##VIDEO ID:LRiyPu6evDw## good morning everyone I'd like to welcome you to the committee of the whole work session today Tuesday November 19th at 10:31 and on our agenda today we have our minutes from our last meeting in October and then we have some guests with us today from Northshore Wast and I'm going to have our interim administrator Rowan Watkins introduce them so we have representatives from Northshore waste here to give us an update Reena and Dustin and then we also have Dan from Ellers to talk through some uh bonding options uh as well that I'll hand it over to Reena and Dustin okay well I'll start to off that Dustin um will pick up here with the more detail so the last time we talked we um said that we would go away and you you all approved um some money for us to go and get plans done which uh we've been working on literally since since you first said that um and trying to figure out how to incorporate some of the other things that you all talked about um like in the future if you wanted to move the County's recycling operations there um how how would that fit into the building so some of that required um us to really look at the the original design of the building again and some of the original goals and so we'll go over and Dustin can talk through that but basically uh we looked at that by doubling the the transfer floor space so that it was wider and more stuff could happen on that floor um that in effect affects all kinds of things so one of the things that's been slowing us down a little bit um is the Architects have been working with the state and with mpca about when you change the size of that floor what does that do for rules around fire suppression and some other things so trying to look at solutions that both keep the building and the workers safe but also keep the cost down um like a sprinkler system for example is extremely expensive for that size of a building and the City of Grand marray would not have the resources on hand you'd completely shut down water in the city if you ever sprinkled that building so you'd have to have holding ponds and big holding tanks like 70,000 gallons and so it added a lot of expense to that so there were a a lot of work has been done to create a 3-hour firewall and some other things that me already meet the state approval cuz the architect's been talking to them and working on that so once that building space was agreed to and Dustin will walk you through that some of those changes um then the rest of it can get fleshed out they've been working on those pieces already but they can't get down to where do the roads go and where does the electric go till they actually knew what that building was going to look like and get those cost estimates we're still aiming to get you a good number by the end of this year so that you can make that decision yet this year um that's what we're all working toward but that's why we don't have one today because we've been wrestling around with fire suppression basically um in addition to that um I think we also talked about you know these other transfer stations on the other ends of the county um we're prepared to talk about that a little bit today too whatever else so when we're looking at uh funding or bonding for solid waste it might you know include these parts of the conversation that's what our last conversation was about so with that I'm going to turn some of this over to to to Dustin sure sure so I think I'll address the other transfer stations to start um you know down down in tofy um there's currently a transfer station there and how I see Solid Waste working its way through kotti when this transfer station is done that there's these satellite locations throughout the county where there's some waste that's managed so everybody doesn't have to drive to granday um so the transfer station that's in tofy my goal with that is try to expand the services that are happening out there um and improve um the overall I guess I can use the term experience for the customer when they they come in there it's it's pretty tight in there it's pretty small there's a lot of things that have been happening in that transfer station for a long time semis garbage trucks demolition things being transferred back and forth and with this new transfer station the use of that transfer or that facility out there is going to change so how I see that working out there is there being multiple dumpsters out there you know four to six dumpsters where people could bring regular household garbage and then we would stage rolloffs out there that would manage demolition construction debris Furniture mattresses things like that um current L Electronics aren't being managed out there um there's not a license at that facility for that appliances so if your fridge goes out and you live in Schroeder you have to drive that to Grand Marine um and so my idea with that is to kind of clear out everything that's currently there um we did have a meeting it had to have been about a year ago with the solid waste committee for Cook County um and talk about expanding the are area of that a little bit um it would be on the the property of the the County Garage out there um and really just squaring it squaring it off where their roads and driveways are so I would say that facility would not quite double in size but maybe increase by 60 or so perc which would allow us the ability to be bringing garbage trucks and roll off trucks in there and dropping the cans to manage the waste out there um but I'm not going to be able to remember the name of the gentleman who was a commissioner in hoveland before no he was Frank Mo so Frank had approached us probably eight years ago now um about the possibility of of doing a transfer station in hoveland um and we had done some research at the time on the property of the county garage as well um for those that are familiar with it it would be just west of where the old um where the old garage building was there's kind of a wooded area there I think they also put the recycling trailer out there um of building a small transfer station facility there and when I say building leveling the land class 5 parking lot some dumpsters fence in the area um have a little Shack little office there that people can come in and and pay to dispose of their stuff have the recycling trailer be part of that as well um and then Grand Portage obviously has their own transfer station currently which we manage all the ways from it's going to come from there and come back to Grand Marine um so this is kind of a spoken Hub system that they're talking about for all of Northeast Minnesota we're kind of talking about for our County just because it's so big I think in a lot of counties with not as much of a geographical area for somebody to bring their stuff to a transfer station you're not driving 60 miles one way to drop stuff off um so in this process when we're talking about looking at funding I think now is kind of an ideal time um to address all of the the things at one time you know tofy and HOV they're not big projects like we're talking about with the regular Transfer Facility you know I think redoing the fencing at tofy probably makes sense it's falling down and it's broken and bent and things like that um expanding the area some some dirt work some class five some taking trees down um same thing in hoveland um I think you can get done for a reasonable amount of money can can you explain your relationship with the county and the tofy transfer station yes so in the past and you might be a to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this but or you as well but I believe Nelson's machine product who owned the garbage company on inofy before always just had kind of a almost like a handshake agreement to be able to to manage their Solid Waste at this Transfer Facility out there um and so when we buy Nelson Machine Products a couple of years ago we kind of got put in to this the same kind of a deal I don't think we have a a written agreement with the county um to go and pick the garbage up there um but we do uh we we do still manage that now we have had conversations about you know is it a better situation for us to just take over that transfer station and not have the county manage it cuz right now the county employs somebody that said out there and collects money every time a bag of garbage comes in there um the conversations that we've had with Land Services and in the solid way was hey is it a better situation for us to do you know a lease of the facility from from the county and us have an employe out there and just manage all of it kind of like we do in Grand marray and I see hoveland hoveland being being the same situation um so I don't know does anybody have any questions so far yes what's the square footage of the transfer station this is a fenced in area are you talking about the toy transf and what you're anticipating perhaps for I can't answer that but I can find that out is it like the size of a baseball field is it it's smaller than a baseball field I would say I would say it's 100 maybe 150 ft Square kind of about an 200 feet yeah yeah something like that and that's pretty tight in tofy but I I believe that area is going to produce at least currently a lot more solid waste than than Henwood um there's a lot of construction going on there a lot of construction lot of seasonal people so it gets overwhelmed in the summer on the weekends Y and um we're lacking another truck for cardboard even though we're making do with having it in loen I want to see two there yeah transfer station M yeah so I I think and that's why I say expanding that area a little bit um would probably make sense you know bring that semi-trailer that you're talking about for cardboard bring it into the actual facility um and maybe have one there as a backup as well um and then more garbage cans and then everything that you see that goes into the the current pit we'll call it um would go to Roll Off Dumpsters um gr Portage built a really neat thing where their dumpsters are actually below below ground so the top of the dumpster is like waist level so when you show up to get rid of demolition instead of throwing it up into a dumpster you just kind of throw it waist level right into the back of a 30 yard dumpster um so that might be something we could look at there I don't know with the elevation if it's if it's POS um I think I think one other point to consider is because there is no agreement and it really is still a County transfer station there um Dustin has some pictures the fence itself is falling apart wasn't a great fence to begin with so um at some point if you know there would probably be some Capital expense to fixing this stuff out there anyway so this may be an opportunity to add not a lot of extra money but some extra money onto this you know a bond or whatever to fix this into the future without having to think about it a different way um that's why part of the reason we're bringing it up now for this conversation the one question I would have in regards to the uh person who maintains the transfer station or is employed by the county and has um benefits so if we do away with the county involvement then how do you see that person being hired uh in terms you know I can't really answer that right now um you know we would have no problem keeping him I mean he's he's been great to work with since we've been there I can tell you that norshore Wast doesn't probably have as great a benefits as C County does um but okay that had to be worked out yeah okay well I mean even if it stayed under the county management and you did one like that to to look at this Bond because it's a count these are County projects and County facilities to improve the fencing for both safety and and improve the building space is something you would need to do anyway so it kind of makes sense if you're looking at Solid Waste projects to bundle these things together I think because it's it wouldn't have a dramatic effect on what you're paying back but it would make a big difference in terms of the management of these areas I think so I don't I don't think there has to be a conversation here here that no one's prepared for about whether that's still County run or whether it's you know but it is County owned so that's that's seems to be more the operative conversations this point and same with recycling you know we don't really know what's going to happen with that but the way the design has been changed allows for different decisions to be made in the future if you chose to or even because it's County facility maybe the county runs their operation there you know maybe there's with the still they still do their thing but however you know so I don't know the operational Logistics but I think there's some you know there's some efficiencies to be had here just looking at the facilities and so which our County owned the county recy didn't work there would you still be able to use that yes absolutely absolutely would be worth it would it be worth it to having the expanded size if we yes yeah um yeah I was just going to say the the size of the building and you'll see this on here is reconfigured the the transfer floor itself is bigger but the overall square footage of the building is the same stay the same we just move some move some move some things around yeah so the cost of the building should be similar and how I how I see being able to manage something besides demolition and solid waste um if it was recycling would be you know you're using a certain tip area for multiple things you know garbage isn't going to be there all the time um with our original tip floor we had talked about maybe having um garbage done at a certain time and demolition done at a certain time well now we've created two different tip areas one where you know maybe garbage could be done at one time and recycling could be done at another time kind of a thing um so so Dustin I think one of the things um before we um we spent time talking about the solid waste fund and the financial management plan might be helpful for us to go over to the blueprints and if you could explain to us in public what's going on you guys want to stand on this side I think this is this is the the lower area so you'll be able to see it and this set of plans might be the easiest to start with um so this is a side view of the building um you can see that the tip floor is up top here and then down below is where the trucks get get loaded so um as we work our way down here you'll be able to to see the different the different areas but currently I'm thinking most of you have probably been Transportation before um what would what would happen in this facility is everything that