thank you everyone welcome to the monthly HR board meeting town of Nuy it is 404 all the meting to order present are D D mark lechman John Ferrar Anthony Antico ly PE thank you all uh Chief fiser is out of town uh should be rejoining us I'm sure for our next meeting have not heard anything from her relative to things happening at PD that we need to be concerned about so um we don't have minutes I think I don't think I sent them so we'll just have to postpone we'll approve uh this meeting in the prior meetings minutes when we meet again employee issues let me turn to Diane um anything that uh we should be aware of Dian comings and goings or nothing that's been brought to my attention and issues okay uh again Patty is not indic Chief Fisher excuse me has not indicated anything uh relevance of the the PD Personnel actions and job vacancies I know we've we've had a flurry of activity uh there MH um just trying to make notes of so we have um hired two full-time Communications officers that started this week with the PD right um fully trained from a neighboring community um so that's a that's a good fill for them um so we two full-time Communications officers we had a resignation of the assistant Library director uh she was out on maternity leave and has decided that she's not going to be returning to work so she's leaving this is the number two position of the library yep so she is going to be um she has resigned um she for all intents and purposes she won't be back so they'll be looking to fill that position I know they're working currently we just got the resignation last week they're trying to post the position um and get that up so that we can start the search for that um I know there's others it's just been a flurry of activity um I and typically I think people may be aware typically the the library which falls under the jurisdiction of the library Board of Trustees I believe to some degree yeah I think they have a slightly different higher in protocol um I think you typically Tracy is responsible for uh for Staffing key roles but in the case of the library uh they do that themselves and if and when they require some support to help they may call on us or as they've done in the past on Tracy but I think primarily it's the it's the library's own Board of Trustees that handles that fill so yeah um I mean there's a couple other moving parts we just found out that a person that was filling in as the assistant town clerk is going to be out for a period of time on a medical leave so she might be looking for somebody temporarily I just never experienced this amount of turnover I mean I think in the last two years I probably had as much turnover as I've had in the previous 13 I mean it's just been and again for all different reasons retirements moving to another town um not coming back to the work it's just been it's been a big flurry of activity I know that's something we have addressed from time to time in in periods of of high turnover and uh my recollection is is just to confirm what Dian just said there doesn't seem to be any Common Thread there's no connecting Link in terms of you know displeasure with what's happening with how Administration um again there have been retirements there have been folks that have gone on to to uh different careers in Private Industry in some cases it may be compensation in others it may be geography uh we again we talked about retirements um it does at least on the surface it does not seem like there's something that we could point to that would suggest that that perhaps things need to change policies procedures management um any level of U of growth in the last five years that brought a level employment circumstance minimal turnover any growth aspect to the turnover that you're facing now it's a large curve up in employment five 6 8 years past um I'm not sure I understand your question so if if reach back a decade earlier comment about more in the recent few years than your 14 years uh was there a level of growth and employment numbers throughout the departments in that period of a decade plus that might have led to the turnover facing now so if you're asking me if the positions that we had say 10 12 years ago were just sort of the standard positions and we might have one person leave or one person retire are you asking me has the town itself added positions yeah has there been an extraordinary level of growth over the last 10 or 15 years that so that the turnover now is a function not only of retirements but of growth and moving on meaning the higher the employee count the greater likelihood some people may may come and go exactly I mean I definitely see that we've added positions over the last several years two to five years you know there's been I mean just the level of work that we do now compared to what we did 8 10 years ago is is definitely increased I mean we it just seems like we do I don't know it just seems like the workload is is increased and we have had some additional like I know an example would be ACC couny you know we used to have an accountant and a clerk now we have an accountant assistant accountant a clerk um just because the workload has in I just even in my position we're we're really two lines of business now and it's it's hard to do it with two people yeah um and now you're in the recruiting business yeah so I I think the level of work the amount of work the demands from the it's just you know demands for information from us uh has definitely added to the work that we have are there any any attempt to have exit interviews with these people um or they you just take a word for it you know you don't know what maybe the problem might be Etc yeah I mean there's no one I I know that in some cases Tracy has done them historically she has yeah I'm not sure that's the case with every resonation but historically she has efforted information about circumstances uh in part I I assume to see if perhaps something could be done to change your mind but uh again I'm not aware of any any consistency in terms of the feedback she's received or to Mo modify the road that they think they have been on and they want away from this road now whatever yeah no I can