##VIDEO ID:JpGprkZ27dM## thank you all for coming and welcome to the November meeting of the town of new human resources board it is 402 call the meeting to order uh present today are Dy Mark lechman John Ferrar anthonyo l p Patty Fisher thank you all and uh we're pleased to have joining us s stepinsky from Human Resource Services Inc uh and we're going to uh just move around the agenda a little bit today to take advantage of the fact that Sandy has been kind enough to to join us uh and the purpose of her visit today is to share some thoughts about the start of our project that we've been talking about for a number of months the compensation survey Sandy is the vendor who has been chosen by by Cy to perform the the work and uh welcome nice to have you with us thank you very much it's very nice to be here and thank you for inviting me and um and I have worked with Tracy before um so in another town yeah so I'm I'm happy to to meet with you and it's uh very nice that they have an HR board um in this town um so our com I'll just give you a real Qui um so our company is human resources Services we've been providing technical assistance to cities and towns our company for over 35 years I personally have been a municipal uh Management Consultant for 40 for over 40 years now um so we've worked in um almost every city in town in Massachusetts um and some of them a couple of times so um and we provide uh assistance in HR and general management we do a lot of comp and class work it's probably about about 70% of our work but we do other things too like policies and performance systems and um assessments HR Audits and all kinds of things from small towns like yours to big cities and um so compensation is a a big area that that we do work in and um and this these are very important studies and um you know they're important you know to be able to R attract and retain employees and to be externally competitive and uh to be seen as fair and Equitable um and uh to follow legal compliance and um you know also provide it helps also to provide good morale you want Happy employees and um and also to have some kind of um career ladders so um you know so that so it they are important a lot of people think like oh anybody could do that we could just turn throw out a survey and get data but there's a lot to it you know to be honest with you um so we went ahead and we um and interrupt me at any time and ask questions at any time because I know you have a limited time um but we have a distinct methodology that we have used successfully you know throughout um the cities and towns but it is um adjustable to whatever your needs are because every organization is different and you're organized different the form of government is different and and so forth and sometimes have a strong Chief a weak Chief a you know it's all all over the place so um so we adapt we did put together the survey instrument um and we've already reviewed all your job descriptions your your job descriptions are are good it's my understanding that um we have about uh 63 uh positions and then with the fire we're going to be looking at like toal comp so things such as um you know stip and hasm pay and night differential or weekend differential holiday P you know all the other things that they get I I don't know if we're doing that with police right just with the fire we're looking um that's what I that's what I it said in our um proposal you know that we wrote but um so with um so that's um that might be a question for Tracy yeah and then we picked the communities um we use the Department of Revenue website to um uh get a lot of good statistics and data to help us to select good comparables because the comparables you select are very important so um we looked at Boxford Essex um Georgetown Groveland Hamilton ipswitch marac Newburyport Raleigh Topsfield winham West Newbury so those are the 12 we were thinking to look at and then also we have data through the economic uh Research Institute which is our database of data that we get that gives us all kinds of data um so we have that I don't know if you've ever heard the economic research institute but they're a great uh Source you know the federal government uses everybody uses them the courts use them and um so it's a reputable uh additional Subs you know additional Benchmark you know if you will so um you know so what what we do is we send out we'll send out the survey to these uh communities actually these are just going out because we just got all the information and we needed some time to go through it and look at everything and um and this is a comp and class study but we're not um doing the um job audit in terms of paq and writing job descriptions and doing that but we are doing a job about it in the sense that we're reviewing the job descriptions but we're not your current ones but but we're not going to interview employees and update the job descriptions that that wasn't part of the um scope of services so it's not always necessary to do that if you have good job descriptions you don't need to do that quick question started sure um do you have slides for us to be following along with you um it's inter you should say that I actually had um a presentation I was going to give but then we decided um because of the time limitation that I would just walk through my own PowerPoint but I can leave you with this at the end um so yeah I can yeah um it's it's just my these are really just my own notes and things but um I I didn't know I I had like a big presentation that was like 50 slides but it was my understanding we only had like 15 minutes so I thought well I'll just bring my my notes and well we're not limited to 50 minutes it was more or less just to keep it in terms of an overview as opposed to the 50 pages seemed like it was really going to get into weeds right and we thought that really more what we were looking for was a dialogue to try to ask questions about the process and to see if there's anything that from our perspective that we could offer to help you um but she you know she offered to bring the the 50 page which you know if you want to just email me those I can email them out to the board or sure these are just uh yeah this is this one is not 50 pages but yet I can give you this it's a summarized version probably about 14 pages before we do that I just thought perhaps we' take the opportunity to go around the table to see if any of the board members had uh introductory thoughts or questions they want to ask you before you dug in so if you let me just open it up if anyone has uh questions right up front or thoughts that they wanted to share with Sandy please feel free how long does a study like this usually take from start to finish well that's a very good question and it it really it it really does depend because um and I'm not saying that you know to be um you know impolite or anything but sometimes there's a lot of give take of information and so you know if everything goes Clockwork you know you can have this done in 3 months okay but if things are dragged out in terms of you know you need time to more time to review and so forth it can drag out the process so uh for this because we don't have to write job descriptions and interview the employees um I would say feir you know three months so I hope that meets your schedule and your we don't have a schedule you don't have a schedule was just curious but it um you know sometimes they take a year this is not going to take a year I mean I can I can tell you that and and if if it took like five or six months that would be a stretch because only because of PE you know people needing time to review things and whatever and we're very respectful of that and and and sometimes you do want to do that sometimes you want to take some time to look at a draft or look at a a couple of drafts before um you know you make a uh you know before the final report comes and is that is that let's say that 3 to four month period is that predicated on the amount of time it takes to gather all this information from competitive towns bringing it back to you to have it coated and then make findings or is it is it more you know that that's a 30-day process and the rest of it is really our you know the internal mation here time there is uh you do have to allow time for chasing the data I know people are very busy these days and and they have a lot of their plate and um they know you know they know um that they benefit from participating because then they get the data back and so forth so we want to make sure we allow enough time for people to fill we have the holidays coming up now and everything which has an impact um and and then um it takes our team some time to analyze it and um to uh do a couple of you know drafts coming back and forth and and this costing out and um you know we have to rate the jobs uh because we to see how where they fall in the classification plan and um I um I'll go into that in in a little bit um but you know a lot of times there are anomalies in the data too and we might have to go