you see us doing outside currently at our our current facility um customers would drive in um check in an office let us know what they have to get rid of tell them this product goes here this product goes there and they'll drive their way through this door through the entire facility and drop their items off come up the other side empty there probably will be some stuff that we're going to manage offside still scrap metal being one of them there just isn't enough room in here so we probably have something another area outside to do that um and then you know if we get to the point where we can start doing composting as well I think that would be a at a different area as well so um this just shows the the first level of it I think I'll move to the second level because that is really where it shows the the tip floor area so the top here you'll see these trucks this is just showing garbage trucks pulled into the facility so customers would drive through like I said here um there would be different areas for electronics or um light bulbs paint you know things that can go in the regular garbage so the customers would drive through here and then when we're unloading our trucks for garbage it would be at the end of the day you know we'd come in we would dum the garbage we would load that um so this area would be open for customers during the day our trucks would back in this way down here if you showed up with a trailer for The demolition you know we might ask you to pull up into this parking area here and back in and dump them that way um or we do have dump trucks that come in for Stuff uh McMillan will come in with his big truck to unload stuff from different facilities uh the more commercial stuff will be coming through these doors um the semis they pull in here um they enter this way one for each one of the pits and everything just gets pushed right in now there's two cranes one on each pit here that allows to manage the waist as it goes in the truck you know when you're just pushing it can overfill the truck 2x4s or 2x sixes can get sideways in there and get everything stuck up so a small crane will just reach in there grab the stuff like almost like a pulp loader in the back of the that's what this was over here a pulp loader on the back back of a a log truck same kind of thing just that would manage the W um storing the trucks once they're full um storage of garbage is an issue with bears and birds and you know you have Tarts over the birds pick through and pull the stuff off so storing those trucks when they're full and then this area right here is is used for cleaning the trucks out um so it's a big wash bay more or less that you can wash the the trailer go and things like that and full trucks can also be stored in here so if we were ever oh and this this is a lift here for doing repairs and stuff if um we were ever in a situation where there was a snowstorm or something happened where the highway would be shut down not only can we store waste in the facility but we can also St store trucks full inside as well so we can manage a lot of waste in that facility um I know we've said this over and over in this process when we started in the beginning our goal was to try to build a facility that could manage Solid Waste in quick County for 50 years or more um as you know summer's very busy up here and this facility is going to be busy and full during the summer November not so much you know we could rollers skap probably a little bit in November building does anybody have any questions on this really interesting to see the change in the um design from the initial plans but it's really thoughtful and IT addresses all the questions we brought up so apprciate so this change in Des sign does a couple of other things too um not having that really long building the snow load on a slanted roof coming down you know and where the roads would go and managing all of those pieces kind of it does change it um and I where did the office end up the office is going to be a small satellite building no but isn't there is going to be an office in here to yeah there will be a small office shows it right here the second level so the um that that piece there we had to make sure that um well there's 88 compliance they kind of making sure that works as well so um they've been talking to everybody The Architects and Engineers of the state they're really aware of um all the different statutes and requirements and you know it's been a long conversation on fire suppression but and they work with the npca as well right they've been talking to them um so you know this once these plans are absolutely absolutely final probably early next year they have to go through a uh mpca State review that could take um I don't know what they say four to eight weeks or something depending on whatever but and a permitting process that could take yeah so there's a review and then there's also the pering process and the pering process we're hoping can happen while we building and the but the once the the plans are there there could actually in parallel to that be a bidding process because we need to like as soon as you can this spring get some shovels in the ground to start the ground work because uh of the funding with some of the funding with IB so kind of playing a lot of different things there but I think I I think that's all on track everybody knows uh how to how we can do that and if if for whatever reason we have so much snow we can't get the shovel under ground till May I think we have some Assurance from the I RB that they'll say okay right so um yeah it's pretty pretty cool though see how it's so this is two stories here or story and a half it is it's it's two stories so the tip floor is one story so it is yeah story and a half is probably a really good um description of it uh the tip floor is here and then the semis and all the storage area and workshop and everything are all on this lower area so there's a 17 ft floor change just to be able to get a semi underground right and then on top of that then this building here is 34 4 ft tall where the the tip floor is putting the the building it looks like a total of 40 45 something like that and um it's built into a hill already so some of that is taken up that way but they're part of what they're working on to is retaining walls the ground workor that needs to happen you know to make that make that change it's almost like a highway project really when you've got semis and all these different things coming in there the road construction that you have to do and the turn radiuses and in and outs and you know the signage that's involved it's it's kind of just interesting it's a big deal so the funding that we've received will take care of the architectural plans yes told any yeah or about yeah I think they're giving us a deal okay we told them this what we got so like Rea said when we were sitting over there our goal is to still to get uh a number this year um the plans will continue to be worked on and finalized through the spring um all the way up until construction you know upls here and this gets lights here things like that um so we don't need to have the plans completely done to get a number um we're just trying to get them done far far enough down the road that the construction manager is comfortable coming to us with a number other questions for the 45 foot is above umy height retirements because it's in a hillside I think in a Hillside and we still do need to the The Architects and civil people will address that with the county I I don't believe I don't believe it might be on the front of that building that you measure from I can't answer that just yeah on the back here you'll see a 34 yeah okay still yeah it's big a big building well the average between 32 and 45 is still over but yeah 34 here this is just just I don't not n be aware of that so one one other thing I'd just like to address a little bit we had initially talked about you know this long building that could have be covered in solar panels and um looking at that and not that solar is out of the question in the future but probably not on the roof because that those on the roof like that would have required somebody to be up there cleaning them off all the time right so you know there's area behind this area where they could be more mounted which you see more and more on on these kinds of buildings which would be easier to maintain so um but in this in this part of the building I don't think it was it made sense to do to do that question let's head back and we'll talk a little bit about the financial management plan and well we have Ellers on the line and so have to take a look at the solid waste fund information that we have Jan you for printing this out it's small and a little screen there we go Dan are you still with us I am all right we have uh your document up on the screen and and looking at it if you're ready to walk us through it certainly well good morning everyone as a reminder I am Dan tinter a municipal Finance adviser with Ellers and I work closely with Bruce Kimmel who apologizes that he couldn't be here uh this morning so I suppose I'm his uh very poor standin um for the presentation today we had the opportunity yesterday to chat with County staff and walk through some of the assumptions that have been built into our model uh the thing that I always preface this with is that there are just a series of assumptions at this point as we know from the presentation that the board just heard there's still um some work to be done and some cost to be finalized and maybe even some additional projects to be added to the analysis uh by way of perhaps some fence improvements um but maybe just to not bury the lead as you can see kind of in the very top box on the analysis here we are currently um projecting a property a fee by property type currently for residential at $25 and then really for non-residential or commercial industrial at $50 annually uh we have the opportunity to look at what some of the other counties in Minnesota do and we were also kind of working under the assumption that the county would prefer to have something of a fee that is a little more straight forward and not as administratively burdensome to implement there certainly are counties that have fees that are based on volume or estimated market value of the property Etc or even some combination thereof a hybrid fee but really for this analysis we really settled on just the flat annual fee by property type of course we can change that if the board is so inclined that would just take some additional analysis and um revising the projections as presented here but that's always an option but really just to help you understand kind of where we were coming from when we were setting the fees themselves perhaps to jump into the project cost uh for the this particular facility which drives most of the analysis you can see down in line 30 in that light blue we are currently have an estimated project cost of around $5.2 million that's based on an initial estimate of 5 million which we've then inflated uh by 4% to $ 2025 from there what we have done is I recognized some additional funding sources so so if we go up in that column to uh line nine you can see under intergovernmental after chatting with County staff we understand that the county has $2 million from the I RB and a $450,000 from deed and then we have assumed right above that a solid waste fee of $383,000 in change that's based on essentially multiplying the number of units in the respective categories by the annual fee to getting to the amount we've assumed that that fee would be implemented in total in 2025 and use that to size the bond now we know since we're probably in November that that may not happen on January 1st so some of these assumptions may have to change but I think ultimately this still gives you a sense of the order of magnitude and the direction the county would have to go in we can always fine-tune these assumptions when we know when the fee would be implemented the costs of the project uh and ultimately the size of the bonds from there we've assumed that whatever is is not financed by those fees in the first year and the outside funding sources would then be the bond amount so about $2.6 million would be the total cost of the bond and the principal and interest would be around $200,000 a year assuming that the bond was issued for 20 years at about 4 and A5 per. again these are just assumptions and a flat amortization we could certainly look at different structures uh and terms once we kind of graduate to that part of the process a few other assumptions to note for the board you can see in line 15 we have some costs identified in really a lavender color we're not sure at this point in time if the county would have or plan on any current expenses or essentially operating costs so we have programmed just about $100,000 annually adjusted for inflation again if this were not the case we could always reduce these amounts put them towards capital projects or otherwise perhaps even reduce the fee uh but again since these are kind of early days and we weren't exactly sure what Form and Function um the management agreement would take we did program some these costs in order to size the fee additionally if you look down in line 31 in the green color we've also assumed some placeholders for future capital projects so we planned generally in 2026 and 2027 the two years after the $5.2 million costway into the facility there wouldn't probably be much in way of capital costs uh but then thereafter we were essentially assuming that there would be some um inflated Capital costs at $100,000 in224 and then we've just program them out accordingly so all of that kind of adds up to line 26 which is that ending fund balance number and you can see that generally by the end of 2035 there's about $420,000 in the fund you may ask yourself why $420,000 or $419 in change how did we arrive at that number these projections are driven of course in part by the capital projects that are causing the need for the fee and forming the financial analysis but we also like to establish fund balance requirements just to make sure that the fund has enough operating capital in it on an annual basis and so if you look at line 28 in that gray box on the top you can see that annually we are basically recommending that the county maintain a certain amount of money in the fund and then when we structure the fee we try to make sure that the the ending fund balances over that number by some amount how much that amount is is really a decision for the county board but we really want to make sure that you have enough cash in the fund in order to make your debt