Oh, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, all right, all right, all right, all right. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. And the moment that you wander apart from me I want to feel you in my arms again And you come to me on a summer breeze Keep me warm in your love Then you softly leave And it's me you need to show How deep is your love? Is your love how deep is your love? I really need to learn Cause we're living in a world of fools Breaking us down When they all should let us be We belong to you and me I believe in you You know the door to my very soul You're the light in my deepest, darkest doubt You're my savior when I fall And you may not think I care for you When you know down inside that I really do And it's me you need to show How deep is your love, is your love How deep is your love I really need to learn Cause we're living in a world of fools Breaking us down When the ocean let us be We belong to you and me I'm not. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Good morning, everybody. It's 11 o'clock. I want to welcome everybody back. This is the first formal meeting of councils since we went on break. I hope everybody isn't too rusty, but I think we'll be doing all right. This is the August meeting of the General Government Committee. Before I do anything else, I'm going to take the privilege of the chair. I want to do this this afternoon. We have a full council as well. I want to introduce my new aide who's in the back of the room and not listening, Nathan Dickerson. He's talking to Knox. Nathan, I'm introducing you to some of these members of council. Welcome, my new aide. Treat them well. Thank you. First item on the agenda, this committee summary. Have a motion to approve? corrections vice mayor thank you mr chair on page five the next to last paragraph it says gorton stated that she likes the blue horse but asked if the seal could be subordinated rather than the seal being subordinated so i believe it should say that asked if the blue horse could be subordinated rather than the seal okay thank you thank you other corrections any objections to approving as amended hearing none that will be approved next item on the agenda is the wireless device policies Vice Mayor Gordon? Introduce this. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have previously discussed this issue a little bit, and we asked our CIO to come back and to talk about this a little more in depth. So I think this is the update following on. Great. Then we'll hear from CAO. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. This is sort of a quick update on where we are today, and we've got probably a little bit more work to do, but we wanted, first of all, to do a couple of things. Make sure that we have the responsible use of the wireless devices. And by the way, you could have easily substituted the word mobile for wireless. It just means that it's not connected to anything, and we have capability to communicate. So this is really to address the procurement, the security issues, and the use of such devices. I put this list in here so that you could see the amount of discussion that we've already had, the amount of work that we've done. We started in January of this year really to look at across the whole city and county government to look at the stakeholders and what they might have as far as already in terms of devices and what they're going to need. And in earnest, we convened a working group that had representation out of all of city and county government. And we were here in May, on May the 6th, to give you a short update of where we were that day. We have a draft delivered to the law department of the policy, and that was done in July. And by the way, conversations were taking place all along during this time. And please, I want you to understand, I give a lot of credit to Jennifer, who managed to herd all of us together and coordinate our calendars and make sure that we were there at the meetings to provide our input. We updated that again, that policy, it came back, we changed a few things, it is back in law. So here we are today with the update that we have to date. Really, three things need to be done. Number one, determine the need. Number two, determine the appropriate device, and there are choice of devices. And third, to look at the data plan. There are several organizations involved in looking at what we would call the responsible and the responsibility and the use of these devices. The administrative officer, our CAO, the purchasing department, and computer services. We'll have the responsibility, and I'll go through this, to develop, monitor, and maintain all policies and procedures, and to establish and monitor all contracts related to wireless devices. The mayor or the CAO can make exceptions to that provision in an event of a disaster, emergency situation, or other extenuating circumstances. And by the way, there may be those extenuating circumstances, at least in the past, I know from experience, have occurred during a disaster when more people might need a device and you really have to suspend what I would call the rules. Procedure. All employees who request a wireless device must fill out a form. We have that wireless request form. Management really must approve that form. That form is then submitted to computer services, and computer services will actually assist the employee in the choice of phone and carrier. And you may ask, why would you do that? Well, and you'll see we have various plans available. Some people