town of Newbury Human Resources board uh present are Mark lechman John Ferrar Anthony ano Lynn pey thank you all Chief fiser We Believe will be joining us momentarily uh as Diane indicated in her note to us last week she was out of town but we have a quorum and hopefully as I said Chief Fisher will will join us to make it five and also joining us today our Town Administrator Tracy bla Tracy thank you uh let's kick off with um approval of the prior meeting's minutes let's look first at the sub committee meeting which was held on July 17th at 400 p.m. and if you recall that meeting was was strictly uh called for the purposes of finalizing the discussion we had regarding the classification of the treasurer collector position if folks had an opportunity to read through those minutes yes yes is there a motion to accept I'll make the motion is there a second second any discussion seeing none uh let's vote all those in favor of accepting the minutes as written say I I I thank you next we'll review the minutes of the regularly scheduled July 22nd HR board meeting which was uh called order 408 after the subcommittee and folks had an opportunity to read those minutes yes yes is there a motion to approve so move is there a second second any further discussion um so I have one thing uh just a um point of clarification on the July 17th minutes my name is Lyn chatty and on the July 22nd minutes my name is ly PE okay thank you so just to clarify that I am one and the same thank you thank you got to mention that to Diane over sign of course last week thank you I don't think that's happened for a few months has it old template other than that thank you for that catch any other discussion clarification needed questions seeing n let's vote all those in favor accepting the minutes has written say I I I thank you [Music] all next order of business uh employee issues typically we turn to Diane and chief Fisher for that uh in their absence of the moment Tracy let me ask you is there anything we should be aware of that uh I have not received any notification that's a good thing thank you uh how about Personnel actions and job vacancies we talk every month about um things that are occurring last month we talked about an offer that had been made to the applicant for the assistant Library director position has that g Smo acceptance Great Stop date there or has the individual started or um so the assistant director was a promotion yes yeah yes so the dominoes fell there yep great additionally last month the town had added four new part-time fire Personnel open positions at that point included the conservation agent filled filled beginning September great 3rd I believe great assistant Town planner um still conducting interviews on that okay progress yes great and the full-time patrolman added to the fy2 budget uh still vacant to my knowledge okay thank you um so Mr chair I have a question and um we probably discuss this so last month when we discussed the uh tax collector position the new job the job description and kind of reclassified it um what's what are the next steps on that are we going to be um filling a position at some point sooner rather than later are we going to be would we be looking at that position later the assistant treasure collector yeah is it's the assistant no The treas Collector position so we reviewed the treasure collector position we classified it you know um updated it and so just for my clarification um is that just we're not doing anything with that at this point no no I Diane's here for as long as she wants to be here yes occas we just it had been a very long time 2012 since we had evaluated that and um one of the things that became clear over the last couple of years when we had so many um vacancies was that we weren't really competitive because a lot of these um these jobs hadn't been classified in so many years because people were in the roles for extended periods of time and that was one of the last man positions that hadn't had any um review so I just thought it would make sense to bring it before the board okay I know we have it in here as the treasurer collector but I was thinking did we talk about an assistant you know for succession planning or anything like that but we we do have an assistant treasure collector who's relatively new that's probably why you were thinking of that um so we had one um leave our employee probably about 3 months ago and we just hired um the new new person started okay um relatively maybe a month or so ago so we do have someone that that could likely take over at some point in time okay and just as a reminder in the case of the treasur collect position I mean I look at it there's really two reasons for having the need to do that one is as uh Tracy has just mentioned it had been 12 years since the position had been classified and secondly during that time uh a significant number of new and different kinds of responsibilities had been added to the RO which which necessitated the U it wasn't just the fact that it had been 20 years so right okay thank you thank you I nothing new in terms of uh personel actions and job vacancies since last month no okay workplace uh discrimination ethics issues again hopefully thank you safety issues no no new protocols in place okay um other the business okay let's uh unless anyone has other items to discuss let's let's dig into the uh the compensation survey RFP we've been discussing uh we had ask everyone just to review Once Again the paperwork that Tracy provided for us last month as a reminder this is the the one quote that we've received from a outside vendor for a compensation survey um Tracy you were kind enough to share your thoughts on this last month is there anything new you want to add or should we