service payments plan or pay for any emergencies or capital projects any changes in the county board's preference or policy uh prerogatives and perhaps most importantly since these facilities are planning to be funded entirely by the fee we want to make sure there's enough money in the the fund that the county would wouldn't necessarily have to ever dip into other funds that are supported by other funding sources namely property taxes so in the event there was ever an interruption in the fee you would still have money available to make your debt service payments on the facility so ultimately all of this financial analysis is designed to make sure that you can fund the capital projects that you can support any uh planned or expected current expenditures that you have costs available for future capital projects or current capital projects like fence replacement or Brady yesterday mentioned potentially in the future there may be an Organics expansion um that may have to be planned for so there's a little money in the fund potentially for those costs But ultimately a lot of the the fee sizing and the structure will depend on the external funding and ultimately the cost of of this project uh that's being discussed here today so those are the big moving Parts but I think the really the headline to think about is right now generally based on what we know given the assumptions that I've described the annual fee by customer type would be $25 for residential and $50 for commercial industrial um which generally looking at other counties seems to be a I would say a reasonable if not even a modest fee I don't want to certainly minimize it or be flip about it but from what we see in other communities um this would not be something that would be kind of out of the norm so that's of course a lot of information I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have about the analysis or any of the assumptions that we've made to date so any questions by board members or others Ms uh thank you um thank you Dan um want to move that microphone can you hear me loud and clear sir all right thank you um when we're talking property types these are all properties in the county um including vacant land based on the information that was provided by the county the analysis is based on the number of improved units so it wouldn't necessarily be vacant land it would be for those properties that have improvements that we would reasonably expect to produce waste the other thing to keep in mind in that regard is that we've assumed that all of the units provided in the in the data provided by the county would pay the fee many counties do have an optout procedure where you would basically have a form on the website where you someone could fill something out and then the county could make a determination about whether or not they ought to continue paying the fee but way this is currently structured is that any improved property would pay the fee thank you question R Dan then can you con confirm then that if there was four units on a single property then that would be the fee times four do we have that correct yes that would be correct so when we look at the analysis we do see that there are a number of parcels that do have multiple improved units on them and so for those parcel of the fee would just be the number of units multiplied by the fee for their their customer type Dan a question that I have is um what counties did you look at when you were looking at the possibility of annual fees uh so we had looked at uh Clay County uh St Louis County and Pine County thank you and so just perhaps for a little context Clay County was $45 per residential property um St Louis County was excuse me I don't I thought I had it up but I do not you give me just a minute must have closed it by mistake I can't get it open here was 20 was ex me $85 for the first residential senior recreational parcel and then $25 for all second residential seasonal parcels and then they had a hybrid fee where their commercial properties were based on estimated Market values that were between $80 and they estimated up to $800 for commercial and Industrial parcels and then Pine County was on on the lower end um for all improved taxable property they had a fee of $10 which they re most recently increased in 20120 thank you other questions that Commissioners have commissioner Johnson I don't know that it's for I'm thinking talking about that commercial structure and I'm thinking I get $50 a year isn't a lot but so I don't know if it's worth it but I'm just thinking the the very small businesses compared to the the large bloofin Bays or ski hill businesses I'm I'm just wondering about fairness there popped into my head as being a former small business owner and and Dan the the units like at Blue Fin Bay they're each counted correct to your knowledge um okay yep so if you had a small business that let's say was one improved um unit on one parcel they would pay $50 if you had a larger Resort that let's say had um 10 units on a parcel then they would just play P play the multiple that Rowan had described that's helpful thank so certainly certainly larger operations with more improved units on their parcel that are presumably generating more waste would pay a higher fee and we we talked a little bit about the value of a very kind of simple clean approach to it to minimize the administrative overhead of implementing a process like this um Tim Nelson director of Land Services weighed in and mentioned the a desire to have it that way as well he's seen it the other way too when they were at Clearwater right tried to design it for um you know different levels of commercial and different levels of Home Etc but they weren't building a structure like this either I think that's that's also the reason for Pines low uh $10 is they're not building a new structure like Capital this kind of capital right Dan that's my understanding as well we have not reached out to them specifically to know exactly what their fee f but I think to your point one of the dangers sometimes in comparing is we don't exactly know where folks are at and their own operations what services they provide what kind of deferred maintenance or future projects they're contemplating so it could very well be and we see this a lot where someone has a lower fee and then a few years later it's suddenly higher because they've had or are then having the conversation you're having now about investing in facilities or opting into new programs so just to clarify too um it says uh cpage two there is no page two that I'm seeing um so I don't know if there is anything on page two but it sounds like the fees are going to aside from our um other revenues with um uh the the grants we've received um from deed and and ITR the fees are going to cover our payments here yes currently at at this point in time the way the fee is currently structured unless the board were to modify it is designed to cover the debt service designed to cover a certain amount of current expenses for the facility and designed to cover some amount of future Capital cost related to the facility be that deferred maintenance or potentially an expansion at some point in time in the future and so we really were trying to make sure that the fee did did not require the use of any general property taxes which is why if you look at line seven you see all zeros right across the board there right and and I think we should point out too for our knowledge and the Public's that there are these annual fees based on the property there still is a fee for dropping off garbage um and and and or having garbage collected and all that so it's not that we're we're having these fees and then everyone as it's covered it's it's this is for the facility um paying for the facility and keeping our waste system uh operating in a sustainable fashion um and then there's still the the um the business fees too thank you other questions if we were if we were not able to uh get this established the fee for 2025 then we could could we restructure the bonds to to start the payments a year later even if we issued bonds this year yes so you would have the option to structure the first few years of the bonds to have some type of Step Up or step in to the principal payments you would still be obligated to pay a certain amount of of Interest uh but we could reduce the amounts by having lower principal perhaps in 25 excuse me in 26 and 27 and then perhaps up to kind of full a full maturity payment in 2028 but you certainly have a number of options in terms of structuring the bond so that the ongoing revenues will meet those expenditures at least in the beginning when you are ramping up the fee well I think one of the things that I really appreciate about the information that we've been given in addition to the new plan and how you've walked us through that is this addresses a huge issue that we have in the arrowhead and we know that this is critical to get done and I'm really pleased with what I'm seeing on the financial management um looking at those fees I anticipated significantly higher fees so from my viewpoint I think this is really a a solid way P intended to um approach this anything else Dustin and Reena any concluding comments you'd like to make no not really I do think it's important that we all know that those final aren't there yet you know it's just all hypothetical and our plan is to come back and great well we look forward to seeing you in the near future we want to thank you Dan and Marena and Dustin for all your work on this very important initiative thank you thank you thank you so much thanks Dan thank you enjoy the rest of your meeting I think what we'll do is take a a very short break so we can get um the blueprints here wrapped up and I we'll come back in about 10 minutes e e e e e e e e e e e e us know when are you doing the sign drafts signage drafts next sign all right well welcome back uh to our committee the whole work session we're on um and getting ready to approach items number three and four uh couple of policies signing and naming policies and this information um that is being shared today is based on something that came out of our strategic plan initiative one goal number three is um a goal that asks us to regularly review and update our policies or establish new ones where there are gaps and I've been reviewing policies from many counties throughout the state of Minnesota and have found that um we have a very small number of policies compared to some other counties some have um actually policy manuals that are three or 400 pages in length and I am not advocating that we um jump into that or dive into that we have plenty of to do but I do think it's important that we look based on our strategic plan at our policies that we regularly review them um just today we've talked about a burial policy which I didn't know about um and we talked a little bit about remote work and there's a policy around that and there are a number of other policies that we have but some that are missing and so as I started to think about the capital Improvement plan that we have thinking about deferred maintenance thinking about potential addition or um remodeling of facilities I thought we might want to start to look at a signage policy so signage in dual language is pretty common here in Cook County I think all of us have been up to ISD 166 and seen signs that are both in English and in isab and they provide numerous benefits for our community they enhance inclusivity and engagement for all the members of community and the the photo I grabbed here was just from the other day you walk up to ISD 166 and the first thing you see is welcome Buu and so that's an example of you know some welcoming language that can be included it also Fosters inclusivity and Equity demonstrating respect and recognition for our history and diversity and encourages a sense of belonging among English speakers and a shabi speakers or bilingual speakers it acknowledges their presence and their importance also really critical is that through cultural preservation we're supporting the visibility and use of indigenous language helping to preserve and promote cultural heritage and a bigger piece at least something that I always think about is educating the broader public about Linguistics and the cultural diversity of our area over hundreds hundreds and thousands of years so this is going to help make our buildings and Facilities more welcoming to all visitors and build stronger connections between different groups within our community it Fosters Community Pride celebrating our cultural and linguistic makeup the history of our community and sends a really positive me message to strengthen relationships within our community particularly with relationships with gr Portage and this particular sign is just an example um outside the nurse's office at ISD 166 where the kids were actually involved in coming up with the name the nurse's office and then that is approved by instructors that are on staff and I did have an opportunity to speak with Maria Bernett the education director at Grand Portage and she felt it would be very viable to if the county engages in some type of signage poliy where we're looking at uh bilingual signage that kids could be involved and that Eric grck and also Mr Zimmerman who's the language teacher at isdc could be involved this is a picture of the superintendent's office um they have a sign up at the top which says superintendent's office and then down below the numbered room is it shows the name in a Nish naabi and again it makes public spaces more inclusive and culturally vibrant the nice part of developing a policy is that it doesn't mean that we have to do this all at once or that's going to cost a lot of money it's something that we can do over time as signs are replaced just because of the changing nature of a facility when space is added or if there is Remodeling and recently there was some remodeling done at the High schoool Media Center and so they added in inabi a little sign next to what was already there painted on the wall naming policies um also need to be done right now because of the fact that we're working with our facilities and so we are in the process of potentially naming a building or an addition a room different grounds based on their function physical features or water bodies um but things that are practical in nature but that also might um have cultural or Community significance when I was um thinking about this um one of the areas I thought about is the harbor down in Grand marray the clarity and the functionality of some of the names that are there which provide easy navigation for our tourists that come to