think of a couple of situations where she definitely did yeah um I have one example we we onboarded someone who was in the police department um he came in and you know he worked he worked about 5 weeks and it just didn't work out um he decided to leave so that amount of work to on board someone to get them on with their benefits and then 5 weeks later to basically turn around and do the opposite is a tremendous amount of work and you're back still at square one where you don't have the employee filling that slot so and it was definitely not uh a town issue it was just I think a personal decision that this isn't going to work for my family and this is going to work for my schedule one one thing is clear and Tracy did reference this in one of our meetings a few months ago and that is uh from at least from her Vantage Point she has never seen as much movement from town to town to town as we have seen recently that you know as more and more folks are leaving municipal government moving into the private sector because of the number of opportunities they are available compensation and so forth uh many municipalities perhaps including Nuy have become more energized in reaching out to neighboring communities advertising and you know using the third party referral Network to see who might be available sometimes we win those battles sometimes we lose those battles there's more of that going on yeah as I mentioned the two fulltime communic ation officers came from a neighboring community and we're very lucky to have them and I think that's a testament to you know the opposite of of folks leaving it's you know they're coming here they want to work here they you know they're excited to be here and the exit strategy reversal is the impetus for them to come here was it a personal reference they knew somebody on the department well and who who actually recruited them um I think they were familiar with um possibly the chief and they were they were wanting to leave the community that they were in yeah okay any you other question um so just a comment being in HR um over the last you know probably five six years um the labor market has gotten so energized Mark to use your term um there's just there's a lot of talk about different positions and people are thinking wait a minute you know I can go someplace else let me check this out this might be better and not necessarily for more money although that's sometime a lot of times an issue um what do the benefits look like you know what's my commute look like you know what it's the name of the company and so there's just a lot of that I think typically it's like 30% turnover with companies and so I don't know if you've tracked you know anything here but um so I have to fill out a report every single month um to send to the Essex Regional retirement system of changes in status yep was retirement new hires changeing hours um so I have going back probably at least 2 or 3 years those monthly reports who's who's left why did they leave um who's come on board you know so I have I have that information that I've had to send have I sat down and delved into kind of an analysis to see yeah I I I mean I haven't to be honest with you have you grafted in Excel I haven't done a graft I haven't but I mean you know we have to track that we have to report that Regal so they're aware of you know separation of service if they've gone to another community so they've separated from us but they've started somewhere else they've separated uses of retirement so I do have those reports which details every month what you know basically the changes in employment yeah it's an interesting um topic you know interesting project to track where people you know who's staying who's going where are they going you know and any job that I've been in it's you know it's a real cause for conversation I guess you know why are people leaving which I know we'll get to in our other business too as far as you know right and this dub Tales nicely with the conversation we've had off and on over the last two or three months about compensation uh so let's just talk about that for a second while it's not on the agenda tonight it's just a reminder that that Tracy had asked last month if we could put a hold on that whole discussion until after the beginning of the new fiscal year which is in of a month right June 30 so I would anticipate that uh either at our next meeting which is uh fourth Monday in June or certainly if not then the meeting after we will once again start talking about that compensation survey um outside survey being done by the consultant who I think we've yet to determine last I spoke to Tracy about it she had she requested uh three proposals she had one vendor that she had gotten a proposal from she was getting two more per Mass General requirements General law requirements and I have not heard from her since then so I would anticipate certainly by our next meeting all that data should be in place and we'll find out if in fact she's she's chosen a consultant to do the uh the compensation study of of various municipality and that'll that'll help answer some of the questions you know right now it's it's anyone's guess as to you know to what extent compensation if at all is a gating Factor well well they have the capability to drill down on your studies that you've been turning over to ess6 well if they want yeah well they'll be able to look at those but they also will have the data that they've done on other communities as well they pull pull data from you get an idea of whether or not they see a trend or a a singular level or people leaving a small village which we certainly are uh for larger you know larger Zone towns and and U in cities yeah there certainly some of that and it um so I think yeah that'll I mean I'm excited to move that forward when after the first of the year Obviously good discussion thank you all okay um anything else in terms of personnel actions and job vacy I mean not that I can pick up right now okay I'm not aware of anything that is a foot regarding workplace issues ethics violations discrimination issues nothing has crossed our paths again safety issues typically we return a chief