just dig into the conversation I think we can just dig in okay let's just open it up around the table people have had a chance to review do you come with any specific questions or observations you wanted to share about that um so I have a a question so this is the one as I was looking through emails I believe this is the one from March 22nd of 2024 yep um if we do go out for requests for proposals um probably this one would be updated then as it's going to be scale right it's going to be about 6 months old correct okay so this for for our purposes today if I may um I I think I wanted you guys to have your eyes on this to look at what we're talking talking about going out for and if there's anything that you think it's is deficient here that we want to add or anything that you don't think we really need we want to fine-tune it before we go out with the RFP okay yeah we we we can it affect emphasize certain pieces of this or need to eliminate certain pieces of this before we go to other vendors yes okay great y then was there anything else to sign off or um thank you for that and I'm looking at this not to exceed 60 positions so Tracy you know how's our count yeah we we would be in all likelihood much fewer than that yeah yeah much fewer good to know cuz we don't really have a lot of our positions are you know I I think our head count is just around 60 in terms of total employees but that includes all our call firefighter ERS and people who wouldn't necessarily be part of this uh classification so we'll be much lower than that okay thanks given that do you expect that that that the number that was originally quoted here make them down yes okay yes good yeah and there was a little bit of discussion about that I think last month and that is whether certain positions will be kind of for lack of better term lumped together yeah uh it's not required that each and every position at each and every desk in town hall needs to have a special correct correct like for example the car call Firefighters we want to make sure that we're staying competitive with what other communities are are paying but there are I don't know 38 of them 37 of them we only need one classification so so this will likely be reduced in okay great how many employees do we have just over 60 see not L okay it's a small small operation okay we a lot with a small amount of people is that exclusive of PD is that okay that's including what PD pleas uh Tony John thoughts up front or not not pretty straightforward pretty straightforward I mean they're telling us they're going to take a 30,000 ft View and then drill deeper yeah and give us Trends and changes recommendations and try and bring uh the costing out of the trends however typical yeah and and you've already described the uh the non-typical circumstance they volunteer firefighters and those of the of that ilk and the most important thing is their selection in their study of what represents 12 peer groups that agree that's the essence yeah I had that as well I'm curious as to whether we would want to supply them with the names of certain communities we would like to have in survey or is that we can certainly um I mean I I defer to their expertise in terms of this is what they do they're going to know the towns that are most comparable to us but if we look at it and we see gee grin's not in there we consider them a comparable Community can you add them in I'm sure they'll be amenable to doing that okay and they're out of end over right right so they'll loc yeah this I had a bit of a um um problem with my computer recently and it's it's it's on the way to the uh to the swamp or something and that's been recent I it's been a a real headache any any event um one of the things I saw on that broken computer today was uh I was looking looking for it uh some uh the handbook Massachusetts select board uh handbook and uh where uh uh I just noticed that they had all they have multiple chapters and one of which it was chapter 7 they call it human resources personnel and Labor Relations and and very extensive uh situation where where you know they're looking at at uh what what I got out of it um you know how many do you need what do you pay etc etc uh the role of of Town Council here because they're involved in or may be involved uh in in in in legal issues if something happens you know whatever um but but uh uh this was the this was the the the entity who refused to give you any information about about the what we want to do here right no so well so the mass Municipal Association I think publishes that handbook and that's for for new newly elected select board members that's kind of provide them with the blueprint of a lot of their roles and responsibilities so there's Mass Municipal human resources and and they're actually a a wonderful resource for us for a lot of information what happens is they send out um a request to all the municipalities saying Hey give us all your data on all your positions your headcounts the titles the responsibilities the wages your population but what's happening is they're not getting the responses so they put together this whole website with the information but it's only the information they receive back if the communities aren't submitting it which seems to be what's happening so they're guessing in a way or so they they just don't have the data there's not a lot of data on their site which before you know 10 years ago that was that was where we'd all go to to get the information cuz everyone would complete those forms but people just aren't completing there's no Authority that must be done it was all done voluntarily Ian mentioned that if you recall when we started this conversation 3 four months ago she mentioned that each year for the past three