um um our community but you think of Harbor Park The Grand marray Recreation Area Grand marray Municipal Campground in Marina they tell you exactly what goes on there and where they're located some places have more of geographic or a cultural connection um when I drive to town every day I go past the Gunflint View and it just its name gives you a sense of its location and cultural identity and what have you that is often times buildings in the past have been named after individuals and that can create problems um naming a building after a person can lose relevance over time or invite controversy if something is discovered about that person that they didn't know when they named the facility um you know how do you manage criteria for naming a building after people when you get requests um all the time from people in the community and I think of um back to an experience I had in a school where I taught I used to teach at um Ramsey Middle School in Minneapolis and when I taught there Alexander Ramsey was the person that hung the 38 deota members down in Mano and I remember the discussion of why did we ever name a bill building after this person and that uh building went through a lengthy process of being renamed after Justice Allan pagee who uh was our first black Supreme Court Justice in Minnesota but it's an extremely timec consuming effort and um it can just avoid a lot when you don't name after people it also enhances Community Pride when we name things after our um local natural features I think of Maple Hill Cemetery the Maple Hill Church the Maple Hill fire department but it really um Fosters pride in our community and the environment and the character and as I went to the play on Sunday afternoon at 2 o' I looked at the aead Center for the Arts and thought about um that cultural significance the arrowhead um thought about everybody recognizes what part of our state that is and it really um signifies just the natural beauty and the cultural significance that we have here universality and inclusivity are part of functional names um commissioner white often talks about the Hub and what kinds of activities go on there and the Hub just represents really what that is to our community it's a center with spok folks that go out to reach many we have the grand morray Public Library it tells us the location and the function that goes on there and it avoids any kind of controversies that might arise naming let's say a library after a person it can encourage our connection with nature and that is true so often here in Cook County a facility or grounds can be named after lakes rivers forests um and just helps us to kind of connect and engage with the environment think of Superior National Golf Course so this naming approach communicates purpose and connection but reinforces a shared sense of place and Community identity and what I'd like you as Commissioners to think about is how establishing the policies laid out before you um might help us as we move forward to name buildings spaces um as we are in the process of reconfiguring Remodeling and working on all these facilities so something to think about any questions commissioner white we're focusing on the inish language and it should what about the swedes and the fins and the Norwegians that established I mean they came here they were fishing they came to Cook County in the school district um 27% at one time of the population was from Grand page and that and those students were it was effort to immerse they're in the school and this is it was a respect and it it was only right to do to do that but in this County and I'm not against doing the AJ language but then explain why the Swedish language and I and I can give you an answer in in that the ini na language is still a living language that is practiced and promoted and culturally significant more significant than to the original I'm not original so if any people that are descendants of the fishermen and the loggers I don't know how many people still speak speak in their um ancestors or their descendants do do their grandparents speak Swedish or Norwegian or anything like I don't no but that's a consideration as to why and that needs to be explained if that becomes a policy yeah and I think you did a great job of explaining it it's about that we don't see that there are individuals speaking those languages um I've tried to check a little bit with Linguistics and I'm not aware of people in Cook County that are speaking those languages still I think the big part of it is that we are also encouraging encouraging our uh anishinabi language to be taught that it's a course here in our school that it's being taught in Grand Portage um at o oski and um but I appreciate you bringing up that question well it's a question that will be asked yes absolutely commissioner and thank you for bringing this up I would say on a scale of one to 10 it's about 11 in terms of thinking about it in the new year I think it needs to be kind of talked about and absorbed but I see no I don't see any emergency kind of thing like you say you're going to name a building this is the highway department this is the courthouse this is the community center we already have names so you know just in the future yeah but I don't see any big rush and I guess I would um say I don't see a big rush I would like to have a policy in place before we start this and I have policies that we share for example with bkv so as they engaging with our community maybe there are Community focus groups we can talk about names talk about signage but I will say that I regularly get requests to name facilities after people um and I shared with um interim administrator Watkins one that I got this weekend I get about one a week from somebody who is deceased in the community and wants either a name or a facility named after them and so I feel that you know because that does occur um I would like to see a a policy in place relatively soon and until the buildings are built like um J said the buildings are identified by their function at this moment in time they have and that is perfectly appropriate absolutely and so there is nothing that would prohibit us from continuing to do that commissioner Johnson I'm going to agree with commissioner storle um this and the next policy came out of the blue for me I know there have been talk about people asking certain things get named after people and that got shut down pretty easily um I understand we need signage at each of our buildings saying what it is I think that's pretty standard practice um I'm wondering who decided which policies needed to be reviewed I we were part of the strategic planning committee and talking about going over policies to me it's more appropriate and I would agree this should be move into next next year don't rush this this is not something that needs to happen before the end of the year before we set our Levy that's kind of priority right now where we should be investing our time time and our efforts of what we need to get done but I would suggest that we have a committee I think you are absolutely right I'm seeing this and I'm like well who worked on this I didn't even know it was available I might have offered some opinions but then I see a written policy that is concerning to me that we aren't having a discussion about where is the priority of what we want to see happen and this is um my suggestion for the next board is at the January meeting when you're setting your schedules and your mission talk about what are your strategic plan what is the number one thing we want to accomplish and then how at the end of the year say how did we do um I feel that's been missing especially this this year of having us all know what's happening and what's going on so you really read my mind because I really think that at our organizational meeting next year we need to get um a couple of us together and form a committee to look at policies what are some things that we need that's the role of Commissioners and that's something we haven't in the last year really worked on um I looked at our policies and compared to what is being done in other counties um and there's website policies land and mineral guide policies uh point ointment policies Road access policies drone policies record retention um breastfeeding misconduct policies there's all kinds of things that we don't have and so I think it would really be helpful to have a group get together to take a look at these things um and determine what are some of the priorities that we have so I think that's an excellent suggestion and number 11 on the list we have budget that we have to figure out and this is a committee of the whole where we should have the opportunity to really dig into where are we going R he sent the thing he's we're down to 8.5 M well that's still three and a half from five you know we're a long ways to go and how many more meetings do we have before we have to you know say here we go and u we're running out of time we're just running out of time well we have three meetings um the next two are very close together um and so we have a lot of work to do this any other questions or comments all right well we will move on to item five Human Resources just curious would you want to have Tessa join us and that just she's been waiting do you have her number otherwise I'll give it to you okay the 952 okay this is Tessa hey Tessa this is Rowan Watton with Cook County how are you good how are you good see I got you on our speaker phone here in the committee of the whole meeting and the board's here and we're at the point in our meeting where you're on the agenda are we ready to do a presentation yep I just need one minute because I'm driving I just need to pull over um so if you just give me one minute because I didn't know when the meeting was going to be so I'm trying to get to my next meeting so just give me one minute and I will pull over and then um I can present all right sounds good maybe we can have Alison give some background information okay perfect me or Rowan to I guess both of us I I mean I guess I can start too unless you wrote like to the HR generalist or the payable structure first I think with Tessa just for her time sake I was thinking do the just flop them and do the pay table first that work um do you want me to start okay um so I believe Rowan has reached out um to Commissioners to give kind of a little um synopsis of what we're going to discuss today um but I work with Tesla with DDA to do our job description review process so we set out a time frame of a two-year of a two-year window to go through and review all of our job descriptions including the classification of those job descriptions um or those positions excuse me and so during this process um just within the last um couple of months as we're going into the reviews of some of the higher level positions including department heads and the County Administrator position um the information coming back for the review of the classifications for those positions is actually looking at uh potentially increasing the grades based on the Keystone Matrix that we are utilizing for those job descriptions again this is the matri that we've been using for all of the jobs um and there are grades 100 to a 270 on that Keystone Matrix however our current pay table um does not represent a 270 it does not have the 270 on there which is now coming into play um as kind of a being a a barrier and holding up um our processes for continuing to review uh some of our job descriptions so in talking with Rowan just talking about next steps to to really address this um um address this I suppose you could call like a missing grade on our table um so we can continue on with our job description review process is there's quite a few impacts potentially of of looking at um adding this grade um so it matches really the Keystone Matrix um goes with the process um that we are instilling for internal Equity um yeah so anything just add from the from a timeline perspective I think as Allison mentioned where we're at internally with the job description reviews where we're at with potential with moving forward with posting to higher County Administrator and then just this information coming from DDA uh as recommendations sort of a u a maintenance of our pay table um and with all the things that Tessa will talk about about including the governor salary cap removal and other things that have changed the job market that it felt appropriate for the board to hear this information from DDA uh as soon as possible and so we reached out to Tessa to provide this information to you all and yeah that's kind of as best I can frame it Tessa are you in a spot par yep I'm pared ready to go okay right Jan's going to bring your PowerPoint up on the screen too okay perfect um and we can I'll just go through the first slide that says agenda I'm just going to explain a little bit about who I am because I haven't met all of you um and I just kind of want to explain that and then we'll go through kind of like the grid Solutions so what can you do and kind of the impact of those Solutions and then like decisions that the board could make um and then answer any questions at any time so um with that I can just keep going and let me know when you guys are up and running and I just like some of this is just more DVA so they've been around uh David was a civil engineer started about 20 years ago um our HR started about eight years ago doing class and comp executive Recruitment and or studies um so that's kind of who we are as on the slide that says ongoing maintenance um you basically what we did is when we did the original market analysis it was a lot and it was a big adjustment and the board said we really want to just kind of maintain this and have minimal budget disruption look at it more frequently so part of that is annual review of wages compared to the Benchmark entities so we look at every single job um look at your classifications and your job descriptions working with the board to maintain pay philosophy so that's kind of the idea of where do we want to be within the market compensation and classification systems and then discuss Trends with the board for planning on the slide that says factors that influence the market um some of what um Rowan talked about is you know people always ask like what are you seeing in the market so the retail industry you know is paying about 20 bucks an hour entry level so that has really pushed that and we've worked worked with a lot of entities kind of 23 and 24 to make sure your minimum rates for the people are at that level um looking at other Trends you know there's an increase in turnover rates in the public sector other entities