back and follow up with um a community and so and do you typically get quality responses from I mean I understand you say the times's benefit because they they in turn get the same kind of data when they require but do you typically get good response company has had I mean we've been doing this for over 35 years and knock on wood I mean and we've been getting good uh data um and uh you know so uh we do and we also will have other ways to get data too we might a lot of times there's data on the websites as well Union contracts um budgets uh Personnel uh bylaws policies um sometimes the warrant will have the pay plan so there's a number of different ways uh to get the data the mmhr um used to have the Benchmark but right now I don't think do they have we've had many discussions on that and how it's not available yeah it used to be a nice that used to be a nice filler you know if we needed to you know but whatever I me we usually do our own survey and get our own data and then we share it with everyone and and um and it is you know it is publication people give it to us all different ways some people will fill out the survey other people will say Sandy here's the here's the salary and classification plan we don't have time to fill it out and and I say thank you very much and no matter what they give us we always give the data back but but not until the study's completed for you yes for HRS do you have for the process that you're offering uh an executive summary and abstract and then a sample of the the data sheet the discovery sheets and executive like do you do you have a summary of really like summarizing you know um the information oh yeah there a narrative that there's a narrative that goes along oh absolutely you'll have a report and no I mean before the process actually gets underway other words it's what HRS is promising an executive summary of what the process is an abstract description as opposed to 80 pages and then a good quality sample of the information you're goning other words the fact funer the Discover piece I can provide that yes I mean that would be a good way to start because we know wholesomely what you need and what what is what is what channels you're going to run down to uh to show us where we are well off and not so well off yeah and I I um I've already uh put together a memo I think you know where I requested some information from you guys and and I I've put together a share file where they've put things in our share file to share information but we usually will um put together that summary at the beginning to get the data from you and then um once we get the data in once we get the data in we can put together a summary for you um to uh explain at at first in a preliminary uh what the data is saying and and how you are benchmarked and and so forth and what we're finding before we get to a a final report and we' look at um you know percentiles and ranges and you know the averages and um you know and and we might want to do a blend of data and some cases if it's a hybrid job or a unique um I don't I don't mean hybrid like working remote h i mean like a job that has two components to it or um something different uh we look at the data points a lot of different ways and um and then you know how uh how you may want to age the data in the future um and then updating you know that data in the future and then we'll look at other types of uh pay sometimes as well although this is not a benefit study but we might want to ask for information regarded to um there might be stiens or fees or this might be a longevity payment um that employees receive that might be unique or different um and any other kind of educational incentive um so we would want to um so sorry that's not included in our survey any if it that's PID what what's not included our benefits like sickly vacation and things like that oh I thought it was I thought we thought we thought that was to be included that was going to be one of my questions yeah the hybrid aspect is as well yeah I have to I'd have to go back to the proposal I don't remember that um being included but I can I can go back can you do you have the prop the scope there I don't have it in I can tell you if it's if the benefits are there that which includes everything my recollection is that you don't speak specifically the benefits much but you do talk you talk about other other compensation yeah this was not to include um yeah let me see it says provide um compensation plans and um up toate Market information uh that's why we write these proposals so we know what we're doing other compensation and Workhorse data so no this does not include benefits when I think of benefits we think of you know vacation holidays sickly things like that but it might look at things like um longevity stiens bonuses fees you know and then for the uh but for the fire for the fire it's looking at total comp uh base wage stiens has pay you know Hazmat pay Associates you know educational pay differential pay holiday pay you know so for the fire we're looking a little bit uh deeper um um but um yeah that that did not include we didn't include the um the benefits for for this uh contract so that's something you could maybe if you're if you're interested in that that could be an add-on well it's a large part of Recruitment and Retention yeah people are measuring where they been where they may go and should I stop in Newbery and stay with Newbury and it's just a I spent 40 years there a benefit specialist with a guardian and and retention was a big part of what we did Recruitment and Retention for yeah middle management and executives stay bonuses and how do you put golden handcuffs on people to keep them on their job and and a lot of that has to do with a quality look at benefits and the easy question is what made you start looking to go elsewhere and then why did you leave and those are two hard questions and I I agree with that when we just did the most recent um CBA you know with the with the police Union you know one of the things that we learned is you know although there are some departments where the officers make more money like our take-home might have been you know what I mean better because we covered different benefits than the you know than the other town did and I think that that the benefits piece really matters when you're looking it pay you know at least what percent you're covering um even if it's not what are the benefits you know what I mean the percent that's being covered I think matters because there's a direct correlation to take-home pay sure when you're looking for employment yeah I mean if that's I mean we do that we do benefits I mean we do total comp type studies too I mean so it it was I to say that this was a comp in class and that we weren't going into the benefits um in some of our studies we include benefits and some we don't so but if you would like that certainly we can do it and we have experts on our team who are very uh good at analyzing that data so you just would have to tell me which benefits you would want to look at and um you know and we could you know then I could come up with a quote for that that would have to be a supplement I think we would want to do all benefits right I mean when you're looking at positions total pay um is important so that includes all benefits right so when when you say let you know what benefits to include like what would that be P or Health Vision Dental you know this well it does every Community though tells us something different so that's why I'm just asking the question because some communities want to look at all the benefits some of them want to focus on we only want to look at three these three or four that's really causing us a problem that's making us not competitive you know so that's why I want to say Obviously the if we look at all of them it it could be you know a lot more money so I just wanted to point that out a couple things yeah I think it's fair to say that in our preliminary discussions with Tracy yes uh there was some discussion about the fact that that the benefits piece would be um good to have it wasn't a must but so give us an opportunity to double back with her we understand there there may be budgetary concerns but I I think we're all of the same mind here that that it would be beneficial to us as a board if we knew how newb compared and contrasted with with similar towns not only in comstruction but also benefits packages and I'm curious the the the information you request from various towns does that typically include their benefit packages and and if so do they typically provide that to you as well as the comp stuff we have a benefit survey that we do if we're doing a benefit study and sometimes it's quite comprehensive so um but within the scope of study that was not included but certainly we can do that we can do it any way any any way you would like so um I I I just I I looked at the uh scope of services I don't see it there and um I could go back through our emails and see what our discussion but I don't remember