fish here but let me ask Dian if anything's happening in town hall thing that I'm aware of okay Lynn anything that you'd like to report coming from the outside in terms of covid anything new or no everything is remains in place as far as you know in the hospital environment yes yes y I mean we nothing's changed with us we're following CDC guidelines right yep I saw Dr fouchi uh in front of Congress this morning you mean Mr fouchi Mr foui Excuse me yeah not a doctor wait a minute um U she refused to address him as Doctor it was her decision yeah she yeah okay um no other business that I'm aware of is there anything else that uh folks would like to address today I have one question just a general question um Diane is the town um under the mid family leave we did not elect really okay not the mess you you had to Municipal municipalities had to make an election to do that sure we did not okay so they are allowed for maternity leave or paternity leave the 12 weeks of Family Medical the paid you know just the regular F MLA leave 12 weeks yep unpaid um so it's whether it's paid or not falls under whether or not they have AC crude time to use yep so if they have AC crude sick time and they have up to 12 weeks of pay available to them under sick time they can be paid for the FMLA leave okay um do we also um have short-term and long-term disability for our employees we offer that as an optional benefit y we just actually had our benefits fair in May which actually was was good we had more people because we've had so many new employees um we do a benefits Fair we have representatives from our insurance company we have in uh representatives from Essex Regional we have Ben um representatives from our optional insurance so we have a few companies that historically we've had afflac um Sun Life In All State um so we offer that as as an option for employees to contract with those companies as a deduction here so because it involves Hippa information um whether they go out and receive long-term short-term disability um they contract directly with the company in terms of what coverage they want their age bracket and all of that um and then we're just notified of what the deduction would be so we do offer that but it's not something that the town contributes to okay so as a so the shortterm disability and long-term disability uh uh is not a group program with afflac sunlife it is a group plan so there's no medical requirement it's an automatic enrollment I wouldn't be able to speak to that I don't I don't know how what their what their criteria is you have to elect it I you have to elect it so it's not a it's not a town contributed coverage each individual opts forward and pay a premium to a company based on their age based on whatever information they contract directly with all I'm all I'm doing is being built for it as a payroll deduction and paying those invoices y so the idea is that if we have a sick policy of for all full-time employees 10 hours per month and if you know obviously the sick time is there to be used for qualified need you know sick time for themselves doctor's appointments or or a specific family member but the idea is that you bank that sick time so that you if in the event that you need to be out for surgery or you were going to be out for maternity leave or you were out for covid that you sort of have a built-in short-term disability policy because you've got up to you can you can acrw it up to 960 hours W well short-term disability and long-term disability what percentage of the employees in the village are enrolled uh it's probably I'd say 15% 15% I mean that obviously what the traditional short-term in LTD is a is a blank 100% And hence say the the the premium load per entity is is is a function of method and in numbers um nobody's going to get guaranteed issue to 15% there not enough there's not enough undertaking there is that unusual I mean for instance the city of Boston and city of AAL uh those are all sponsored by the towns and the city and everybody's automatically enrolled oh I I'm not aware of that I don't I don't they offer short-term and long disab long-term disability to all their full-time employees at at their own at the town's expense or the city's expense I I don't know the answer to that the traditional corporate entities yeah obviously it's a an employer pay all short-term and long-term disability so if somebody has an automobile accident in his and it is permanently disabled they have no coverage if they don't elect to uh to install themselves in the program so the the only option they would have is if they were to retire through the pension system on a Disability Pension okay but the short my point with the short-term disability is if you utilize the sick policy you know obviously it's there to support employees if they need to take sick time but if you are utilizing it in a way that you are banking those funds those dollarss for sick time if you're not using 120 hours per year you've sort of got a built-in short-term disability policy at 960 hours available to you where where a more traditional corporate one would be short-term 26 weeks and then lifetime LTD as opposed to you know you using that time every single month yeah okay um it's going to take a while to bank that though you know 120 20 hours in a year six or seven years yeah but you know along the way you're banking 120 hours 3 weeks then you're 6 weeks so if you are to be out for surgery or you have to have so to your point about your question with the paid uh of family medical leave if we just we've had a couple people out recently on maternity and fraternity leave and they've utilized their recruit sick time um to pay for the the four weeks that they were out um in case of paternity leave we had somebody it was out for 4 weeks and was paid because he had the time available that he had you know accured so that's an interesting um this is an interesting conversation and I'm sure the finance the dollars have been looked at you know because I think typically STD and LTD programs are not very expensive and um so but I'm sure that the town has looked at them you know um in the past to determine whether they want