or four years fewer and fewer municipalities does volunteering that information why would you want what you're doing for your staff and your employment group right on public Pap it was start pizzing on steroids people would say these people are we can we know which towns to raid right or I want to work in that town yeah in fact Ian mentioned to us that up until recently you know she felt good about the fact that new was one of the towns that was volunteering more information than I don't want to call it our competition but you know other municipalities all over the state and she said in the past year or so it's gotten to the point where there's a really a dir of information available out there and that's what precipitated this whole exercise is well if we can't get it you know through MMA you know or the sub subunits then you know it necessitates going to be outside I mean Tracy mentioned that you know she might be you know close to a Town Administrator in this town or I may know the HR Director in that town but that's fleeting information you know it's not going to give you enough to to do a competitive survey and so that's what led us to this does that big the question is to whether Human Resources services Inc can divulge 12p group's information so they have we have been the I came in contact with them in a previous position um and worked with them but the thing that was very helpful that I came to know them because they were seeking information from the community I worked in and I frequently will get um notices from them would you please provide us with this information um if you do we'll provide you with the results of our survey so if they're doing a police chief search or something like that and then they'd send us the list of the police chief wages that they received from all the communities if you agree to participate with them so I guess the question is are they Bound by certain restrictions in terms of what they can share in other words would they they provide us with aggregate information without naming the specific towns and what each town is paying for certain position they're able to do that okay any idea what percentage of um municipalities in the state are now um providing information do you have any idea how many municipalities are in the state 351 communities okay and do we have any idea what percentage are submitting information I don't off the top of my head D I know that yeah you know that 351 reading the cricket story that I was telling you about uh when you're looking at averages of new bre smack in the middle in terms of population and per per capital expenditures for every category uh including government General police fire education Public Works fixed cost and debt Services dead center what are you refer get this is a report that um I received from one of the the financial directors over in Manchester is that current it's a summer of 21 February 18th is 21 actually fairly fairly current and um and quite an in ation of of where the money's going that's hence we don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem it's but Newber is in good stad actually they they're as far as median is concerned uh their flat their flat level with the medum average so this is expenditures on administrative Staffing or just overall budget overall budget in other words a well handled budget it's kind of simar you talk mon where we s where we were um can I ask what you mean by that I wasn't following so we don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem oh that's that's the the author is sarcasm the idea being that people in all these communities are are looking to uh adjust their revenues and go find commercial Enterprise development instead of leaning on I mean when you think about a town like Manchester W SE you got to think off the cuff that 15% of those residences subsidize the other 85% and and when you look at new and Road and Cottage Road and some of the new developments going on in our tiny little cattle Village uh there's a whole bunch of that subsidy going on here as well some monstrously valuable homes subsidizing not so valuable homes and uh you know and some of those are per capita just two people living and other house in the remote location byot people living and so they get a per capita sub subsidize living and it's it's the idea the idea of this though is is I come back to it is what prompts it uh what what motivates it and um and the idea that if nobody is offering a commonwealth that information over the transm as once U then you almost wonder if we we get involved in this we're going to hard publish what we do and how we do it and and put ourselves in the T ring people will know what we're spending and how much we're offering and and what that'll put us at an advantage and disadvantage at once disadvantage being we're giving out our secrets well we we are a municipality so we Have No Secrets all the information is public um anyway and I I think of this more as a tool for us um to ensure that we're attracting good qualified candidates um you know we've been we've been fortunate to to have a very strong bond rating we've we've been um judged by our CPA firms as having strong finances we want to ensure that all of that keeps going in the long term I I think it's really up to us to make sure that we find talented people that um can continue things along that that route and that goes for all of our managers our ww director our police Chiefs our fire chiefs I mean they all have a very strong role in containing cost making sure you know we're we're doing things in accordance with the law and you know as any Community you want to attract the best and the brightest so um agreed we're finding that we we haven't necessarily been competitive