she was very concerned about comp yeah and um and benefit and excuse me comp and class um I don't remember the benefits okay well I do know that in in previous conversations Tracy has has also shared with us uh her thinking that that benefits is a piece of the equation that would be important for us to to be aware so so let's hold on that for now and I could be misund you know I could you know no problem and Mark if if we Circle back I'd just be curious in the stream of thought between why we would do a deep dive into fire services and not um Police Services as well as far as because you know we already got that okay perfect thank you yeah another question you're saying comp and class so um comp you know obvious is obvious but then classification you're thinking you know like or exempt or non-exempt what's an FTE what's a p part-time right right exactly we would be looking at also where they fall on the grade on your grade you have a grade system we have a point factor rating system a b that we use and so we would we would use our system um for this for this so that would be and I feel like I'm being a little bit adversary and I apologize for that but I would think that classification would then um direct to you know what benefits are offered at different classifications like what what do exempts get what do nonexempt you know fulltime verus parttime and so I think that this is all part of the discussion that I think that I was expecting you know um so anyway there you go yeah that's fair y yeah I mean the the element of pretention and recruitment so Broad and hence it'd be good to see all of the discovery sheets that you give to various towns uh that allow them to take a piece of it for for early work or the the whole the whole shebang uh I mean I've always had a philosophy that uh if you're going to work with uh exit strategies uh and exit reviews and and exit interviews U better you have those in annual reviews asked the very same questions you discover a whole lot in better time instead of too late well we can do as deep of a dive as you like I mean we do everything I mean we did a total for the town of Plymouth a complete total comp and class costed it out everything benefits um cost of pension I mean I can't tell you what we did for a town and school it was huge so we can do that or we can do just a simple benefits analysis however you would like it we just need to get the direction and then I would need to add that to the cost so we we have to yeah we'd be happy to do that um we are certainly skilled and able to do it every client wants it done differently so that's the only point you know that I I wanted to uh make with with regard the thing that you need to know is we are not actuaries you know so we won't be recommending a health plan to you we won't you know we'll compare the percentages and maybe the plan costs and things like that but I won't tell you that this plan is better than that plan because we don't do that you I have another question um Diane you seem to um have some concerned look on your face um how what do you think what what are your thoughts well so my understanding I thought um and I do see here that it does say and other compensation so I would think that longevity and any sort of certificate of stiens yes that would be included yes yes my probably facial expression is when I as the benefits administrator you know I'm not the personnel chair but in terms of what I see I mean the town of Newbury in terms of its benefits the biggest aspect of it would be the health insurance the cost of the health insurance and what the split is um because that's really what impacts the take-home pay um and and and the biggest cost of what any sort of um benefit would be I mean aside from that one benefit sick vacation I mean that's I would think that that's not as driving of a force if of someone choosing one job over the other just in my personal experience when people are when we're interviewing someone and they're reaching out to me to say can I go over the benefits with you 95% of the time that's how much is your health insurance and what is the percentage it's not how many PTO days am I going to have off or do you offer optional insurances that the town doesn't you know contribute towards what they're doing it as a payroll deduction I mean any sort of benefits that would be of any significant impact to someone taking a job it it primarily is the health insurance I mean I'm I'm going to throw it back to you I what other benefits would you see as a driving force I mean do you PTO and holidays you know we just got our holiday schedule and I think we have 11 holidays and um you know in another job I've seen five holidays you know so it's pretty exciting to get the you know the information coming out every year 11 holidays but we also fall under the state I mean there's certain holidays we have I think 11 12 yeah but PTO is that and PTO I think is just I mean I would I just have never had someone say to me how many sick days am I going to have or how many vacation you know it's standard two weeks 3 weeks four weeks um we have a very lucrative sick policy I think if you look across the board our Our Sick policy is very lucrative okay so those are the things that I would want to um look at as we're doing total pay um and you know as we're we're um bringing on younger employees you know uh PTO is important to them you know um how much time off do I get you know gen Z's what's yeah is is the ability for remote workers in office work that kind yeah yeah I mean there is remote works are important add to that um elements of instability at home U Child Care uh somebody who is all of a sudden a caregiver and the flexibility to uh for the town to allow them to to work with that instability and continue on U those are all things to measure and to and to offer so I have a question when you do do an analysis of benefits such as health insurance vacation how do you then incorporate that into the total study and how do you how does that how do you factor that in if you will to the comp study as well yeah well we use um the salary data the actual salary data the base wages to construct to the compensation plan but that information and the benefits is helpful um so um there's two different ways that we can provide it it can either be costed out where it actually has a value that would be a separate thing that we do a separate analysis or it could just be provided to you as comparison you know how how Newbury would compare to all the comparable communities with regard to sick leave PTO um you know health and so forth so that way when you're you know looking at at an employee you can say you know this is this is your base wage on the salary plan but these are all the other benefits that you get and this is you know how we stand you know where we offer 7 I don't know what your health split is but say you offer 75% you can say well maybe our range maybe our pay range might be you know at the median and not at the 75th percentile but we have great health insurance you know we're at the 75th so one kind of like plays off the other and that's how we use it but um there's two different ways ways to do it I mean we could just provide you the comparison statistics or we can actually put a value on it and cost it out and obviously that would be a lot more involved you know in the analysis um but I can say um you know you know it sounds like you know you have to decide as a group what what where you want to go with with the benefits but if you just if health insurance like Diane said is really the most important thing that's an easy thing for us to quantify and gather the data and get it and that we could include in this without any additional cost or anything that we could include but if it's a deeper dive in the benefits you know we would really uh have to you know look re redo the scope and redo the price and and do all of that so um yeah I'm kind of I'm surprised to hear um you come in and just say class and you know because like you were just saying health insurance you know if you're looking at two jobs you know the same job in a couple of different towns you know if if there's a you know not much of a difference in Pay but then how does how do the benefits stack up to sway somebody to come this way or to go that way you know and is this enough to retain an employee so um yeah well the municipal culture is different and sometimes it's depending on the community sometimes it's heavily unionized and those are already established the benefits so um whatever you know and I'm not saying it's I don't know here if you're how heavily unionized you are but you know I would I would like to say that going back to my initial statement is we have a lot of experience but every study is different and every analysis if you take one report that we do from one to so the methodology is flexible so um you know if you want to add the benefits we can do that we do that all the time so so that's that so that that we gave you a price and a quote and everything for what