to offer that to employees or not and um but you know that might be something as we're looking at the um surveys you know the comp and benefit surveys it might be something that we could kind of take a Sidetrack and and an right yeah that was going to be part of the conversation it wasn't it wasn't exclusively on ourly wages it was wages combined with other benefits that may is this all written down somewhere where I could find it the SI shortterm and long-term disability offerings um I have a benefit sheet I can I can email to everyone okay um so we've traditionally kept with the companies that we have in the past because if we have people on specific like all state or sunlife we're not going to then discontinue using them to then pick up a new carrier or do create some new because they've been on them for a while so we have the traditional ones I mean I definitely would welcome input on you know the people that we I Bean like hurting CS right well it would be I mean You' have to because you've got somebody who's contracted with somebody at a certain rate and then you're going to say well we're not going to deal with sun lifee anymore we're not going to deal with a specific vendor we're going to go to a completely new Option of optional insurances or or what have you and afflac they may be better afflac is in is in so afflac is one of our most popular they have varying degrees of different coverages um they're one of our more popular ones we now have an optional eye additional eye insurance that we offer we also have an optional um additional dental coverage that we offer but I can certainly send everyone the benefit sheet that I use when I on board so basically what I have created is when uh from the Personnel policy when I meet with A New Perspective employee I've got a summary of just kind of like the touch points on the benefits that we want to go over health insurance do they want it here's the cost here's what you acove for sick and vacation here's the longevity you know we pay longevity for 5 10 15 years so it's kind of like a summary of the things that we need to touch upon from the Personnel policy without going over 69 pages of a document with them and then in the opposite side of all the optional uh we also have Flex care spending on January 1st where people can put away money pre-tax for things like dependent care or or um health care costs we also offer um deferred compensation so if someone someone's in the pension system and they want to save a retirement above and beyond what they earn as a pension they can do that through the smart plan with the state so they can defer their compensation um up to you know a certain percentage there's some caps that you have based on where you are in your in your journey and retirement but we offer Deferred Comp we offer flexible spending we have optional insurances we have an optional eye plan we have so we have a lot of things some of those items some of those offerings are just not funded by the town and I don't know that many communities do but thinking I I can't imagine that they do Beyond you know it would require City revenues large city revenues right who do who do they go to if they if if they're overwhelm with the choice makes who do they consult with in the village to uh to get help on what do I do with all of this information how do I select so it comes to your this so the thing that I can advise people on is I don't know their personal situations I don't know their tax implications I don't know whether there's two incomes in the household or do they have coverages elsewhere do they have life insurance elsewhere I I don't advise people but if they have specific questions about the things that we offer I will sit down and explain them and and offer you know whatever information I can but I can't advise people even when it comes down to what do I file for tax withholdings what do I I don't know their personal they could have um other passive income they could have other Investments they could have a lot of other things that I just can't advise them on so I try to guide them with the information that I provide but um I I'm happy to meet with right now it's a very busy time because not only am I training someone new but I we just went through our benefits Fair in July one is our new enrollment so we're having people who change sometimes their insurance coverage coverages so we're having to affect those changes as well I think this is likely to be part of the broader conversation we'll have with Tracy uh over the next month or so as we as we kind of move forward with this compensation study being done from the outside I'm sure this will be part possible of that but the figure you had you had used before the beginning of this conversation uh you estimated around 15% of people opt for additional coverages yeah a lot of that has to do with spousal coverage too spal coverage but people also have their own personal financial consultants that they get life insurance through they get other things through like longterm and guarantee you know individual disability income yeah but I will send the benefit sheet it's two pages just when you look at it it's it's two sides and the first side is just a summary of kind of the general benefits and the second side is all the optional insurances that we offer one humorous anecdote on our roads on the weekends and in campus trips to n2c training at Fort Benning we would get on the highway to op up on the hill on the north side of the highway going east was afflac corporation which was always fun to see that there a lot of internships done with the students in the in the great state of Alabama at afflac so I will send that to everybody good okay thank you Dan appreciate that good conversation anything else on [Music] that uh no other new business that I'm aware of thoughts seeing none our next meeting is scheduled for 4 P.M on Monday June the 24th back to our regular fourth Monday of the month is that good for folks yes yep okay we'll make sure the Patty's aware of that if there's no other discussion accept a motion to adjourn I'll make the motion second second second any further discussion all in favor viour