are also doing compensation studies labor shortage so when you have an opening you're not getting the number of candidates you once were um especially if it's a licensed position or needs spec specific certification um and then legislation had up until this year saying if the governor makes x amount of money no Public Employee could make more than that without an exemption so most cities and County like use that as a rule of setting their wages and we've seen that go away in legislation and because of that a lot of counties and cities are starting to pay above what they were normally paying because they can so they're kind of catching up where they may have been kind of ceilinged or stalled with their pay grid now they're kind of going up um to meet the needs of that and it's affecting leadership on the market analysis slide um and if I'm not on the same slide let me know to stop or slow down I'm assuming you guys are moving um perfect okay um basically what I wanted to just show is it has a year on the left so 23 24 and then kind of with the changes where you kind of came into the market average and maximum so again when I look at the market I'm looking at the men and the max because if your men is low you're having a hard time getting people in if your max is low you're having a hard time keeping them so in 2023 we were about 3% under and 5% under that market average 2024 we were about 7% under that but with the classification changes that um we've been going through with all of the job descriptions review that you have seen we've got it back into a good place um to be with the market so we knew when we first started we kind of created a like maybe made some grid changes but we didn't touch the classifications and we knew that was going to be an issue with compression you had a whole bunch of employees at 170 so now we're kind of going in and I'm going to say we're surgically fixing the system so we've been doing that and you can see that that all that work has fixed it to be within where the board wants to be and the next slide um is really the market analysis so we do that ongoing maintenance to make sure you have updated job descriptions make sure that the grid the compensation the wages are doing what it's designed to do maintaining the board's philosophy working every year to do some changes so you have minimal budget disruption but maintain your Market competitiveness so you can keep um retain talented employes and when there's an opening get talented employees um and the next slide just shows your 2025 pay table I think did we put the 2024 in there too or is that just in the memo just in the memo okay sorry um so that basically what that does is I just wanted to show in here you you know these grades start at 100 you go up to 27 you basically when you start you kind of go 7% and then there's an eight in there 667 and then at the top it kind of stops at that 4% between and textbook would say you should have 7 to 10% between grades you know the market isn't beautiful and it doesn't always work like it should so it's not um a normal to have some discrepancies between the percent between grades but what's happening at the top is you only have 4% and 4% which means you're kind of creating a compression um there and there isn't much difference there um in align with that um your department heads are kind of all you know within a couple grades so they're there creates some compression there as well any questions so far commissioner Mills thank you and thank you Tessa um it's been a while happy to hear your voice again um than uh is there a way we can get I'm sure there's a way could we please get um the number of employees in each grade at some point and that's not you necessarily T I'm think Alis can do that for us but that would just help think us understand the table a lot better and the impacts yeah no that totally makes sense we could totally I can work with Alison to do that um easily yep thank you yeah and the ones that Sr is identified at the top kind of the focuses anywhere between the the 240 250 the 260 right now or where most of our department heads fall usually like right in that 250 we have a couple that are less than that um most of them start at the 210 well we have one at a 210 um the records at a 210 I'm at a 220 majority of them are at 240 Molly's at 250 County administrators at 260 so most of them are falling right in didn't like where Tesla said there's a compression but we can definitely give you that information but yep that's kind of where those numbers are going to fall that helps a lot already but yeah thank you thank you um so the next slide kind of has decision point so the question really is today do we use a grade 270 so if you start on the left hand side of that Matrix it says currently the pay grid is used um to grade 260 where the County Administrator is classified um so the question there is the grade the grid I'm sorry has always had a 270 when I go down there I'm not sure if this was like created when Keystone First did the study or it came in later but ever since I've seen it it's always had a 270 you just didn't use it and it's not atypical not to use some grades so that sometimes happens um but with that even without it it's typical to add at the top to reduce wage compression so I always say when you re-calibrate your pay grid you can either go horizontally where you add to the steps and maybe take one step off add one step or you go vertically where you shift everyone uh like basically grades you move them so that their percent of changes equal so it's very typical to even add on if it wasn't created um you know there is like Rowan said I would say the timing of this isn't couldn't be more perfect because you're searching for a County Administrator we're going through the process and seeing some compression and some jobs just starting to fall below where we would like to see them um so the question really is perfect timing um but really is to maintain that competitiveness and I would say other factors that you can't control that are just attributing to this is that removal of the salary cap you know the spread does vary deg grade so some are sevens some are sixes some are fours um and we are seeing increased leadership pay throughout the counties because of that removal of the salary cap um and then the last one would be just reviewing leadership jobs and descriptions making sure they're classified where they should be um and that's part of when I looked at this you know we were talking and said I said there just seems to be compression one way of addressing it be to use that grade that was built in but not used um thank you this is commissioner Starley so we don't really have anybody above the administrator that would qualify for 270 or are we looking at somebody way down the road that would qualify for a 270 because right now we would be hiring an administrator around 260 well based on the job descriptions that um that Tess and I have completed um for some of the department heads some of the leadership roles including the County Administrator um after doing the job description just reviewing the classification um based on the Keystone Matrix and the points the County Administrator position is actually um ranked in a 270 based on points but we can't put that position there because we don't have a 270 and then subsequently some of the other department head positions descriptions that I've been holding on to um recently those are coming back scoring higher so what's happening is now some of those positions that are like a 250 260 I'm like well they can't be there because the County Administrator is at a 260 well that one's supposed to be at a 270 so that's really what spurred this conversation is all of a sudden now we kind of we have a cap that isn't supposed to be there and so we're we're at kind of this holding position um so technically the county administrative position based on the scoring Matrix that we said we would use should be added to 70 so this is why we're having this discussion of like where are we going well can we use it as a placeholder then is that the is that the end result use it as a placeholder to negotiate for a position the 270 yeah well I mean for recruiting for a County Administrator that is the discussion that we're going to have with uh Patrick Melvin and DDA for that recruiting is what is the salary range and so if if if the Keystone Matrix is saying based on points and the scale that you're using it should be at a 270 then that's where it probably should be the placeholder for determining the salary and then accordingly then all the other department level leadership positions that um are scoring higher than where they're at then could subsequently move up as well and in addition like um one of the Commissioners said we could just use it as a placeholder you you definitely you have been you haven't been using it but the issue is you can't place somebody higher than the County Administrator because of pay Equity comp worth points that's your highest comp worth job at the county so if you just said well I want to pay so and so more so we're going to move them that would cause an issue with pay Equity so pay Equity only looks at internal Equity based on Those comp forth points it doesn't look at the market so it doesn't care where you are to the market but internally it would raise a red flag and say why are you paying this position above the County Administrator so what we're saying and this kind of goes into that slide of impact of using or not using 270 um you need to make sure that you're using Pay Equity so that you pass if you don't you could lose some CGA money but you can't just arbit put a position in there and we're just I'm just saying that if you move if you use 270 like it was intended it allows the County Administrator to go there in some flexibility then when I look at those classifications because they're compressed I can't move them above um it'll allow that to make and it'll maintain Market competitiveness while also maintaining internal Equity or pay equity commissioner and I think I have a little context for why we're maybe in this predicament a little it is because when we did a comp study um James basically um put his pay aside for the rest of the organization I think at that time it was recognized he should be a 270 but he said and I think this is a didn't quote I have like I'm paid well enough um is what he felt so um I I applaud his selflessness but also it kind of puts us in a little bind here so um I think as we go forward it's real important that we have that position at the grade it's supposed to be um L we get into pay Equity um trouble and uh or we have a hard time recruiting one of the other um things that we as a board used before we hire James was just upping the steps kind like you're saying Tessa but um that only get you so far and then again if there's a different position that James is supervising then you get to trouble there so um yeah no that's a great memory because I actually was looking through some of our notes and I just found that last night so good memory ER Mills but um basically you know if you don't use 270 you have issues with Market competitiveness um you could hurt your recruitment for your County Administrator position because that position is going to be really hard to recruit and um you want to make sure you're paying them the right way um but it also can hurt Recruitment and Retention for your leadership positions um you could not use 270 so say we're going to stay at the 260 but we're going to increase the spread between that does fix some of your problems um it'll pass pay Equity it'll assist with your recruitment for the County Administrator it'll help with leadership but it won't reduce that compression because we still will have people just sitting where they're sitting um and they'll there'll be a little bit of compression using 270 I would say addresses everything it passes pay Equity I I'm sorry it should be Market competitiveness on the first one passes pay Equity assist with recruitment for County Administrator and assist for Recruitment and Retention for your leadership positions so really on the next slide is your board decision is do you use that 270 um and I would say if if the board is at a no we're kind of done and we just have to continue doing what we're doing if it's a yes the next question would be is that 4% between the grades you know sufficient or making it more like the rest of the grades at 7% we can't make any decisions today it's just but if you don't like something I offer and you have another solution you can let me know and I can run it or commissioner Mills we can get the numbers of employees where they are on those grades if there's more information you need that's kind of this too so we can pull it or show it in another way that's helpful um Levy impacts would be helpful yeah sense but yeah those numbers would be really helpful um I say I mean the the whole range both if we went to a 270 and if we did the spread up to that 7% is spread yeah yeah we we could actually run those numbers like potentially where we would see positions fall in and the impact um and movement isn't going to be you know same grade or new grade new same step it's usually there's a percent increase so we can definitely so you would know exactly the dollar impact that's a that's a great Point yeah and so I guess having that 7% would be helpful but then also it' be I think important for us to look at what it would be if we kept it at the 4% spread sure just so we those are super easy to run and we can have for you when you are ready to make a decision commissioner white commissioner white here and then what does it mean for um going forward year after year with the cost of living this is like already with the last time around it increased the Labor uh cost by more than a million to a million dollars a year and that's only going to get bigger all the it just keeps going forward or increasing so what would it be like at Tessa test with the um 4% and 7% comparisons and then what does it look like going forward like two or three years something like that how does that impact the overall budget yep lab we can do some yeah we can do some scenarios like if you left it at where it is or you moved it to I'm going to say option A 7% between option b just leaving the 4% um and I can run those numbers very quickly um and get that to you so you have um measurements to make your decisions that would be great thank you thank you um so Allison has been really working very hard on getting things up to speed with all the employees I would say we have about 125 130 employees so if we say we're going to have um 