we thought was going to be a comp and class strictly um but we can add the health definitely we can add the um health and um well we know we that as a minimum then you know vision and dental is pretty low cost anyway so that's not a huge deal but um like what about retirement um you know what kind of a match you know and then there is I me retirement is a contribution to the pension system there's no match there's no it's I mean you have so anyway so you know those those are the kind of things that me sitting at this table if I'm looking at at a survey you know that would be very helpful for me to see right in terms of what the total pay oh yeah you know what kind of retirement plan oh you know it's Municipal funded it's whatever you know it's it's a 100% employer but anyway okay Sy why don't you give us an opportunity to discuss this with Tracy next week when she's back and then sure and then uh she can quickly get back to you and talk about how if at all we want to rejig the original proposal yeah and what I could do is send a sample of a benefit survey that we have done for other I could give that to di just so you can have an idea of you know that kind of work that we do too so you so you can see but I would like to get um the comp survey out um so I'm going to get this out you know this is going out right away I think it's already out the door to be honest with you get other town to these towns right but if we if you want to do the benefits too that could be another survey that we we sent to them uh followup survey you know on the benefits piece so stay tuned on that okay thank you thank you yeah um this is has the comp survey been approved um to go out yes yes yep the survey itself and the communities to which it's being sent yeah I got I heard from TR Tracy yeah okay yeah Tony do you have anything have we taking over the conversation and not giving you a chance to speak no that you certainly have no I'm just again was my my understanding that what you're talking about now the benefits are absolutely part of it you want to you know Somebody's Knocking you to do I'd like to work here whatever what are you offering me you know whatever it's it's comes down to money you know Etc ETA Etc so that's very very important M money in total pay right total you know what what about benefits the benefits have they have their monetary value yes plus it also has olical value you to as well so but but there's a there is a difference between a comp and class study and a total pce sure we they are totally different so I just want we can do a total pay we can do that if you want yeah okay the question I would have is recruiting in retention U the if there's a if there's a departure that's expensive it's a distraction for people who have to go in a reschedule or relook at a job description and then find the talent outside that's time and expense I don't know how much I don't pretend to know uh what percentage of dollar ratio for the town of nuur is but do you have any coaching elements or white paper help where you talk to people about uh exit interviews and how they should be conducted so that you can drill down and find out why people are leaving the door of course we do we do we do exit interviews we write policies we also do turnover studies and we do um you know we we have uh templates that we use to cost out what it would cost for turnout but that's none of that is part of the scope of services here but we do do that kind of work but it would be important to look at what that is and so that we could measure it as something of value and then the instruction that goes with uh uh as getting Way Beyond the scope of services now we're here I mean we're not going to do exit interviews for you I understand that but a coaching element other words the uh the the character of how we could be coached on how to do that internally and in in My Philosophy is the exit interview is better given same questions whether it be a dozen or 50 uh during performance interviews smoke it out before it uh before it happens yeah we do do that if that's I'm I'm going to recommend we we try to narrow the focus of the conversations I have a specific question to give that to your point okay um I have a question so if you're doing a class andc what does the classification part of your analysis do for us that so for example we classify jobs in accordance with our classification plan as they need to be updated as the job changes as roles change so I'm curious what what is your your classification aspect of the study doing where going to look to see if if um the jobs are grouped correctly um if a position needs to be up or down um we may come up with a whole new classification um plan uh for you um so we we will look at the grading that you have and make sure you have enough grades to carry the positions and make sure you don't have compression and that sort of thing because that's what happens over time um excuse me is that something that Tracy has asked you to do or is that something that is hand in glove with every comp survey you do um it's hand in glove with every comp and class I me we're doing a a comp and class study but was that a Tracy's request or um that was part of the scope of services but she said the emphasis was more on comp but of course she said to look at that as well you can't do it you can't you can't look at just the external Market without looking at the internal value of the jobs too you need to look at the external value as well as the internal value you also have to look at things like pay Equity too so there might be a situation where certain jobs may have to be realigned it may turn out that your classification plan is perfectly fine um and you know if you like us to use your rating system we could uh but we have our own we could we could use both and I could show you the difference um ours gets into a lot more depth um but if you want to use yours we can certainly use your system it's not a problem the reason I ask is and I'm curious as to whether anyone else felt the same way in looking at the original proposal in three or four different spots on the proposal you talk about internal pay Equity yes uh and I'm curious as to how other feel about this I never consider that to be part of the equation for this project it's it's an interesting subject matter but I thought that the that the um the need here was to really look at well let me set back a number of months ago the reason this has come up at all is because new has had its turn in the barrel over the past year yeah I think it's fair to say that for many many years both here in town hall in the PD fire department um Nui was blessed has been blessed with great employees long-term employees loyal employees uh who love working for uh and in the past 12 months give or take we've had our share of turnover in some cases retirement in some cases losing to a competitive Municipal environment uh in still other cases people leaving municipal government all together going to Private Industry you know the the reasons are as varied as there are employees who have left but I don't think that we've we've heard a lot of chatter about or have been concerned about internal pay equity and that's why I'm curious as to what piece of this project that you're looking at is comp related versus classification internal Equity related because I'm only speaking for myself here I didn't think that that was a major it was going to be a major focus of this study so other thoughts on that I I I do think it's an important piece and um Diane put your ear muffs on because when we did like her reclassification you know the reclassification for her Department's jobs right do think um I don't think I had the vocabulary for what we call it but I think that that was a piece of at least my internal thinking of knowing how much somebody does how you how is somebody rating in the same area as something or someone else especially for those of us who wear multiple hats is what where we seem to kind of keep coming back to whether they're in the job descriptions or not you know what I mean many of us wear multip hats um so I've like I said I don't think I had the the verbiage to to know what it was called but I think it's a piece that I definitely think about when we look at classifications and I look at where are they falling and who who are they falling next to um I think it is an important piece it's actually part of Massachusetts state law it's called the Massachusetts employment Pay Act okay so the meepa law so so while we're not doing a comprehensive meepa study we have to take into consider pay Equity when we do paying class study that's a state law so um so that's why we do it um so um it doesn't mean that we're going to like do a huge deep you know meepa dive study but we have to consider if we see something that just doesn't seem right you know we might uh consider that you know in our in our analysis so we're going to ask for information about salary for every employee when they were hired you know what their gender is um when