need to take many pictures in their job, And so they might need more data, more storage, more capability. Others may not need that, may need more voice minutes. But for the most part, it's really to make sure that we've matched the needs to the available plan. The device, the wireless device, then will be shipped to the computer services, and it will be inventoried. By the way, to date, that has not been the case. We do not have an inventory of what went out there in the past. And last but by no means least, the employee will be asked to sign an acceptable usage agreement. So here are the contracts that we do have. These contracts were already bid. We have AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. And I will assume as needs may change that we may add or delete additional carriers. So billing and monitoring. All divisions and departments who require that device shall request funds in their appropriate budget for both the device and the data plan. And then each department is responsible for monitoring the usage and the billing. We have no central monitoring of that. So from a user perspective, here are the responsibilities. A password to protect the device. and we suggest a complex password, not 123 or ABCD, and that password be changed. An employee who exceeds the data plan shall pay for the overages, and applications purchased must be approved by the division director or commissioner. And those applications are applications which may in fact help them in their work. They're available from the Apple store. They may be available from other stores. They may be used in their job. But those, in most cases, are either a one-time charge or they're sometimes a monthly charge for them. So those kinds of applications would need to be approved. And then an employee, and this is probably one of the more important ones, an employee shall notify computer services immediately if the device is stolen or lost. And, well, let me go back. I'd like to say a couple more words about stolen or lost. One of the things that I think that we are most concerned with is the security of the data on that device. And as you know, House Bill 5 was passed by our state legislature, which requires any local government to notify potential citizens if there was a breach of their private data. We cannot do that if we don't know that a device is lost or stolen. In that case, that data can be what we call wiped. It is in a container, and it can be cleared. So that if somebody finds a device, or if some of the devices stolen and used for other purposes, there will be no usable data on it. When I was here in May, we also talked a little bit about bring your own device. By the way, that is an issue all over the United States and every state and every local government. More and more people want to bring their own device. I'm one of those people. I have my own device. We also have a working group to address many of the issues there, very similar to what we did with a wireless device. We're exploring the pros and the cons and how do we make sure that we wipe the appropriate data and not all the data should be lost. So this is still in review. Our document, our draft document, has gone to law, and we are now looking at other states and actually our own state. I have had conversations with the deputy CIO and the security person at the state level. They are in the same state as we are. They're actually reviewing the documents that they have, but we have the same issue that they do, and that is the open records law. So right now, we're waiting to see what the outcome might be of that and continue our conversation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Council members, questions, comments? Sign in, please. Council Member Lane. What would be the policy for personal use of the phones by an employee of the government? Well, the issue is that, you know, sometimes, and let me just go back to the past. In the past, each device usually had one account. That is no longer the case. A device can have multiple accounts. So my device has a personal account and has a city account. If that device is lost or stolen, we have to think of how we would protect the data that is the city's data. And that is where some of the issues come in. Not so much necessarily from a personal perspective. And by the way, this is a legal issue now. It is really from an open records issue. And that's why our draft policy is in law. So the question would be if an employee used one of our phones that's paid for by the government for a personal call, would that personal call then be subject to open records? Is that the question at hand for all calls? That's not even determined yet. If the device is paid for by the city and the usage is paid for by the city, it is assumed that that device is being used for business. Now, usually, usually a practice has always been that there is some fair use from a personal perspective. You might call your doctor. You might call for an appointment. But it is not used for extensive conversations with your family. In those cases, and in most of those cases, the person carries two devices. a personal device and one that is issued by government. Okay. All right. Thank you. That answers my question. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your update and some great information. I just had a quick question, and that is that some of the entities, the University of Kentucky, others are instead of or in lieu of buying hardware for employees, They're just providing an allowance. And I think part of that is because the data plans have changed such that it's really changed the game from where it used to be. So could you kind of speak to that, if you guys have had a chance to look at that? Let's put it this way. We did not ignore it. We discussed it briefly. But if you do that, you have to make that allowance for every single employee. So in other words, you would not single out one group of employees over another one. And that, frankly, from a city perspective, would be a budgetary impact. So what's different about allowing only certain employees to have a phone that the city pays for? I think the point is that maybe not all positions require a telephone. Not all jobs require a telephone or a device. Right. So if that's the case, then why would that be different if you offered an allowance? Because I'm, and the assumption is made that potentially you could have every single employee requesting a stipend. I understand. They may request it, but it would go through the same vetting process that if I requested a phone. If that is one of the options. But usually, and by the way, that's pretty much done as a standard practice in the private sector. If you offer a stipend, it is assumed that every employee will take that. and that is the budgetary impact. Okay. Can you check and see if that's the way it is at UK? I'll be happy to do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Any other council members have questions or comments? I guess if not, I just had one or two myself. On page 10 of the requirements, it's to discuss potential procurement with management. And then on page 12, it says management must approve need for devices. Who actually would need to approve and who gets the final determination of whether? I would assume that an employee would go to their immediate manager and say, you know, I need a device to do my job. Here's what I do. I take pictures or I have to make so many phone calls or whatever. And then their manager would approve that. And that form actually would be signed by their manager. Okay, so the manager, it's not a matter of going through IT or it's the manager. No, we view that as a business decision. Okay, that's really all I had. Anybody? Council Member Myers, again, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a follow-up. I actually have UK's policy here. Okay. And there's an eligibility guideline, and it is not open to everybody as an employee. So I'll give you a copy of this. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I see no other council members signed up. Thank you. The only question I have, last question, is in terms of what happens next? What are the next steps in terms of this policy? The policy for a wireless device that is issued by the city, that policy is in law right now, and we expect that to be available in September. Okay, so that will be, at this point, it's just information for council. It's an administrative policy, is that correct? Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. Next item on the agenda is the coroner's office salary and classification update. Council Member Henson has her name on this, but she's not here. She put it in. Okay. So. It's like John Maxwell. Okay. Mr. Maxwell, do you have information for us on this? Or CAO Hamlet? I don't know who wants to address this. Either one, both? Mr. Maxwell will, but when Council Member Henson had asked us to just refresh everybody's memory, She had asked us to look at the coroner's office pay in regards to hazardous pay. And so that's what we have gone back and done here that we'll present. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Maxwell. Morning. In the packet is a memo that I wrote relative to what Council Member Henson had asked. Initially, she had asked us to look at both the wage rate and classification as well as the hazardous pay. And then it was determined that since we were in the middle of a compensation study, that we would kind of punt the classification and compensation study to the consultants, which they just completed, and I did kind of reference some of the data there that they came up with on that. With respect to the hazardous duty pay, we did look at that and determine that those positions outlined the assistant coroner chief deputy coroner and deputy coroner would otherwise be eligible under our criteria for the hazardous duty pay which is which amounts to $50 a month the the issue with that is that the way the ordinance is written it does not it will not allow for hazardous duty pay for the coroners. There's, the ordinance needs to, because they're an unclassified position, and that position is not specifically in Chapter 21 of the ordinance, it is not eligible for, under the current ordinance, for the hazardous duty pay. So we have, we would recommend a slight change in the ordinance and have forwarded to law a recommendation in terms of changing the ordinance, just a slight language change that would allow it, and then we would recommend implementing the hazardous duty pay because they would otherwise qualify. Okay. Thank you very much. I have a couple people in line. Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Maxwell. I do have a question for you before you sit down. How did you, how was it determined that you recommend the hazardous duty pay? Did you go on some ride-alongs or? Yes. How was that? The ordinance specifically spells out the criteria to be used in determining whether there's a hazardous duty supplement. And we asked the coroner's office to provide us with information relative to the percentage of time they use in areas such as lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, heavy equipment, falling, machinery and moving parts, confined spaces, traffic, excavation, ladder scaffolding, hazardous materials, chemicals, falling objects, or biological or infectious diseases. And as a result of that analysis, we had determined that they would qualify for the supplement. Okay. That helps me understand that. I had kind of years and years ago, we had a committee that looked at hazardous pay, and I'd sort of forgotten all the different things that are included there. And I would certainly agree with that. I think that many of our employees don't ever have exposure to very many of those things listed, but I think the employees at the coroner's office do have those kinds of exposure. And I know there are a couple more people on to speak. I do think that for a path forward at some point today, I would, if you want a motion, Mr. Chair, if you want to just let it go, I think we need to see the proposed ordinance change at our next meeting and consider doing this. I think it's a good move, and I appreciate your investigation of it. Sure. Okay, thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is, how much is the coroner paid under the state ordinance? I don't have that information. I'll have to find out. That is regulated by the state, though. Well, the reason I ask that, if we're going to be setting the pay range differentials, we don't want to pay the assistant coroner more than the state-regulated amount in the state ordinance. Are we sure that we're not exceeding that amount? Have you checked that out at all? Actually, my recollection, we didn't include the coroner in the study, but my recollection is that the coroner's pay is very close to the assistant coroner, may not even be as high as the assistant coroner. And the elected officials don't necessarily, in terms of equating the pay, it's a different pay scale for elected officials than it is for others. I think that would encourage me not to run for re-election as coroner. Okay, well, could you give me that number? That was my first question. Sure can. The second question is, with hazardous duty pay, what would be the impact in the pay rates that you're recommending here if hazardous duty pay were calculated into that? How much more will that be? The hazardous duty pay is $50 a month. That's it? That's it. So it's $600. $600 a year? Okay. All right. I don't think that will, you know, break the bank then. No. Okay. And then the only other question I had, I suppose, is that, you know, being a coroner, I mean, when you take that job, you already know it's a hazardous duty position because you're dealing with people that are deceased or in accidents, things like that. So I just wonder if we, are there any other categories in our government that maybe would qualify for hazardous duty if we use the same guideline we're using for the coroner's office that they need to be paid also? There are a number of categories that receive the hazardous duty supplement, quite a number. I think it's over 400. it. Yeah, well, the reason I ask that, if we start setting precedent to, you know, grant hazardous duty to divisions that haven't been getting it, we may open that we have to give it to everybody that works here, because I think council members need hazardous duty. Probably. Okay, that's my last comment, but maybe you could address those points and get something back to us, memorandum. Sure, we'd like to thank you, sir. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Maxwell, thank you for coming to expand on a couple of these issues with the coroner's office. I want to go back to the salary study. I know we're going to get into this a little bit later with some other divisions, possibly, but as it relates to the coroner's office, how did they look at experience? Because it looks to me, given the pay scales and what some of the changes proposed in the compensation, were not rewarding for experience and this may fall into the whole study and and how it's being looked at study-wide but specifically on the corner I mean to me you know as councilman Lane alluded to this is a hazardous job as well as they're dealing with a lot of things in the community so the more experience you have to me it would play a lot into what we compensate an individual especially in this role given the nature of the work so tell me how they specifically looked at the experience and giving us these ranges. And then my next question is going to be, how is this really compared to like a Louisville, Cincinnati, who they mentioned in the study? Yeah. The study applied experience in what's called an equity calculation equally across the government. And that calculation was based on the time in your current position. So the longer that you are in the current position, the higher the equity calculation. I could go through that calculation, but I do have a presentation to counsel on that very issue. I mean, I can do it here quickly, but it would probably be better served to spend some time. So it didn't look at just each office individually. It looked at the government as a whole. Yes. Well, it looked at each individual. Each individual was looked at according to their date that they were in the position. Within government. So it didn't take outside experience into consideration. Correct. It's not fair to say outside consideration wasn't taken into effect because it was when they were hired in. They were given eligibility for their