270 and then to be about a 4% spread does that mean you have to go back or is this for the future for the um spread do you have to go back and relook at everything or is this for like 25 26 yeah I would say it's probably for 25 26 and again it's only going to impact those like if we just made a 270 it would only impact the County Administrator and we don't even know what you'll bring that person in at so we don't know what that cost is the only other impact that we have on the county is if anyone moves to that 260 that isn't there right now because they would have different different earning potential the rest of the grid has been recalibrated and is doing what it's supposed to do thank you so there could potentially be impacts for 2024 um because there are jobs that potentially yep no that's okay Tessa um there are potentially still a handful a few dep department head um positions plus the county administrative position again because we're hiring um that still could see that impact in 2024 because right now I'm holding on to them until we determine what's going on so they may see movement so again could be impact starting with 2024 because I'd like to wrap up that two-year process by the end of the year if not right into the beginning of the year and then for sure going 2025 forward those the job descriptions just to kind of maybe add a little extra context to put a find a point on it the job descriptions that have already been done that commissioner stly referen those are done the way the Keystone and around the parameters that the board has set for our targets and job analysis so that's that's been done the way that the tools that we have and that the direction of the board has wanted us to do and though they fell in scores uh that they've been moved to right but where we're running into a potential issue is with those upper level director positions where either we're going to need to keep them artificially low compared to how we've been operating with the other ones or do some of the adjustments that Tessa and DDA are are recommending and so that to me there's that's why I bring it up and why I share it from a context perspective I guess is is there's a little bit of a a fairness or an equity piece in there as well as well as a kind of a upward pressure in the organization that we've already started to go down that road where we've taken people that were at 170s or 160s and move them up a couple steps following the process following the tools that we have put in place um maybe not knowing that we've put an artificial ceiling for the folks that are already at the top and it's just something that like I said at the beginning we wanted to bring to the board's attention as soon as possible and figure out how the board wants to address it Johnson yes thank you this commissioner Johnson Tesla I'm wondering how many counties do you work with that work with this Keystone Matrix scale um that's a good yeah that's a really good question um so I am personally trained in about 20 different systems and of that we have um like the other biggest one that uses uh Keystone would be uh the city of Rochester so they use it um and then I think I might I'd have to verify but I think there's um uh two other County clients that use it but I would have to verify that but that's a good question um all the classification systems you know like if you use Keystone or we have two of our own you might have heard a safe or like the hay system or state match system they're all designed pretty similarly to look at the job description and create comp Worth or internal Equity so it's based on what the job does for the organization not what the person's doing so if I come in like with a doctor I don't it doesn't matter because that's not required um but um that's a good question but they're all supposed to look similar um and then when we look at the market when we see deviations that's when I kind of say well maybe this classification isn't falling with the market because X Y or Z and that's kind of why we read leg it um this and but I can get you exact numbers I don't have that off hand yeah I would be interested in seeing those other counties and wondering sure what do they have a 270 and I'm just kind of surprised that this is the first time we heard this discussion I mean we did our market analysis we did all that other discussion and this didn't come up that I remember and I remember but I do remember when we did the Keystone study The Angst that caused amongst our employees and our organization and there was a lot of sure hesitation about it working and now I'm thinking maybe we need to start all over I don't I no you not me thank you um yeah no I don't think so so um I don't know that so to answer your question in part um the Keystone system may be used by other counties I I'd have to verify which ones but I know it is used by like Rochester but their pay grid is going to be different than yours so I'm just going to give an example so you have 100 to 270 so like 17 grades some entities only some will have 25 grades I've worked with clients that have 50 grades so the classification system is separate that tells me the comp worth the Grid or the the grades are really based on updated job descriptions internal equities so that classification but then also Market competitiveness of how the county wants to pay so I don't know that you would get your answer answered um through that because even if someone uses uh Keystone they going to have a different pay grade based on their pay philosophy they may have more grades or not if does that answer your question well it makes me think that maybe we need to research our pH philosophies and what we're using because in the talking with other Commissioners from other counties and realizing I don't can't understand what they're talking about because they have a totally different structure and it seems to be working and it doesn't seem so complicated as ours um makes me think H I wonder if we have the best system sure yeah and again I would say so I work with you know probably 20 different systems um I I think the Keystone system it it does a good job of looking at the job descriptions um there there definitely are some flaws of it um but I really always tell because I always get that question too should we use this system or this system and really it's um I would say culture like how do you explain it in some of the training to the employees so that they understand that what you're looking at but again I think it classification is only onethird of the puzzle the other two pieces is internal um and then Market competitive and any system can run really well if it's used the way it was intended and any system can run really bad if it's flawed and not running the way it was intended but we definitely can have that discussion like is this the correct system for the county um I always say if it's not completely broke let's keep going and focus on other areas but if that's something that you guys really want to look at I yeah totally we can have those conversations I'm I'm just really disappointed this is coming up at the last minute that we didn't have any heads up we went doing this whole job description reviews and and um it isn't until we get to a hiring position although we did talk about it when how many um was it 170s or 180s we had which was huge number should have been a warning sign but I guess we should have uh it would have been nice to have that information prior to that go to hire and I think like commissioner Mills mentioned we did talk about it because we talked about looking at James's position specifically the County Administrator and his was like nope I just want to focus on the rest of the organization so we kind of mentioned it and put it in a parking lot but we probably should have come back sooner versus now it's just that the timing also is you have a County Administrator if James was still here today and you weren't hiring I would still be here talking about it because it came up when I'm looking at the leadership positions in the county so we would be here regardless if James was here or not here um but to your point yeah we did slightly looked at it before but it probably wasn't enough attention and we should have brought it out of the parking lot sooner commissioner white I have a question for the board members that were here before what other uh besides Keystone how what other um assessment programs did you look at and why did you settle on Keystone we um we didn't look at any others we talked about looking at them with Tesla and basically I think she described it very well that every system is a system and so you just have to be trained in that system and familiar with that system in order to use the system and so switching systems could have some benefits but the onboarding of it and getting our staff or I guess now they're the ones that largely do it evaluate is um an additional um barrier and a hurdle so if we were to switch and so also The Grass Is Always Greener but if we were to switch systems um we would have to go through all of our job descriptions again and you know well I was just wondering how this was decided so what does DDA what is the expense to have Tess Tessa do this for us we it's it's $1,550 a year for all of the services that they provide with our job description review market analysis all of that yeah and I would say that we technically are going like your system was flawed because there were so many at 170s and that and that's why like we're going through this project process where we're looking at each job and you've seen jobs come be and I say hey I think they were undervalued here here and here and this is the reason for the change so I would say that the Keystone system was built to do what it's supposed to do but then through either lack of Maintenance or no maintenance or decisions I don't know what but it started not doing what it was intended to do so now through the job description appeal like or description process we're actually going in and surgically fixing the ones that are not where they were supposed to be so either the job description completely changed and some of them have and some of them were just way not were undervalued um and the market supports that other systems would support that so I would say that um the Keystone system you know other entities use um is a good system but it wasn't doing what it was intended to do and I don't know where that happened but I would say with this ongoing maintenance we're actually going in and tweaking it or fixing those issues so it runs the best it can run Mr St um thank you and to commissioner White's question um we've had a big turnover in HR so things happened along the way that kind of fell by the wayside so Allison is was really given this huge job to start looking at all of that along with Keystone and along with DDA so that's we're kind of starting over again I wasn't suggesting that there's a fault anywhere we justed this just I'm very open to using a different system it's just I don't think it would give as much new Advantage it would just be another burden um to try to work through and you would still be at the same question is do you have enough grades should you have a 270 even if you used any of the other 19 systems that I am trained in the classification system can only do the pointing then your weight your grades are based off those points and again um some have you know 20ies some have 25 some have 18 I have one that had 50 grades um and then you have to do that you also you know can decide on how many steps you have um so remember that the system does one piece and then kind of where you want to be to the market and that competitiveness decides the number of grades or the number of steps any other questions for t well Tessa we really appreciate you uh being with us this morning and this afternoon yeah yeah no problem and um I will follow up with uh Allison and um Rowan and get that information on the costing and the number of employees per grade um and if there's anything else that you guys have questions on or want more data let them know and I will work with them as a team and we'll get you the information you need thank you so much that will really help us as we move forward with our budgeting process and with our hiring process perfect thanks again thanks Tessa thank you so much by have a good one bye bye all right have a question yes suggestion have we considered a hiring PR no I don't think so why well we uh well just like let's let's get this are we getting value and and as I have said before I believe we have really good employees I mean it's not any but do we have the right amount of employees or do we not have enough or do we have too many employees for the services that we provide that's the question and I don't know how to get an answer to that but I would for a county our size with 5600 people now 600 it's it's on a Sovereign Nation of grand ctage who also has services for their though they we work together with that but but there are other considerations like what is the help of our County that and there are unfunded mandates and there are different things like that and and are we overstaffed I I know I always hear from Public Health and Human Services that we're underst staffed and they're overloaded and things aren't getting done so there's like we're not doing well the way we are it seems like and if it's all about funding or housing you know wage or housing then we need to do something about that and I don't we're not getting very far very quickly so if we just say okay let's see if we can figure out how to like we have to get this budget down and at this point um when I I'm not promoting cutting off our nose despite our F or cutting however that goes um the employees are important but we need to have the services for the tax pay payers and are they being delivered with or do we need more employees or do we need do we have too many employees or what what is the problem that people leave all the time I mean there's all sorts of questions in there that wasn't very straightforward but but what do the exit interviews say why do we have such a turnover well I would say um when people accept interviews it's that's something that's identified in our strategic plan um to work on um I currently do offer exit interviews to people that are leaving like I did one last week for our um dispatcher that just left um but the acceptance they're not mandatory I can't make someone do them so I would say it's about half and half when we're actually able to get information from them and people could accept or choose not to do exit interviews for their own reason that we would never know um