they were last reclassified when they got a merit increase I'm going to ask for that information so I'm going to look at that as I'm putting together a new pay class plan so you have to do that Diane don't we do that internally anyway periodically what um look at salaries you know like for whatever position don't we look at pay equity for the job code you know like with time and position um background education you know all of those things it's based solely when we have a a classification if there's a change and if there's a change in the classification or if there's more responsibility or if the job hasn't been rated in a while which is what happened with the treasure collector and the assistant treasure collector position and we probably have a number of others that haven't been reviewed but to that point the rating that was taken 12 years ago on let's just say the assistant treasure collector position the role and the responsibilities and the environment in which that job is being conducted now is very different than it was 12 years ago so that's where you catch the reclassification or the bump in you know the salary range um but we're not constantly looking at pay Equity I mean we it's done through the classification through the process we usually do it during the cost out process to see you know what how how things look just to give it a double look I've looked at it frequently you know I guess when somebody comes in you pull the um others in that job the incumbents and just so like the one that you said was 12 years ago the last time it was reviewed how many people are in that position I don't have my book with me but there was I mean a lot of them have been updated just because we've had added responsibilities or um the role has morphed into you know something a little bit different the job descriptions changed so therefore the classification is done and then we look at at that point we see where it fits within the grid and that's where we would get an equity pay increase see as professionals if we touch your paying class plan okay I'm looking at even if I don't make any changes I have to ethically look at that I also ethically have to look at flsa exempt and not so those are like part and parcel you know that I we just do automatically it's it's it's professional we have to do that so that's that's part of this um but with regard to the benefits I the other piece so we'll we'll do look at the class we'll do the comp probably update your salary schedule collect the data with regard to the benefits um we'll include the health um benefits if you want a real deep dive into your benefits um you you just have to get back to me and let me know and we'll put a custom survey for you get out and and I can cost it out for you it won't be exorbitant you know I can promise you that but you know I do want to give you a product that's going to be meaningful to you and that you can work with so I have something really good that I can share with Diane and if that's the kind of thing you want to do then well yeah that's why it was important for us to invite you here today because you know we were all making I think certain assumptions about what this might look like and feir to say that we may not have all been on the same page and that's why it's important to have you there before we kick off in Earnest to make sure that we understand what you and Tracy have been talking about and also to share with you whatever other concerns observations ideas we have right and we'll get there it's a question making sure that everybody well this survey is already out this one so you just have to let me know if you want the other one to go out um but it it is um you know it's the kind of thing while the focus may not be so much classification and more compensation you know we can't put a blinders to classification because they're like part you know they're they're together I'll be fair to say that I didn't think that I didn't understand that to be part of it but I understand now the importance of it yeah we have we have to look at it danian what didn't you think was going to be part of it I didn't know there was going to be a review of the classification um um system that we use here and and that she's going to be conducting her own review of all of our job descriptions to see how accurate we are as a board rating those and how they fall yeah I can use your rating system we don't have to use ours I mean we have a very good ratings but if you I mean if you like to use yours yours looks good it's very simple you know I saw it we can we can use yours that's okay there's a piece of me that says if it's not broken don't fix it um well there's a piece of me that says how do we know it's not broken if we don't have someone look at it y you know what I mean like exactly just because that's what we've always done doesn't mean you know that it's right I I think there's a part of it that is exciting to think you know to hear no that's a great rating system and you you you match the same as we did or no that system's a little simple and Antiquated let's update that a little bit I you know I think it's I think if we're looking at it let's look at it all good point so we are looking at job descriptions she has all the I have them all I'm just going to I'm not rewriting their job descriptions so if you see a job description and you think it's way out of line with what you have seen in other surveys um or in other entities you're going to you're going to bring that forward right or are you going to just say oh well you know this is this is their job or you trying to make sure that you're comparing Apples to Apples so we comp in Apples to Apples that's why I needed the job descriptions to so when I get the data in and I start calling the communities you know I can make sure that we're comparing Apples to Apples but it's it's not a uh a a job analysis where you um have a paq position analysis questionnaire and you interview the employee and you update their job description that's not what this is so I cannot arbitrarily update your job description without going through through a a professional process to do that but what I understood you to say earlier was that if you have a situation where a job within the town of Newbery because we are a small community yeah has two different facets to it yes that when you look at that comparable job in a bigger community and there's only one facet of that job that you're taking that into consideration when you're analyzing the compensation absolutely yes that's what I understood her to say using the job descriptions to help me rate the jobs too for the for the and we have talked about that the fact that some jobs here are multi multifaceted because we're a small community MH yes so yes yep you said it so correctly that was um thoughts questions was there anything else that you wanted to cover with us before um no I think this is going I think you know where I'm going to need some guidance at some point is how competitive you're going to want to be to the market you know do you want you know and you really don't have to tell me that now but you know um when you see the data you'll probably want to have input at that point um do you want to be at the 75th percentile the 90th percentile you know and also you know what do you want your salary plan to be is are people going to be moving on steps or ranges are you going to have quartiles a mid a mid and a Max you know and do you do you have something that it ties into a merit system you know so I don't know if you have a performance system or not I wonder Mark is is that an us decision or a Tracy decision because all of that impacts the overall budget or joint discussion with all yeah I think I think our role is to let Tracy know what we think as a board would be beneficial which she'll take it from there determine you know from a budgetary so those will be things that you'll coming be coming back and asking for yeah okay perfect and then uh you know what the Coler adjustments will be going forward and and that sort of thing so the way you know that our methodology works I just wanted to to mention that that when we constructed a new um salary plan you know the um you know how how people move from minimum to maximum has to do with the employee so um whether that be longevity or performance or whatever method that you use but the whole grid should be updated you know annually for cost of living every every every year so the the the grid itself is you know should match the market always but how an employee moves within from minimum to maximum is more has to do with with the employee in so yeah I think our grid has typically been adjusted for just the Coler adjustment I don't think it's been to Market because how do you quantify what the market is it's been a Coler adjustment so when we do our compensation the the compensation um grid that shows the mid M mid medium and Max that's just been updated by the cola adjustment by the cola yeah okay but you do I mean we look at the CPI and things like