in some areas we have in others um but we want to make sure I I think the information that will yield from this type of study um will help us to better under understand where our classification schedule sits you know generally speaking when we do the classifications the independent ones I'm always impressed by how spot-on they are in terms of when I then go and look at the advertisements for those positions but um like I said some of them hadn't been looked at in quite a number of years so this is just taking a more comprehensive approach to to what you do on an individual basis what what steps do you need and what help do you need to get this over the trans and get it done so I really I just wanted your eyes on it if there was anything that we should be considering that isn't listed in this um and this group of tasks um if anyone thought of anything that we should add or so before I we go out I just wanted to to have you kind of look at any chance that they provided you with a sample presentation from other villes I do not have a sample um I could probably get that for some of the others but if I would be in their craft I would I would have a an abstract and a sample and so that this is is what you can expect so they have the town's complete uh agreement and understanding yeah well it can be neut neutralized you can be blacked out where sure but you get a sense of the you get a sense of the core value of it um I can require that in the submissions that they include um you know a sample document what are we going to get for our our change mhm um so just looking down at these bullet items on the second half of the first page here one thing caught my eye provide recommendations and of advice regarding all other areas of compensation packages as required this would include other pay longevity stiens and fees um it does not talk about benefits I didn't see benefits listed anywhere here in the second page it talks about numbers of hours work per year but there was no discussion about how benefits cost of insurance other considerations would factor in so I assume we would want to make sure that that gets included y um and when we're talking about benefits what about um pay time [Music] off let's see what else would it be besides you know within that total pay um bucket vacation pay time off vacation time time yeah what time off mean you know is it all in one or is it broken out holiday vacation and sick personal yeah so just you know to clarify that y we have a maternity Le status both yeah that's all D um that's all set forth in statute for the majority of it okay yeah what what was that matern maternity for both both sides of the couple do yeah so um Mass Family Leave is there a size requirement for the employer to um be in that program or is it all employers I believe it's all employers okay so we would fall we meaning the town would fall under the mass paid family leag um no we do not fall under we're unpaid where we do um so maternity paternity with fall under our FMLA and it's unpaid we're we're not required to pay okay did you opt out of the mass Paid Family Leave I don't know that we opt it out I think it was uh population driven the number of employees that's what yeah that's what I was asking at the beginning yeah um okay we required okay I was thinking it was 50 but it might have been been by FTE also so that would you know lower our numbers here yeah okay and Diane could probably give you the details on that yeah than I could but so if we look at at what our expectations should be about provided data I think we go to the top of the second page the consultant will survey and provide up-to-date Market information on positions typically our market analysis includes components such as but not limited to let's make sure we're look we're comfortable with all of those and add anything we want provide the salary range for each position surveyed obviously provide actual salaries for certain positions provide statistical comparisons of average median range and 75 percentile I assume that would be important for TR provide information on the number of work hours per year certainly provide specific information where the responsibilities assigned to a department or a position are not typical in most organization survey that's an important one for us it definitely because we have as we've talked about on many occasions we have a number of hybrid type positions where folks are you know wearing multiple hats and so you know this is not going to be an exact science you know we're going to have to extrapolate a bit uh when we factor in that that you know employee X Y or Z is is has got a much broader role than the title would suggest uh and how do you account for that in a compensation survey so right um I don't think we can presuppose it we're just going to have to you know as we get this information kind of deal with it as as best we can to figure out how we would want to massage those numbers right right yeah okay this um is not going to look at and I'm sorry um if I was not paying attention I was trying to look up Mass paid family leave but I have no internet um so about job descriptions we've talked about that throughout this whole process right like um how how are our job descriptions are they pretty up to date for the most part and do we need any help you know working on those or these folks probably will just say probably to your point mark I'm I'm sorry like okay we have this one position but in this other town you know that could be this position or it could be a hybrid or whatever yeah uh I I would imagine at some point that's they're going to ask us for the job descriptions to look at them to to identify those areas where we have you're not the treasure collector or you may not