as to why people are leaving I I mean I think there's a variety of different circumstances James for example that was completely out of his control what about the what do the exit interviews say they generally generally um there's not one consistent Trend and I think it very much depends on the position the person was in their situation outside of work I have people leave for health reasons and they love their job and would choose to stay but they have things that they have to focus on for themselves first um people leave for other job opportunities there's not a lot of room for progression and movement within public government um I've been lucky that I've been able to experience some of those movement patterns but not everyone is um able to and so they leave for those reasons um but I wouldn't say there's one overwhelming Factor as to why people believe I think stress I mean I do hear stress whether you work in County government or not I think any job can be quite stressful especially when we have open positions that um remain unfilled that the that extra work is is on the shoulders of Staff who already have um a full plate okay yeah I don't think that was a loaded question you had a lot of loaded questions I think yeah think no MH I think the picture it's very Cal very complex I don't think a hiring freeze would resolve anything I think that would make it even worse and as to whether we have too many staff are we just right are we too little I think that's and that's very hard to quantify um I think it depends on on what kind of County we want to be the culture that we want to provide the services that we want to provide do we want to provide the bare minimum do we want to be reactive versus proactive I think there's a lot of factors that go into that and turnover you would know is this common in other counties in businesses turnover just and so it might be a cult generational thing where people we tend to see that more in the um there's too many gen Z Gen Y Millennials I can't can't keep track of them um but there's definitely a shift I would say it's more um um I culturally accept um identified with I I feel like our younger staff that we tend to see I think that's not just us I think it's just um any job market we tend to see people shifting um jobs career focuses quite a bit more often than I mean we don't see the dusty Nelms or the David Eckles Much Anymore yeah certainly there's lots of counties that have turnover similar to ours um going to the AMC website and if you go on the job section you can see all postings throughout the state mhm and being in this end being in an end people can't drive to the next opportunity right you know we have the extra challenge which we know which is housing um but there are other places that have that same issue as well ours is maybe exemplified yeah and again we're competing like Tessa said with markting competitiveness um when you have you can go work at holiday or retail or work in a restaurant and earn the tips that then exceed the wages that we can pay um I think also there's a focus too of um I think people tend to live more paycheck by paycheck and what's that bottom line figure versus what are the benefits and the ability to save for retirement so I think some of those thoughts have just shifted through the generations and and so when you can just get more money at the end of the day doing some of those other job jobs less stress we can't necessarily compete for that what's up um commissioner Johnson had shared this survey recently that um I've been sharing with staff Point um by Citizens League uh wire fumer minnesotans choosing public service so anybody who's worked in public or local government and those who have not um I've been sharing in the staff newsletter but um they're saying increasingly at nearly every level of government Minnesota is facing a crisis fewer people are interested in public service so you know uh Citizens League they're doing a survey to try and find out more information about that so it's I guess that shows it's not just here you know right anyway just wanted to remind people of that if if anybody is interested in a link to the survey shoot me an email and I can send it your way but I have shared in the staff newsletter and um I think I took it myself too so y that's it thanks and we have a you know we have an example in the west end with townships we have two townships that is not full with staff you need three supervisors we have two townships that does not have that who's stepping up right now somebody you know that's a kind citizen said they'll step in for a while until there be an election but that's you know and they are paid supervisors are paid you know monthly minimum but it takes time you have a meeting you ALS we go to AMC they have their meetings that they go to twice a year and um so you know it's a different as Alison said we're in a different culture and it's been going on for a while because I remember way back when when Dan surely was the I'll fill in and be the treasure or something and one more time I'll do this and then it's like I can't anymore and so it's been ongoing I'm aware of that good discussion and more well I got the conversation for it's a good conversation it's always going on in my head so Alison we also want to talk a little bit about our recruitment for our HR generalist yes um all right so um talking budget um looking forward to 2025 also in our strategic plan we do have a strategic initiative um to let me read it here invest in a highly trained High performing and engaged Workforce and goal 2.1 is to increase our HR Staffing from one and a half FTE So currently myself full-time and Kathy Paulie's our halftime HR generalist to 2 and a half FTE so we'd be looking at adding another full-time HR generalist there if you go in and look at the Strategic plan there are a lot of things that fall onto HR um also some with HR Administration um and to do that we need to going off of not hiring freezes but um potentially add staff um we've talked about the turnover in HR over the last few years there's been two HR directors um over each serving a year and a half um that has transitioned and then I took on the role and that was kind of already in the discussion of we know there's a need to add more staff um so in the Strategic plan that the board approved um it does acknowledge that uh there is that need to increase our HR Staffing by hiring another full-time HR generalist um so I've talked with Rowan I talked to James before we left and so we've been talking about well how can we go about this cuz in an Ideal World I would love to be able to recruit someone start that process now the process from posting um to actually getting the F the person in starting their first day is typically like a month and a half so I would love it if I could begin that recruit recruitment process and have someone starting right after the first of the year in Ideal World um however discussions of like where was that person go um is coming up in the conversation because obviously we're short on space I myself took over a conference room there aren't a lot of other spaces um underutilized spaces that we could uh look at transforming and using those spaces I'm working with Rowan and I think he's having those discussions with Brooke um but what I wanted to talk with you all today is If things do fall into place and having a spot is it safe to start recruiting knowing that the position still isn't technically approved we don't have the approved budget for 2025 but we do have a strategic plan that does acknowledge the additional um HR generalist position so I can get a jump start on finding assistance for this position um I can easily say I don't have time to get to a lot of other things like policy development my job mine and Cathy's job is primarily just finished open enrollment still a lot of left to do with that and then a lot of recruitment onboarding offboarding is pretty much what this job um does most of the time so Allison we sit here we have had no discussion on our budget um Kathy is part-time three4 time half time 20 hours a week okay and you want somebody then fulltime yes would be an additional full-time but not Kathy no no no not Kathy Kathy as well she could apply Kathy could apply she's not interested in going full-time so we would keep the one and a half that we currently have and then add another full-time so there'd be three people in the department the 2.5 the 2.5 FTE this is in the new requests this is in the list of new requests commissioner Johnson yeah so um I'm finally getting to a budget discussion here again and I understand the need I'm not denying the need and I understand there were a lot of things identified in that strategic plan that was over a period of years that we want to be working on there was a lot on that plan like that designated to HR um I'm also a believer in wants versus needs identifying realizing we have a budget that we still haven't gotten down to 5% when we've told the public we're going to get to 5% um so I'm concerned about that and actually one of the things I wanted to add I did ask I think but then with everything else with James situation it probably got lost in the in the file I totally understand but I wanted to know what if instead of going to two and a half FTE in HR what if we went to two what would that cost be and then maybe go to a half at a later time do this in steps and not all at once I also wanted to know what things could be contracted out what what are we doing in HR that maybe doesn't have to be done by an employee right now we hire DDA to do certain things what else maybe that was the background questions that I kind of had wanted to know um so I am not comfortable showing up in next Tuesday's meeting and saying yes we're going to put HR ahead of all the other requests we got that's just my personal opinion we need to talked about yes we need help in and I'm not a proponent of a blanket hiring frees in all departments cuz that doesn't make sense you only have two people in that department um so I get that so I want to keep my options open but I also want discussion about where is the best place we use our money this year what can be put off to next year and if DDA is only $10,500 for all the stuff that they do that's a lot less expensive than an employee Ian I mean I'm just I know what they offer so no I know and I don't but talking about Outsourcing some of the tasks because Mom here ma uh we Outsource some legal issues or help and we you know we don't we should have a discussion about that I think uh probably James and Allison have looked at those options and come up with this um I think the recommendation for like those new requests are not all inclusive of the whole strategic plan it's a very small subset so that's already a prioritized list like he's saying we need to keep our buildings going right we need another maintenance person and also HR we don't have support we're lose another director what does that cost us what what I won't leave but I will significantly reduce the services that I can provide well I hope I don't leave well right I mean first compounds yes and we've seen it twice already right with highly skilled professionals um I have a lot of uh Faith confidence and appreciation for the work you do but you are not um infinitely your well is not infinitely so um I feel strongly about supporting the organization and the employees therein and that is largely done through HR and the work that you do and if we're not supporting HR then we're not doing that I feel the same way about our buildings if we're not doing what we should be with our buildings taking care of being proactive with them our buildings are going to come disrepair and I mean it's just this is just like it's a no-brainer to me we've I I feel like this last Tuesday we worked through uh What uh our costs were and I appreciate being able to you know Whittle it down as much as we can but at the end of the day we're going to have to hit our fund balance like and it's there and it's taxpayer money and it's there to use for the public and that's what we're doing it's not a sustainable thing but it'll get us to the next phase and we can bring the levy down to that 5% if we I mean that's an arbitrary number but if we want to stick to that number we can do that easily and still have a healthy fund balance um from what Brady said that's just using um the the onetime money it's not even you know using just fund John So speaking to that um using fund balance the financial management plan that we saw didn't have any placeholders for a potential building which is going to potentially cost million so if we are serious that we have a space problem that we need to solve and we're thinking about spending fund balance for ongoing ly expenses I want to see a placeholder I don't care if it's three years down the road you need to plug that number in and say all right what does that do to your what does that do to the taxpayer 3 years four years down the road if you're only thinking about today you're you're crying one hand behind your back you get there I'm thinking 30 years down the road is the way I'm thinking it's not maybe to the detail that you want but if you want to have a healthy um community that part down the own you got to start with the basics and have those structures of place um you got to support your children and families um you got to keep on your roads and bridges you you got to you know um help those that are most in need and that's how your your long-term Community is going to be healthy so um but our first stage is the $6 million building right and so we can get through that and then we're going to have to start looking at yes we're going to have to start looking hard other thing to notice we can bond for that and that's not free or cheap but we can do that we can't bond for a lot of those requests that are the new requests those have to just come from wey or fine balance so it's it's a complicated uh long game but uh but it's very important um I'm not I'm not disagreeing we need to look at that and we we need to have a road map but we also need to make these steps that have been identified um through our processes and through our organization um and and take those steps um in order to get anywhere otherwise um I feel like there's a lot of paralysis often times and people are frustrated why aren't things happening faster sooner um it's it's kind of the same old saying old um housing was identified a decade before but nobody was willing to be like all right we're going to throw some money at this and build something they're like nope nope we don't have the money for it and then we get to here and it's