that too so we may find out that the town is well ahead of of any and every curve you you may you may take it all back you you may find that out um typically what we find is um you know some need a a some people are happy you know they get a big increase some people are not happy they get no increase and then everybody else just kind of falls in the middle that's T typically how we uh find out it you know but you know do you have have you had a lot of turnover here I mean I know you you said it's been yeah yeah so that's sometimes an indicator um it's not always about the finances it's about culture about U cohesion between the manager and the individual it's I mean there are dozens of questions to ask in an exit interview and we can find out with some certainty why somebody left the building why they went somewhere else and it's not always going to be compensation it's going to have to do with culture camaraderie uh self-fulfillment uh the chance for uh vertical growth or as we've heard at the table the hybrid this a small town uh you could like the chief said we're four hats at a time and get paid properly because of that uh but for fillment and advancement education all of the above location location you know just geography is an enormous issue and U and to bring quality people into work uh um life you know life work balance sometimes all the look in any population of 40 or 50 or 60 employees things can get magnified when you have a run on the bank yeah right when three people leaving within 3 months let's say but I said I think it's fair to assume that we have a little of everything here you know there are folks who've left for financial considerations for geography um perhaps based on relationship with with with a team all about yeah we're no we're no different uh what we're just trying to do is get a handle on you know you know how are we competitive um Define that as you may uh are we putting our best foot forward uh and if the result of the survey suggests that someone mentioned a moment ago in pretty good shape and it'll it'll be I think money well spent yeah so I I think um I I I think that that's a a good you know assessment of it um and you know I I um I I I'm I'm I'm thinking that you you want more of a total overview of comp and benefits that's what it sounded like that's to me be to assume that around the table that's what we were hoping for that's yeah that's what I thought it was yeah so we'll discuss that with Tracy and I'll back with you yeah okay um all right well you're G to get that to Diane I think so that she can distribute it right yeah this is just these are just my notes the simple I mean I can um I can yeah I can get this back to her but I maybe I'm thinking I can give you the bigger version people like the bigger version cuz it talks about turnover and everything so sure that's what I can do so I'm happy to share that with you um but thank you thank you very much you're welcome thank you a good stop we appreciate your Jo us tonight well anytime to reach out to me and um you know Diane has my contact information and um she's going to be my number one contact so uh any questions you have and um I don't you know I don't carry so many business cards anymore because everything when you send me the um the slides I'll forward it with your contact information to but we have work through me with any questions but we want to make sure we give you what you're going to be you know that's going to be useful to you that that you can use so all right thank you for coming pleasure to meet you thank you I I think we're I think we're we're off to a great start between the compens the classification part of it the compensation I think it's just how much of a dive we need to go into the benefits yeah well thank you it was such a pleasure to meet you thank you very much have a happy holiday all right oh yeah Happy Thanksgiving bye bye bye bye thank you so much you're welcome bye okay before we get on to our regular agenda any post script here any want to share along pass along to Tracy or that we haven't already discussed think what we've discussed I think satisfi my questions H H you giv me the uh the side ey um and I I made my comments that um that that was not what I expected from start to finish and so you know we'll just see what comes back so you know I feel like I'm being um adversarial and that's the second time that I said it but you know when somebody comes in to do a presentation I would just expect okay here's the presentation you know Nine Pages nine slides or something well you she did to In fairness she did ask me if she could present a PowerPoint presentation uhhuh of 50 pages yeah we don't need that and I said I think what would be helpful and what what I gleaned from the board and what we had talked about was keeping it simple to the process and where she is in the process and what data she'd be requesting and sort of how it works and also to have her have an opportunity to answer questions y sure and for us to offer anything that she would need so in all fairness that's how I sort of guided what she would be presenting um but thank you I I expected somebody to come in from a company like that and have nine nine slides you know I mean so her introduction and granted we seen you know a little bit of an email and things like that what is her company you know like who is she what's her name spell it out on a a title slide you know and just a more she used the word professional a number of times but just you know because this is costing us money right we're she's a consultant for us at this point and um and so what is this look like what's your name what's your company you know just an outline of what the project is going to be for us you know so that I can you know I mean this is this is a volunteer board right except for you no we're all a volunteer this is volunteered time you know so let's make it worth our while you know and we don't sit in those office offes in the town offices and look at this stuff every day you know so just let's let's get it on paper and let me see what it is exactly you're bringing forward you know and that's much more what I expected and so I was disappointed right from the start and um and then to hear that benefits weren't included um that was a disappointment and we all waited on that one but um yeah and and um there were a couple of things that were a little bit of a surprise like the the comp um requests have already gone out and I guess that's already been approved we've already said yes on that and um okay that's already been sent out and now it's going to take three or four months and the holidays and things I don't know I just was um expecting a little bit more um professionalism for in project management in presentation as outlined in their in their initial communicate at the time that would have been very very good but it wasn't she was I I wonder how much of that and this is just Devil's Advocate I feel like if we were um interviewing her for the job my expectation would have been very different knowing that it's already been contracted you know what I mean so like again knowing that it's already been contracted you know switched my kind of mindset to be like well then this is more of a meet and and what are you looking for and you know is the scope what you guys thought the scope would be and before this gets too big let's make sure we're we're kind of all on the same page so but I 100% agree with you if we were in the decision-making process of which company okay I I would have expect that would have been a very disappointing um intro intro in would have rated differently on how I feel when she left the room learning we're already in this with them you know what I mean and now she's she's meeting with us you know what I mean to make sure we're on the same page with the town I think that's a great point I I think given that it's even more important for me to get to know her yeah and to get to know our project CU now we've bought it yeah you know so let us see what it is you know who are you what is your company what are you what are you giving us we bought this and I forget how much we we're paying for this at this point but um yeah so even to your point you know this isn't this is a meet and greet because we've already um we've already again if I say you look at at at this initial um what do you want to call presentation that we got U if if she had listed and spent some time with every single area of these two pages it would have been fine I think we jumped in on her though I think she was presenting and we said let's jump in and if the has any questions and we kind of took it in that direction and I think you know what I mean I think we might have derailed what her singular presentation was with no handouts to us you know what I mean but she could have circled back quickly and said you know okay got it you know but let me let me go through my presentation and you know it's going to refer back to the uh email that I've given you you know outlining what I what my company