# Intergovernmental Committee - March 11, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · March 11, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/419 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/419?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-03-11 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 2, 2026 - **Length**: 10,582 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Inter-Governmental Committee convened on March 11, 2008, at 1:00 PM with CM James presiding as the meeting chair. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, covering both personnel matters and administrative updates. The meeting included two formal votes, with the committee denying a request for CSEA Board Leave for Association Business while approving the selection of a new Vice Chair. One public comment was received during the proceedings, and the committee heard two informational presentations on employee compensation updates and general committee business items. ## Attendance The Committee meeting on March 11, 2008 had nine members present and one member absent. **Present:** • James • Gray • Blues • DeCamp • Beard • Stinnett • Crosbie • Blevins • Henson **Absent:** • Myers No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The Committee took two votes during the March 11, 2008 meeting, both passing by voice vote. **CSEA Business Time and Facilities Motion** CM Blues made a motion to encourage CSEA to use the flextime provision and not pursue CSEA's request to draft an ordinance formalizing 4 hours per month of work time to conduct the association's business, and that the cost for LFUCG's facilities be waived for CSEA. The motion was seconded by CM Blevins. The motion passed by voice vote with 8 ayes and 1 nay. Committee members voting in favor were James, Blues, DeCamp, Beard, Stinnett, Crosbie, Blevins, and Henson. [timestamp: 00:00] **Compensation System Update Schedule** CM Blevins made a motion to accept Mr. Barker's proposal of dates for future presentations for updates on the compensation system. CM Blues seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote with 9 ayes and 0 nays. All committee members present voted in favor: James, Blues, DeCamp, Beard, Stinnett, Crosbie, Blevins, Henson, and Gorton. [timestamp: 00:00] Both motions were decided without conditions or amendments. The first motion addressed the Civil Service Employees Association's request for formalized work time and facility usage, while the second established a schedule for ongoing updates on the city's compensation system review process. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 00:00] Paula Brown addressed the committee during the public comment period, raising concerns related to CSEA (Civil Service Employees Association) and flex time policies. Brown expressed concerns about the denial of flex time and made a specific request regarding her vacation time. She asked for the return of vacation time that she had used to attend meetings, indicating a dispute over how her time off was being categorized or compensated in relation to her meeting attendance. The comment highlighted potential issues with employee scheduling flexibility and the administrative handling of time off for meeting participation. ## Appointments The Committee made one appointment during the March 11, 2008 meeting. • **DeCamp** was appointed as Vice Chair of the Inter-Governmental Committee This appointment represents the Committee's action to fill a leadership position within the Inter-Governmental Committee structure. The appointment of DeCamp to the Vice Chair role indicates the Committee's confidence in their ability to serve in this capacity and help guide the Inter-Governmental Committee's work going forward. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during the March 11, 2008 Committee meeting centered on a request from the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) regarding board leave for association business. The disagreement focused on CSEA's request for paid leave time and the use of Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) facilities for their association activities. The discussion became heated as committee members debated the appropriateness of granting such accommodations to the employee organization. The central concern raised during the debate was the potential precedent this decision could establish for other organizations seeking similar benefits from LFUCG. Committee members expressed worry that approving CSEA's request might obligate the government to provide comparable accommodations to additional groups or associations in the future. The discussion involved multiple committee members weighing the merits of supporting employee association activities against the fiscal and policy implications of using public resources for such purposes. The debate highlighted tensions between supporting employee organizations and maintaining appropriate boundaries regarding the use of taxpayer-funded resources and facilities. Ultimately, the committee denied CSEA's request for both the paid leave and facility usage. This decision reflected the committee's concerns about establishing what they viewed as a problematic precedent that could lead to increased demands on public resources from various organizations seeking similar arrangements with LFUCG. The heated nature of this discussion underscored the complexity of balancing employee association needs with responsible stewardship of public resources and the importance of maintaining consistent policies regarding the use of government facilities and paid time for non-governmental activities. ## CSEA Board Leave for Association Business [timestamp: 00:00] The committee discussed the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Board's request for paid leave for association business and use of Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) facilities. CM Blues presented the Law Department's recommendation to deny CSEA's request for paid leave for association business activities. The Law Department also recommended that any use of LFUCG facilities by CSEA should be conducted in accordance with existing Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) policy. The discussion involved several committee members including CM Blevins, CM Kelly, CM Henson, and CM Tester, who participated in the deliberation regarding the association's request. The committee ultimately followed the Law Department's guidance and **denied** the CSEA Board's request for paid leave for association business. This decision means that CSEA board members will not receive compensation from LFUCG for time spent conducting association-related activities during work hours. Regarding facility usage, the committee determined that CSEA must comply with standard CAO policies governing the use of government facilities by outside organizations, rather than receiving any special accommodations or exemptions from existing procedures. ## Employee Compensation Update [timestamp: 00:00] Wally Barker presented the Market Pricing Compensation Program Project Plan to the committee, focusing on significant issues with the current Mercer compensation system and outlining plans for implementing a new compensation framework. Barker