find many treasure collectors that have an assistant HR role it's it's just kind of a a oneoff it's just what we do here you're not going to find a lot of town administrators they're also the finance director you're not going to you know we we just do that just because the nature of It's a Small Town um you may find uh joint positions in some of the other small towns but they may not be the same um the same way that we've established them here so there's going to be to your point there's going to be those where you're going to have to look at them and say well okay but it might help you when you're you're doing those 0.1 23s you know it might provide you a little of extra guidance there yeah and I would think once a vendor is picked well maybe I shouldn't assume this is it your expectation that that you know we you certainly and perhaps we as a board would sit with the chosen vendor in advance of them kicking off the program to explain various positions that really sit outside the norm to give them a head start rather than waiting for them to come back to us okay absolutely good um so again so they're anticipating this they're saying provide specific information where the responsibilities assigned to a department or a position are not typical in most organization surveyed so this is not their first rodeo stuff like that you're also going to want to get a clear picture as to what whom they need to deal with to gu the information sure how many department heads and drilling down how many assistant department heads or all 60 of the employees on a regular basis not the part-timers and not the other than typical U not so typical but the idea being how many are they going to entertain meeting with and how extensive they mostly they um the meetings would would be with Diane and myself yeah I I don't I don't anticipate meeting with individual Department h no I don't think that would be if if they have followup questions or details for sure and they request um yeah and they request it but I wouldn't expect them to have to interview if they were doing job descriptions yes but um I think our job descriptions are pretty pretty tight at this point we we may find as we go through the process that there might be a job description and two that also needs an an update I mean as we determined where the treasure collector position a couple three months ago sure wouldn't be surprised if there's you know one sitting there with some cobwebs on it that might need to get here out a little bit so okay do we have a good um or chart at this point we do okay and then I imagine that we have the metrics the analytics that say how many FTE in each position you know in a grid or something okay we Tony do you know how many uh uh municipalities have been reviewed specifically by this company I do not but that's a question we can ask how many that they've done it's part of their credentials yeah I mean every company I walked into for 54 years wanted a resume I'm anything else no that was my point uh so the last two bullet points one we were already speaking to provide any other pertinent information that may impact the salary ranges of position survey that extra extraneous stuff I should say miscellaneous things we talked about provide Trends and compensation programs offered you know to what extent we can get creative with you know other programs get to be seen we may be hstr there but let's see what they have to offer and you know we can take what we want leave the rest behind so and they're going they're going to have to be intimately understanding and as you call it small town makeup the fact that so many of you wear two three four hats and that takes your job description for our peer group uh I going to look at our peer groups in this study and and Marblehead is there and uh so's Gloucester so's Hamilton and I doubt very many of those people wear Three Hats in the working order maybe Hamilton I I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of okay um the smaller ones probably not gler yeah I wouldn't even see them as a comparable community no no and the uh the rest of the second page talks about what their process will look like it discusses the fact that they're happy to meet with Town officials to discuss issues and to gather information I'm sure that'll be before during and after reviewing Market data and Analysis and comp policies discuss the analysis and the findings um and you can see the different work products they have listed there complete and comprehensive labor market analysis uh recommendation for any new plans they think that Newby would benefit from um specific recommendations and findings um in regards to certain position comparisons C cost outs and an implementation plan covering all recommendations uh and that all Municipal data and information Collective will be presented to the to additional data in addition to the custom Municipal peer survey may also be provided as needed through the economic research institute other resources they have available to them we'll have it all on a q web portal as well as a comprehensive narrative final report provided to the town so are there other things we would like to see from a vendor uh not in terms of the finished product but in terms of a request for proposal anything you think is missing we talked about uh other [Music] benefits um sample document number of mass communities that they've completed um proposes for anything else that the board would require of these vendors not not in terms of the work they'll eventually do but in terms of just providing us with their proposals anything else you'd like to see that's not included here well like to see the legit legitimacy of the 12 peers disclosing the actual name of the township that they're