outside experience. What the compensation study did was give additional credit for people who had been in the same position for a period of at least one year or longer, assuming that their salary did not exceed the targeted salary, the calculated salary. So it only gives credit within LFUCG in that same pay grade, or did it take all their pay grades through their history into consideration? Okay. It's just the way this study worked is that it took a person's current salary, current job description, and placed them in a proposed pay grade, which has not yet been approved. That proposed pay grade, if their salary was below the minimum of that proposed pay grade, the study then recommended an increase at least to the minimum. And then based on their time in the job, and it's calculated, there's a per day calculation, actually, the time in the job, additional adjustment up into the range, assuming that their wage rate did not exceed that target salary after the calculation. Okay, so if someone in this case was making, says we're going to raise it to $36,843, they were making below that, it automatically raised them to the 36. And then you went back and looked at experience, which would raise them a little bit more, assuming they had more than one year experience. In their current job, correct. Okay, because I was just concerned on your previous statement that someone who has 12 years here would make the same as someone we're hiring tomorrow. And I wouldn't want that to be the case, of course. I don't think that would be fair. So how do these ranges compare to other cities that they looked at? Are these higher or lower? For the coronary rates, you know, I don't, I couldn't, they looked at seven, I mean, 11 different organizations, and they did, you know, they benchmarked some positions, then they slotted based on the market data and also on internal equity and what the coronaries reported on their JAQs. So they point factored that, so to speak, and that's how they came up with the job grade. And how it compares, you know, I don't know right off the top of my head what Louisville makes or what some of these other makes. But I can tell you that the study that was completed was a sound study, and it was based on accepted methodology in compensation practices. I'll accept that answer for now. I know we're going to get into this a little bit later at work session. So I'll hold a couple of the other questions back on this. But I would like to see in terms of personnel in Lexington versus Louisville and Cincinnati and some other cities, the study used to do the market research on as it compares directly to the coroner's office. I know we've looked at them for almost three years, maybe well before your time this started. So that's why it's an issue in committee. That's why it's important to Councilman Henson and myself as vice chair and chair of public safety. But I think there's some other issues we can dive down into. I don't see enough information in our packet today, Chair, to get into those issues, but I'd like to have that discussion because I'm not sure these ranges are correct, just to be quite honest with you. And I know we've got a group of people here, Chair, that would like to speak to that issue if we have time here at the end of the council member comments. I think the question is whether we are at the point of reaching closure on this or not, and it seems to me we're not. At the very least, we need more information about the details of how these numbers were arrived at, and we would need to see a draft ordinance if, as the vice mayor has suggested, there's an interest in going forward. And to complicate things further, we have the larger study, which addresses some of these questions of experience in and outside the job. So I would suggest that we keep this on the agenda. I know that Council Member Henson wants to speak to this as well, but that we keep this on the agenda, pending further information and the more general discussion about this issue before we try to make a determination. And if you think it would be helpful to have people from the coroner's office speak today, I'd be happy to do that, or we can hold that. But let me, I've got a couple people in line. So, Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm not a member of this committee, but one thing that I've spent a lot of time looking into coroner salaries and job duties. One thing I if it's my understanding that the coroners here, our deputy coroners perform additional duties. So even if you compare with other cities, there are jobs, tasks that they're performing in Lexington that they don't necessarily do in other cities. So I don't know if that was considered when the questionnaire went out or, but it is something I would like considered. Sure. What I can, would you like me to address that just for a second? What I can say is that really there's a two-prong approach to the study generally. There's the market side of the approach, and there's the JAQ approach. So one is external and one is internal. Now, there's a number of jobs that were benchmarked. Not every position in the government was benchmarked, but there's a number of jobs that are benchmarked. Then they look at the JAQs, and they look at the job specs, and they do what we call loosely a point factor. They decide how those duties relate from an internal equity perspective. So they then slot those jobs. It may be the case indeed, to Council Member Stenet's point, it may be the case that the outside market in certain markets could be