a similar story now getting ask for houss of dollars and often times like well hell maybe next year you know it's it's just how it is every year not easier but so I understand your thinking and I appreciate that I was in a meeting just yesterday uh that the subject came up about taxes and what can I afford in taxes so we do as Commissioners need to plan ahead and think ahead and not just think about oh let's provide this today but we need to think about the impact of for those who maybe struggle to live here we've got a lot of people that moved in have the money that no big deal get that there's other families that live here that maybe are on set incomes and their this this person said their assess value tripled I didn't look it up that kind of shocked me but that has an impact when your neighbors I know mine went way up when your neighbors sell for a lot of money and you haven't done a thing you and your tax rate is also going up you're paying more and some PE some people don't have the luxury to um just have more income to make and we already know there's inflation there's other pressures out there and this is where I'm saying we need to provide government services we need safe roads we need a law enforcement center we need this building we need employees but there's a point that sometimes you don't do all great things but you don't do them all today you make a plan and say we can do this now this is what we want to do next down the road and phase things in so that's why I would like to to know are there things we can contract out without hiring new more employees which is ongoing expense so Madam chair I would request that we get down to the nitty-gritty at our next board meeting we only have two meetings after that and I mean really nothing extra on the agenda other than if you have a time factor of somebody having to have an opinion or a resolution or budget we've talked about that all budget needs to be budget and then take everything that Brady's given us because he's given us things every day this past week and bring all that together because I feel like it's out there like tentacles we got to bring it together and say as commissioner Mill said look at everything that we absolutely need and then we could have some help with um the general fund and the implications of that we were given a gift from Hilt yeah and Brady kept it and I think we can easily use some of it absolutely and put some of right that's it's purpose one one thing we will have a tower issue back on our agenda because that is time we have a a list mapped out with all the remaining meetings that we have for the rest of the year that's time sensitive too yeah the in before we move on from the HR agendas I'm just curious the information that Tessa provided today and the additional information that was requested of Tessa and since we're moving forward with hiring a County Administrator is that something that the board wants to see as an agenda item on the 26th or at a later date our tentative timeline with DDA has you all interviewing with them on the 25th as well as them requesting information like our salary information and again that's I mean we have this request from a a vendor from a consultant and we wanted to get it to you I wanted to get it to you as soon as possible so that you'd have that information and to make a decision and whatever that decision is is I think it's really important for our posting um that we get that out for our County Administrator as soon as possible so I would like to see that on the agenda for our next meeting what are other Commissioners you know has budgetary implications and um I think it's important for us to to make it a decision I think after each one of us have visited on Monday we'll have a better broader understanding of what they're wanting and what we're wanting so it could go on the next agenda after that I don't know if we would be ready the next day to discuss anything but but it would be then on the December 3rd which also means that we would be holding on to other leadership job descriptions at the same time right um can you uh be more explicit with what the task is for the 26th updated pay table if we want to move to so right so Tesa kind of framed it up in three options as a recommendation and I think it's either to do nothing and continue on the way we are and post and attract a County Administrator at our current 260 and then say we're going to keep everything the same with the other department heads that are up for review and if they score higher because of Equity reasons we're not going to put them higher that that's what option one is right so you you you say you know if a director scores a 260 or a 250 we're we're going to do pay equity and keep them where they are even though they scored higher and just move forward can I just add that it's not pay Equity because we'd be treating them differently than we have the other staff and what we said we would do for our process well and and when I say p pay Equity I mean in terms of the way the compression well in the way that Tessa has defined it so that we're eligible for those funds you can't have somebody score higher than your your County Administrator that puts you in a position certain parts of the pay Equity you're saying to retain yep and or do we create a 270 and do a 4% increase above a 260 or do we create a 270 and do a 7% increase above a 260 those are the three options that that DDA put for board and want a decision on and and it it ties in and relates to dda's uh hiring for ACC accounting administrator for us and it ties into budget conversations as does what 's provided for us and potentially going forward with this but I'm just trying to figure out what the board's thought would be there how how do we want to address that and when well I thank you for clearing that up because I don't think so on the 25th those interviews are going to be what we want to see the qualities we want to see in an administrator um and I don't know that that's going to affect our decision on it the grade scale that's I mean the grade scale is the grade scale and what we're looking for an individual is is what our search involves um and so I think it should be on the Tuesday the 26th agenda because we got to make this decision um we don't make that decision basically part of the timeline that sorry I didn't mean to interrupt I was just like you know I was just going to say that part of the timeline that DDA propos that they brought forward has November 25th the meeting with all of view but it it also States in their gather salary information and review the job description so that's that's part of their timeline and the reason why I'm asking if this is something that the board wants to address on the 26th is because that's that's as close as we're going to get to do that with this information that that they brought forward so we'd be telling them you know meet with everybody hopefully tomorrow I'll give you an answer on that salary information if we don't and we kick it down the road to early December December 3rd I believe is their next regular meeting there um that has a little bit I think we could check with with Tessa or Pat um um my concern is it has a little bit of a domino effect on their their timeline all right I'm thinking out loud again all right so up until this discussion today we were okay with the 260 we were going to post for a 260 so we could still post for a 260 we might not get any candidates and and then on December 3rd we could say no let's go to a 270 I'm just saying I don't want to rush this decision unnecessarily I get it's probably better to start that way with what you want but since we were all thrown into this unexpectedly without any chance I just don't want to rush a process without making sure we've had time to think about the the pros and the cons and since we were going to originally advertise for a 270 60 to 60 sorry anyway I'm okay staying there and tell let's have our discussions on Monday let's see if we what what happens what what do we think and let's put it December 3rd we we're going to have this discussion again and decide are do we want to stay with what we're at or do we want to change it but give us some time to process and and make sure we understand all the implications cuz this is going to take some time to gather that information I'm guessing there's my out my thoughts on the cuff and I don't like to do that well I guess I'm not I'm I'm still not clear what Tessa laid out all the implications pretty well I thought in that table with all the pluses and minuses and essentially we don't go to the 270 and keep it at a 260 all of the other leadership positions are held below that 260 and there's even more compression and it's an artificial um capping of um positions which would I mean the implication is thead to more yeah so one of the things that I wrote down here I'm needing to do and check on is when we did this pace study analysis we had this we had the low-level positions some um way undervalued we had some of the high level positions way over valued I'm wondering where we're at now and I don't remember what our administrator or our auditor or I don't even know which right now off the top of my head which positions are still out there that upper level positions but I want I want to see that what did we say how far off were we on that or is this what's causing this so yeah I don't think it was overvalued it was the steps because we had a number of high level positions who have been here for 25 years and they get longevity and so their pay is much higher than say your average starting pay there but I don't think we have overpaid positions I think going through the job descriptions like they have have kind of confirmed where things should be and bumped some up and held some you know where they're at um but I could be wrong there that's just how I understanding I just remember the chart and remember were Peaks and valys yeah but so that's where I'm like I'm confused as to what the confusion is I feel like we should make a decision next Tuesday well we should certainly talk more about it and have the information for us um I'd like to make a decision Tuesday if we're not ready we're not ready but having know the agenda I think is important but then it gets in the way of the budget but this is directly related to the budget so that's why need to decide it because it has and then Allison when you post when when the position is posted and you post the range of what the salary would be is that correct for which position any position no the administrator oh well we would based on we would post it based on what TBA says yes based on the experience and the education and that the applicant has and so the I this is a question and so does what is offered to the applicant say we like this guy but he really doesn't have doesn't know how to do contracts which is absurd but you know there's something um so would we offer him a lower rate I mean instead of offering 25.75 something in I mean do we we do we offer him the the 260 rate and then if he's not if he's not if the person's not worth it we shouldn't be offering the job in the first place but you know if a person comes and they don't have what we are looking for then we should go out and try to find someone else and if that person is just everything we could dream of and then we in the conversation asking them about the pay rate what do you feel about this and in their honesty they would say seems a little low but we've always wanted to live here would we have the latitude as a board at that point to say we are adjusting this and we are thinking about adjusting the pay rate for your POS for this position so you know this yes so there's a lot of there's multiple factors involved in that so well first I haven't experienced having toos for a County Administrator and I think a lot of that will be directed um by DDA and how we post for that but thinking about other positions that we post for like recent Department level um positions we've had a lot of turnover in their so typically when we post for the positions um we post the pay range usually for for that grade for that position uh from like a step one to a step three because we try to usually stay within those first few steps when we offer for someone um when we do the negotiation for their starting wage now we have had positions I'm thinking most recently in Public Health Human Services where we were recruiting four positions where those job descriptions were going through the review process and um like the office support specialist case a so they were going through the process they were graded a 130 and then they ended up being regraded at a 140 so so we did make that clear when we were doing interviews or we had identified that specific candidate like hey disclaimer this this job is going through a job our job description review process which includes a review of the grade there is a potential that you may see uh a different wage versus what we start at because you can start at with whatever the grade is currently approved with that job description right but give the disclaimer and I we could probably do that with the County Administrator too if we want to start recruiting at the 260 say this is the starting wage but then just have that discussion with the candidate saying we're going through this process it could potentially change I think I understood yes did I answer that okay okay but I still worry I know the focus is on the county administrative position but I still worry I have a handful of department head positions that are going to be held up by this and I I worry about the the internal equity and the fairness for them too which for me is um a little bit more of the reason for the urgency in trying to resolve this um because I don't think that they should be treated differently than we've treated the other staff that have already gone through this process the one thing about going with the professional hiring company is that they sort this out so they will have candidates that will be the closest to our offering that's possible I mean that's what they've done in the past Tuesday let's all meet with our DDA on Monday and have a discussion on Tuesday not make a decision maybe but maybe we can in regards to the job description the hold up that we're having with other folks and uh and then we can decide okay we move forward or we don't yet just discuss it okay on the agenda on the agenda okay yay all right well with that um we have our minutes of our standing committees and we are we do is it four or five I don't remember what was on the list how many if they do most likely will because I've said every job is will we have