is going to do for you let let me present this and then you know I'll F questions as we go along but I I mean we putting the presentation aside for just because that's legit but putting that aside you know what I take from this conversation is that clearly there's there's a disconnect between I think what our expectations were and what I think Tracy and Sandy spoke about in terms of scope yes I I think we expected broader scope at least as it relates to the benefits piece mhm and I think she walked away from the conversations with Tracy thinking more scope in internal Equity than I was expecting I don't want to speak for anybody else uh so I I think that you know I don't think the why is quite connected and that's again why you have an introductory conversation uh so now we can reset you know expectations need to talk to Tracy to make sure that that you know we're not at odds with what her expectation was right in terms of the benefits piece because I think we're all clear on that yeah um has has Tracy used this company before I think she has she did many many years ago in maram was Westy yeah but I don't know what the extent of the conversation you know what what the project was and she was the CFO there right she was financed yeah yeah yeah well Tracy's background is originally financed yeah yeah so just you know she's um in a different position obviously but anyway so presentation asideis for sure yeah Diane what do you think yeah I mean I was surprised I thought the benefits aspect and again when I say benefits I'm really interested in the health insurance I know because we're I mean a municipality is a different thing than the private sector yeah sure um municipalities are known for two weeks vacation you get a longevity stien you get a certification stien in certain positions and and there's not a lot of pension it's you're you're contributing to it yourself um so we contribute to our to our own pension system it's not like there's a match from the town yeah so is every town that's in a municipality every municipality does everyone have the exact same time off holidays stiens for whatever I would say if you looked at holidays probably 95% 99% they're a standard holiday list a lot of them are state and federal mated yeah um in terms of longevity pay I would say probably you're close if I mean those are very insignificant those would be easy to pull up for a benefit survey yeah mean know but she said she was going to include the stiens and the because that's part of the overall compensation that we clarified so that is going to be included so to have that as part of our survey you know that would be an easy that' be a win no but she's including that well was she though no she's would right from the start longevity when we clarified she said long longevity any certificate so if you're certified in your role you you if if it's approved by Mass General law you get a certificate a certification stien yeah so all that she's going to include so those are two things y then what about like so to P to your point about the pension okay most municip all municipalities participate in a pension system we have one on the North Shore that's the Essex Regional re retirement system but new report has their own Asbury has their own so they're contributing to their own pension there's not like a 40 there's not like a 401k match yeah so the pension that we're contributing to versus new report is it the same you know I believe it's a par it's a I believe it's a so that is dictated by when you join the pension system not necessarily by what town you're in so if you're in the pension system prior to 1972 you contribute a smaller percentage because you've contributed for a longer period of time if you join after 1972 um so there's like all these different benchmarks I think 2012 was the last one so so that would again be another easy win you know so like if if Newber is in this pension system if West newb is in it you know then you just go consistent consistent consistent so that's one thing that's one benefit you take out of the discussion because it's consistent off the eight that she named right right but I'm again I don't think that I think all the pension systems for us at least for IM someone coming in and saying I have to contribute .5 it's they're pretty standard the the retirement pension system right that's what I'm saying that you know if just to appease me you know if she says okay on on retirement pension retirement SL pension you know West Newbury is under the municipality it's not me it's what how long you've been in how much you contribute I mean that but it's it's a plan we could spend $20,000 on whatever information we want that's what I think we're I think we're trying to if we're if we're looking at where are we going to spend our money right I agree with Diane that pension is not I can think of a bunch of different places where we'd be better off getting more valuable data the health insurance I was going to say if if if you think about the norm I mean there were always going to be one-offs right yeah but if you think about the norm you know if you line up a 100 people 100 employees against the wall who are leaving and you say you know what are the benefits that are most important to you in a in a municipality you know there are probably two or three health insurance and PTO right yeah that's why that's why I went into this thinking that incorporating that into the project yeah is not a big ticket item y right pick two or three benefits that we know would be most important to most employees in the municipality and make sure that we you know include that in our discussion about what the net n of this project is going to look like and she said she would include the health insurance in this study for the cost yeah what about PTO so if you I guess that's so I'm just trying to figure out where is our where is our sweet spot where are we where cuz we could go off the cliff and we could be looking at you know optional insurances you know section 125 you know do we provide it yes or no I mean you could go sure and I've never once in 15 years had someone say to me I'm leaving because I can't have pre-tax deductions for my PTO you know when we have young people entering our Workforce you know it's like wait a minute you're only giving me 5 days for the first year or two you know I mean it it matters to so where PTO does come into play is when you have somebody that's worked 15 years in another community and they're coming here and they're starting fresh at two weeks yeah sure yeah that's a negotiated that typically is a negotiated thing because they worked somewhere but they're coming with experience no want to go backwards so so are we going to get that type of data from this study no but I think finding out you know like you said holay I think we you know we're in the standard for everybody but as far as how many weeks are you giving people who are 15 plus years or how many weeks are you given people who walk in straight out of the job you know into a brand new job and everything in between hey AR we consistent with our you know our 80150 200 you know what I mean like with our M are we exceptional with our sick time yeah yeah and there's a schedule in each organization so it's not like we have to drill down you know just pull up the schedule so we are we in agreement that those two items are the ones that are the most pressing and Heth and PTO is that including sick sick and vacation okay cuz you had said that we have a very only people that get personal days are ones that under a collective bargaining agreement and those are again we have collective bargaining agreements that dictate different schedules for sick vacation and she's that's going to be the classification part of this project right whether it's or non-un she has all of our Union contracts so Sandy has already indicated as as Diane just reminded us that she was going to include the health costs is part of the part of the initial price so we're really just talking about vacation and sick M right I mean it may be other things but those are the those are fire very it written down so I don't I think we as a late person I don't think that that this is going to have a significant impact on the cost of this project shouldn't right what you call hourly wage what do you mean you go to Newberry yeah we'll pay you 750 an hour uh wait a minute nobody's going to come to anybody for 7 I'm just no the point is what isn't the hourly wage you may not be making enough you may be getting that 750 and another time is going to offer you 20 bucks an hour you know that's no that's what yeah that's part of the compensation comparison I think the W yeah I don't think whether you were salary or hourly they're looking at both yeah they're looking at the entire population and I was happy to hear her say that she is looking at jobs that fit across two job descriptions and adjusting those accordingly so we because we've talked about that before how would you compare apples to apples how do you compare