higher. That could be the case. But we also have to deal with an internal equity where you look at other positions in the government as well. So that's part of what these consultants do, and they slot those positions according to a combination of those factors. Okay, thank you. And I do think it's a good idea to leave this in committee and to further, hopefully we will come up with an ordinance or some opportunity to better or provide better equity for the deputy coroners. But I know that I have a great deal of respect for what they do, as we probably all do. And they deal with other, outside of the hazardous duties, they also deal with emotional aspects of that job. You know, it's not, it is absolutely not an easy job to do. So, thank you. Okay, thank you. Sure. Just if I can follow up before I recognize Vice Mayor Gorton, unless there's objection from the committee, I would suggest that we do get a draft of the ordinance that would be required if we were to move this forward. And law does have that draft? But the committee does not have it. Have you sent it up? I don't think that was included in our information. Okay. So if it's available, then it's just a matter of circulating it and including it in the next packet. Vice Mayor Gordon. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. This speaks to the fact that I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that these are two separate issues. One is the salary, the compensation study. One is the hazardous duty pay. I think it's important to move forward as soon as we can on the hazardous duty pay because our HR folks, who are the experts, have already recommended it. And so I don't want the hazardous duty pay to get caught up in the compensation study. They're two separate issues, and as far as I'm concerned, and I hope the committee would be concerned, we can take a look at this ordinance on hazardous duty pay and move it forward. That's a very, I mean, you all have evaluated it, which is what we do with every type of employee who gets this, and you've recommended it, and I think it's certainly needed. So I would ask that the next time this is looked at, we look first at the hazardous duty pay, which is the easier issue. Thank you. I don't think there's any objection to that. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of quick additional questions. Does a coroner have to have specific professional training in order to qualify as a coroner? Is that part of their job description? I'll have to check the job description on it. I really don't know. Okay. And then the other question I had is, are coroners licensed either by the state government or by a national organization? Is that one of the ways that their credentials are determined? Again, I'll have to. Okay. I like to get, if you put all that information in your memo so we just get a bigger picture of, you know, what you have to do to qualify as a coroner and all that. Thank you, sir. Sure. Thank you. I see no other speakers lined up, so I thank you for the presentation. And my understanding is that we will get, keep this on the agenda, we will get the draft ordinance that relates to hazardous duty pay next time so that we could actually take action on it if we decide to do that. And we want further information about the compensation study. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Since our guests are here, can we hear from them? Chair. I'd be happy to, if anybody from the coroner's office would like to address the council at this time on these issues, I'd be happy to do that. Coroner, welcome. Thank you, Chair. I'm Gary Ginn, the coroner. First off, I'd like to thank you folks for hearing about our office. This is a passion that I have, obviously, and Councilman Lane, you kind of made the comment that you probably wouldn't run back while I'm in my third term. This is a passion that I've had all my life. I started when I was 18. So I'm here before you because of the passion that I have for my employees. And since I've been the coroner for 12 years, I've been working on getting salaries raised for the deputy coroners during that whole 12-year term. It first started with Tracy Stevenson and then with Mr. Allen, and then there's been different people that's been interim and different things, and now I've talked with Mr. Maxwell. And I do appreciate everything that we've been able to get to this point. I really believe that my deputies are severely underpaid. If you look at the market, especially Louisville and Cincinnati, you'll see that Cincinnati's about $43,000, $44,000. Louisville is being paid $42,000. That's a starting salary. If you look at ours, ours is around $36,000. And we're appreciative of the fact that we've been able to get a pay raise. But in order to keep my employees, we're not going to be able to keep them. We're going to be just like we've been in the past. Since I've been the elected coroner, I've had many, many, many people that I have trained just to lose them to go on to other regions to get better pay. it's quite costly for us to train an employee just as it is for police and fire and corrections there's just a lot that goes into that what i would propose is to first off switch the pay grades right now the proposal is to have the pay grade for a deputy coroner at 151 and i would like to see the deputies be at a 518. And if you look at the region, the $36,843 is still far below that of a starting salary. I believe Cincinnati is actually $45,000 and Louisville is $42,000. So by taking that, we would be putting our