offering not just not just calling yeah that'll be yeah I mean it's a like you just pointed out if we try and TOS us off in the same same bucket with Coler in the wrong spot some concentric circles there we'll start with the obvious choices and work our way home I mean I would think that I was surprised that they talk about 12 I I was pleasantly surprised there I thought it might be you know half a dozen or half as many yeah of course A lot of the stuff they may have sitting in a drawer already could be ready to go actually correct wouldn't be a surprise yeah well it actually be a good thing but they have and we don't well yeah if every time every time municipality requests this stuff you have to out from scratch chargeing off on this and that's okay they have what we need okay Tracy do you see um do you have any input into these any things that you would like to see that AR included currently everything's here that that would be you know information that I'd be looking for for sure okay um and then what do we anticipate a time frame would be so um putting to the the RFP will take a couple of weeks get it out advertised usually 30 days um to get them back and then evaluate them and awarded how do you choose the three or four more that you're going out to how do you know so you we advertise it and they come to us they come to you yeah yeah I mean we could get one where is that advertising done uh Central register Commonwealth how did you finder in the newspaper as well how' you find the andopa folks I worked with them when I was in West Newbury because they had called us asking for our data and we found ourselves in a similar position although we didn't have we didn't have job descriptions we had nothing so we worked with them on a much bigger level um well do you credit that we've got a lot of this data at hand we do we do we're we paid considerably more and that was probably 20 years ago so oh look at us right um when we get the um request for proposals drafted um before it gets sent out do we have to approve anything at that point no okay no as long as you're comfortable with what's in here that's that's kind of what I needed from from and then um 30 days and then those bids would come back to us right they all sealed bids or something y they they're proposals they'll send in a proposal and then we just evaluate them so given that timeline we should probably [Music] anticipate whether it's in a regularly scheduled meeting or a subcommittee meeting reviewing these uh these proposals sometime maybe during October would you guess when's your meeting scheduled when do you usually first Monday of every month last last Monday last mon four sorry fourth fourth Monday of every month fourth Monday October November yeah yeah okay okay all right so when that time comes we'll either schedule probably end up scheduling a subc commmittee classification classification excuse me a subcommittee meeting to to make this soulle agenda item and have a chance to review them you have pass through the select board in any man straight straight from the top okay good um so when we would be reviewing these would that be a closed session nope no no it's a public opening they're all sealed and any of them sometimes um the people who have sub bended bids might might come y to you know to join to hear what the other proposals were and yeah sure not of not always that's usually the bigger jobs but wouldn't be surprised and just just to clarify I think as is the case with other things we over the years this is not a this is not an HR board official responsibility is that is that fair this is your call yes in terms in terms of the vendor uh but we will advise and offer whatever suggestions we can and look I I appreciate your expertise on this board you've always helped uh guide us to making very good decisions so I mean it's always important for us to understand that this is not officially our purview so you don't even have to bring these proposals back to us no but I like I said I I appreciate your expertise and uh I I I think if you want to get a good product you get lots of ideas and it just works out better that way my experience yeah we appreciate that okay looking forward to next steps all right so you anticipate that at least by the time we meet in the for the fourth Monday in September the the RPS will or the request will have gone out to the other vendors probably and then it'll be like another month after that okay great well thank you for all the work you done that's huge it's it's important especially like you said the best in the brightest yeah and look if if if the results of this are nothing more than you guys good shape newre is in yeah great shape better than most you know yeah there might be a little tweak in this role and you know maybe a Subs of change over there but if if if the results are congratulations you're you're ahead of the game it it it will be time and money well spent to know that large we need to [Music] be I might not be available that last is it the fourth one two 3 4 yeah the last Monday in October I'll be coming back from a trip and I probably would not be in time to come to this meeting well again it's an important one so I I see no reason why we can't create a special it ad yeah it doesn't it does not have to be at our regular schedule meeting okay you know we can I think this is an important enough subject matter that we can schedule it at a time that everybody's available near and dear to my heart that's for sure right anything else on the comp survey good discussion thank you any other new buses other buses to discuss no do you have anything else for us I do not one is there a motion to adjourn motion second second any further discussion no we have ajour thank you