apples to oranges so what it sounds like she's doing is taking two ratings to jobs and and kind of compressing them to compare them to a job here that handles B those so I don't think with that it's not going to be a perfect it's a good start you can expand it a year from now if you want to go back in yeah just start with something and this answers as you pointed out the seminal issues the questions you've asked why are you leaving those are the two elements so we haven't done this level of of of research since I've been here I think I think not waste a lot of time going further or de digging in deeper yeah so with the board's permission I'll speak I have I have to be some place at 5:30 so y everything else is Prof for something else perfect I have nothing on the else on the agenda you have any um personal actions you want to speak about the two new Personnel that you hired um we just recently hired we filled one of our um two vacancies for a police officer so we just hired a lovely human named James Fitzgerald we also got a new part-time police officer um who worked in Raleigh for years um Bob Adams who's got a lot of experience so we're we are fortunate that we're the two new people one for full-time one for part-time that we pulled in um have experience yeah you fully St you fully staed now no we still have one police position open I'm I'm slated for 12 fulltime no we can take as many part-time workers as we want but I have um I still have one full-time officer position we we've been down to okay thank you P nothing think safety issues everything's remains everything else remains good so question before P leaves um next meeting is because we're getting into another holiday thank you thank you for that December 23rd I'm not going to be here and now that we have this um comp thing going I don't I mean that was kind of a Critical Agenda item right I I would recommend any of the board's disposition that we move it forward excuse me backward a week uh we would have been on the 23rd uh we can look at the 30th what else will she get back to us like will we have answers for that by then or should we just skip ahead to January month no she will be no she will be in communication with us about things that she needs questions that arise draft information she's going to be it's going to be a flow of she's you know she's already asked me for a slew of things that she'll also be looking for additional I mean I I would make the recommendation we skip through the holidays and meet in mid January I just don't know what else we'll have to cover between now and then send me an email let me know I'm open moving whatever the group decides Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving Thanksgiving thank you I mean I would look at like a Janu like if we're going to meet on the 23rd I I think the 16th is a futile I don't I don't think we should be meeting on December 23rd first I'm not going to be here F but I don't think on the 16th of December we're going to have no I wasn't thinking I was thinking the 30th of December or that runs January the 6th I would say January six can we skip a month is per bylaws can we how many meetings do we have to have there's there's no there's no B Rel to I mean we meet monthly but every year there's at least one month that we skip a meeting for whatever reason yeah and not not just skip it it's because Logistics don't work or folks aren't available or falls on the holiday and there's nothing pending that's important enough toed why don't we say we skip the December meeting with the next meeting being January 27th but with the understanding that if something arises that we need to call a meeting we could do that okay to that wor that is that okay with you mark yeah yeah I have no reason to be meeting late December with everything else going on unless between now and then something if that's the case we'll call a special meeting but yeah there there's nothing else on the agenda that I'm aware of everything is quiet uh nothing no subcommittees required so if something arises we can call a meeting call a meeting this was a big one to get going this P thing so it's been a while yeah so are we good for January 27th at 4 p.m. yes yep um we still have to go back just quickly to approving the minutes y but I was thinking before Patty locked out the door okay January 27th 4 thank you okay let's let's uh go to the meeting minutes from the meeting held October the 28th has everyone had an opportunity to review those minutes yes I am thank you as always for getting those to us in advance is there a motion to approve second is there any discussion all those in favor of accepting the approving the minutes as written say I I I thank you it was just one s minutes that right yes that was it thank you uh employee issues we've already heard from the chief on that anything in town hall we can be aware of nope Personnel actions and job vacancies I know last month we talked about a number of positions that have been filled yep so I think with those I those two um police positions have been added i' those are you know theyve started um other than that I think the only thing that still is open is a part-time Youth Services librarian position that has been posted but I think I'm don't want to say it out loud but I think we're in we're in pretty good shape great thank you okay uh no ethics discrimination workplace issues that have come to my attention Chief has said no safety issues that she's aware of everything's fine in town hall we' discussed our all the bues next meeting we've already talked about is 1 127 mhm any other business to discuss there none is there a motion to adjourn I have a I'm sorry I have a quick question yeah um so Diane on um number four on the minutes I'm sorry I you know giving it another quick look um how are our new positions working out our new um people that have been hired into those positions um so you were uh join Stanton we she's here um the board met her as well she's she's jumping right in she's been a great addition um Daniel AOW I've checked in with him to see how he's doing as the assistant Town planner and um I think all accounts everybody seems to be meshing really well and um seems like like I said uh I met I don't want to say it out loud okay is this wood or is this for M this is wood okay there you go it does feel like we have stabilized if you will and it does feel like it's a good group good okay glad you're here are we doing anything for the holidays especially since we are not meeting in December for employees for the holidays yes so we um actually I should send you folks if you want to join us as well um every year we have a holiday luncheon and every year the responsibility of the luncheon Falls to a different department so this year it falls to the library so on December 19th at 1:00 we will have a holiday lunch in at the library oh um and I think that was announced at the meeting on Tu at 1:00 on the 19th I'll be at 35,000 ft probably over December the 19th 1 at 1:00 hopefully you'll be in a plane so we we it varies last year we went out for pizza this year we're having a lunch and at the library and it's a potluck um who's going to C to that it also depends we potluck we bring everybody um it fall it depends on how the holiday falls it falls really strange this year um so for us the holidays our Wednesday and Tuesday is our 11 hour day uh so it's it it the the lunch in or the holiday celebration if you will for employees it just depends on how it falls and who's doing it and that's employes boards and committees yes yeah so it's um it's okay to have boards sometimes it's kind of uncomfortable for a board to I ask check with Tracy but I believe I believe areer okay so I'll send I'll send out a reminder we we come in a mess yeah yeah the HR board is here so I mean the select board has attended in the past and you know so it's nice so it just depends every year it's different there's no standard okay and it's really up to the department most hosting the party to decide how they want to do it if they want to do it externally or internally uhhuh so okay good how many people would be expected to be at the library and that would be in that room up to the left yes yeah like how many employees do we have so we have roughly 55 full-time and permanent part-time permanent parttime means 20 hours or more yeah um or or people permanent part part-time um and then we have the 60 or so called firefighters that are really PR DM okay they the firehouse and the police station also has their own holiday party as well okay so um how many did you say full-time fulltime in5 how many roughly 55 okay so might have 30 or 30 or 40 depends and well you know if people from boards and committees come that's probably probably I mean in theory you could double that number I'm sure a lot of people won't come but you know I mean we're a we're a board of six to but you know you've got another dozen boards all of whom typically have you know four to six people on them so yeah yeah okay all right so we are adjourned weed