deputies in the market that's here in this region. And if you look at that pay grade, you can see that there's administrative specialists. My deputies do a lot of different things that the administrative specialists do. We answer the phone. We type legal documents. We sit on boards of numerous agencies. We respond to the families who've had loved ones that's died. Counsel to the aides. My deputies are aid to me. They respond to scenes in my absence because of a city this size. I'm not able to go on every death scene. They remain in control at the scene, and a death scene is my scene, and we are the person that's in charge of any death scene. If you look at citizens' advocates, while we think that this is a very important role, my deputies are also advocates to our citizens. They do try to help make the families coping with their loved one's death easier. They're on call 24 hours, seven days a week. Just recently, one of my deputies, the night before last, had a family member that called that got into town at midnight. They were from Florida. So he got up out of the bed. He went to their home. He released the property, which was a house, so they wouldn't have to rent a hotel room. So he went out in the middle of the night, allowed them access to their loved one's home so they could stay in their home instead of having to incur additional costs. We do things like that numerous times during the week. If you look at an informational officer, my deputies are constantly releasing information on cases to different individuals, attorneys, to doctors, to law enforcement individuals, to attorneys. If you look at the position of the property and evidence supervisor, my deputies take into consideration many, many thousands of dollars of property on every call. There's jewelry. There's sometimes real estate. There's clothing. There's vehicle, electronic devices where there's a lot of evidence that's collected there as well. And if you look at that also, we take in possession the body, which is the most important part of evidence. So in comparing these salaries that are proposed to the salaries of my deputy, I think it's important to look at other positions, just as Mr. Maxwell said, but we're not in the right category. We need to be in the category of 518. I'm not trying to begrudge any of these positions that I've mentioned because I think they're all important. But I also think my deputy coroners are a vital part of our community, which, again, when you call our office, you get a person, just like you would with fire, police, and corrections. Any other office, I think it's going to be probably an answering machine, and you're going to have to wait until their working hours, which is Monday through Friday. I would like to remind you that we're a little bit different. When the study was being looked at and when the directors were called in, this was for non-sworn individuals, I was told. But we are sworn individuals. We are law enforcement officers. We are accredited peace officers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I think my chief deputy coroner pay grade should be not a 517, but should be a 520, which would raise the base pay to $40,620. I'm sorry. If you've got a lot more detail, it might be useful for you to submit that to counsel so we can look at it. I'm really close. Okay. But, I mean, if you, and I will submit to the council because there's a lot of information that we would like to get in your hands so that you can understand this better. My pay is through the, is set through the law. And I think my pay now is right at $67,000. I'm not concerned with my pay, even though my pay is less than any other elected official like the county clerk, the sheriff, circuit court clerk, if we had a, we've got a corrections officer, but I'm not looking for my pay. I'm really looking for my deputy coroner's pay. I would very much appreciate if you would look at the compensation that they're receiving now, the market, and then also their backgrounds. Most of them have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. It's not necessary to do that, but in a city this size, I think it's important that we have accreditation, and we're trying to achieve a national accreditation right now. Five deputies in my office, as well as myself, are in the process of getting that accreditation nationally. So that's something that we're looking at in the future, because I think that's going to be mandated throughout state government that that happens. So I'd ask that you would look at that. we'll submit this information to you. And I really appreciate you keeping this on the docket rather than kind of squelching it now. Any questions that you have for me, I'll be more than glad. Great. Thank you for that information. Council Member Myers, did you have a question or a comment? Okay. Mr. Maxwell. When the consultants looked at their comparative analysis for all the city employees, what cities did they use to compare us to? They used 11 different cities. I can get you a list of those. Are they the same cities that were considered with this group? I don't think Cincinnati was looked at. I know there was a couple public organizations as well where we share some kind of labor. The coroners is kind of a unique group. Now, the way these studies are done is that there's a number of benchmark positions, and I'm not sure. Okay, because my time is short. You can. And, Mike, okay, so the follow-up question would be, if we use those 11 cities to compare all the rest of the LFECG employees, and I'm not saying it's incorrect or correct, but what is the rationale for using different cities when we consider the coroner's office, if in fact we did? We didn't use, we used the same cities. I thought you said that Cincinnati wasn't used in. I don't think Cincinnati was in the list. They might have been. It's in the list for the rest of the employees, right? There was 11 organizations, I remember that. And they were all the same for all employees. They were all the same for both of them? Yes. So then when he talks about Cincinnati and Louisville, is there the same disparity, if you will, between other departments in Lexington and Cincinnati and Louisville, or is this an anomaly? I'm trying to understand why he's making that point and if it's a valid one. Okay. I don't know why he's making that part. How's that? I don't know why he's making the point. Okay. So when you do your overall presentation to the council, can you try to speak to all those things at that point? Sure. I know you have another presentation that's much bigger and you want to get to that, and that's probably where we'll learn more. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. There are now no other council members in line, so I thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda, alcohol sales on Election Day. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I asked the committee to take a look at this because in the 2013 General Assembly, the legislature passed and the governor signed into law legislation that removed the statewide ban on Election Day alcohol sales. So now it is up to the local jurisdictions to decide whether there will be alcohol sales on Election Day. And I think historically the reason, and I'm not really old enough to know this myself, but I think historically it was thought that not selling alcohol on election days would have some control or give some control over vote buying. and I think this is an outdated law and it's obvious to me that we need to take a look at it particularly since the legislature has given us that authority. So you have a memo here and it's very self-explanatory. Many cities in Kentucky have already repealed their ban on alcohol sales on election day And the other reason that I put this into committee was that it seems to me that we have very few legal products on the market where we tell the seller they're not allowed to sell it on particular days. We tell the business, you can't do your business on a particular day. So there's a small, tiny portion of our ordinance which we would need to repeal, and I appreciate the work that our law department has done on this. And I'd like to go ahead and make a motion for discussion. That motion being, well, I'll say the motion, that an ordinance repealing subsection 321E of the Code of Ordinances of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government pertaining to prohibiting the sale, giving away, or delivery of alcohol beverages of any kind on any primary or regular election day during the hours that the polls are open and renumbering subsections 33-21F through I of the Code of Ordinance to subsections 321E through H be approved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? I see no one signed up. I presume that means that we are all in favor, and we will move that forward. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we'll take a vote on the motion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Last item on the agenda is the items before committee. And we've got time, so this would be a good time to go through those and see if there are any changes to be proposed. Vice Mayor Gordon. Well, I would say that we can, since the committee approved the alcohol sales on Election Day to go forward to the full council, we could remove that. So moved. I have a motion. Second. Second. Any objections? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Any other proposals for changes? Craig. Thank you. Just of note for the committee, the neighborhood parks task force item was removed in a prior meeting. That's just an error on this list. That just needs to be, that was just administrative oversight. That will be deleted. Are there any other proposals for changes? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's not necessarily a change, but I would just ask that the administration take into consideration the U.K.'s policy on cellular phones as they bring back their next recommendation. Okay. I don't think I need to make a motion, I don't think. Okay. I don't need to make a motion, do I? No. Okay. I believe so. Okay, thank you. Any other proposed changes? If not, that's the last item on the agenda. I will entertain a motion for adjournment. Move adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. We stand adjourned. Thank you. Music Would you say goodbye or would you let it ride? And would you cry if I told you that lie? And would you say goodbye or would you let it ride? See, my life is not complete, I'll never see you smile. Try, try, try, let it ride. Baby, you want the forgiving kind and that's just not my style. Try, try, try to let it ride And would you cry If I told you that lie And would you say goodbye And would you let it ride And would you cry If I told you that lie And would you say goodbye Would you let it ride I've been doing things for a while You've been looking down Drive, drive, drive, let it ride And would you cry If I told you that lie And would you save the time Would you let it ride? And would you cry? If I fall to that line? Would you make a fire?