detailed problems with the existing Mercer system that have prompted the need for a comprehensive overhaul of the employee compensation structure. The presentation covered the project plan for transitioning to a new market pricing compensation program designed to better align employee pay with current market standards. The discussion involved multiple committee members, with Gorton, Stinnett, and Allen participating in the dialogue alongside Barker's presentation. The speakers addressed various aspects of the compensation system transition, though specific details of their individual contributions and concerns raised during the discussion were part of the broader conversation about modernizing the compensation framework. This agenda item was presented as an informational update to keep the committee informed about the ongoing compensation system project. The presentation served to brief committee members on the current status of the Market Pricing Compensation Program Project Plan and the rationale behind moving away from the existing Mercer system. The outcome was informational in nature, with the committee receiving the update on the compensation program developments without requiring immediate action or formal decisions during this meeting. ## Selection of Vice Chair [timestamp: 00:00] The committee addressed the selection of a Vice Chair as agenda item 3. James led the discussion on this appointment matter. CM DeCamp was selected to serve as the Vice Chair of the committee. The selection was approved by the committee members. No additional details about the discussion, debate, or concerns raised during this agenda item were provided in the available materials. ## Update on Committee Items [timestamp: 00:00] The committee addressed agenda item 4, an update on ongoing committee items and future meeting planning. James served as the primary speaker for this discussion item, providing information to the committee members about the status of various ongoing matters. The session was structured as an informational update rather than a decision-making discussion. The committee reviewed the current status of items that have been under consideration in previous meetings and discussed plans for upcoming committee sessions. This agenda item served as a housekeeping measure to ensure all committee members were informed about the progress of ongoing work and to coordinate future meeting schedules and priorities. The outcome was informational in nature, with no formal actions taken or votes conducted during this portion of the meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (8-1): Encourage CSEA to use the flextime provision and not pursue CSEA’s request to draft an ordinance formalizing 4 hours per month of work time to conduct the association’s business and that the cost for LFUCG's facilities be waived for CSEA. - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Accept Mr. Barker's proposal of dates for future presentations for updates on the compensation system. --- ## Full transcript Good afternoon to all of you. We have an agenda before us. I hope everyone has received the revised agenda, the one listing the CSEA, employee compensation, selection of vice chair, and update on committee items. I think I would go ahead and number three, if we want to move that up to the top, I have selected a vice chair based on just a request to council members, and I appreciate Council Member DeCamp stepping up and being my vice chair. I told him that there would be a crown today for him, but it would just be a Burger King crown or something, so I don't really have anything to give him. So let's all welcome Council Member DeCamp as a vice chair, and I appreciate your support. Item number one is the CSEA board leave for association business. Council Member Blues, I will kind of hand the chair over to you and take your direction. I know there may be some, I know at least one employee that may want to speak today related to this. If you, at what point that would be appropriate, please let me know what you believe. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. As you recall, I think it was two months ago when we initially looked at this issue and had received the memo from Commissioner Askew that he had sent to former CM Maloney on the question of a response to CSEA's request to be allowed four hours per month of work time to conduct the Civil Service Employees Association business. Commissioner Askew's memo said essentially that CSEA is not a, what shall I say, recognized organization as such. And although there had been a kind of informal agreement between the administration and CSEA in years past to allow that four hours, the administration's view, Commissioner, well, let's put it this way, the Commissioner recommends to the Council that we not formalize this because it would tend to set a precedent for, you know, for other organizations that might make a similar kind of request. The suggestion here would be alternatively that CSEA officers or other members who wanted to meet from time to time to conduct the association's business make use of the flex-time provisions that are allowed for such purposes and are encouraged for such purposes. I would suggest to the committee that we follow that recommendation. And so I would move that we not go forward with crafting an ordinance that would formalize the, you know, the four hours per month, but that we recommend to the Council and to the organization that CSEA conduct its meetings essentially on its own time using flex-time to do so. I don't think that we should as a, you know, as a Council deny or discourage or impede the use of any of our meeting rooms for that purpose. I don't think that, you know, that we should charge the organization for that. But that we should, as an alternative to putting forward an ordinance, we recommend that the flex-time provision be used, and I would make that recommendation to the Council body as a whole. If that requires a motion, I would be glad to make it. I think it would require a motion. If someone wants to second that, we will have the opportunity for discussion once they second it. Let me put the motion this way. I move that the CSA, CSEA be encouraged to use the flex-time provision and that we not pursue CSEA's request to craft an ordinance allowing, formalizing four hours per month of work time to conduct the association's business. I'll second that. We've got a motion and a second. Can you hit your button? And DeCamp, Council Member DeCamp? Yeah. Tom, do you want to put in there, in your motion, something about waiving the costs of using urban county facilities for these meetings, or do we want to get into that? I think so. I consider that, if you want to make that a friendly amendment. I think that's what you had mentioned initially, and I think if we're going to do that, we should. It should probably be part of the motion so that it is officially known that that's what we recommend. Do you support that? I agree, and I would add that to the motion. Okay. That's a friendly amendment, and Council Member Blevins will support that as well. Any other questions from Council Members? Council Member Blevins? Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Mr. Kelly, would you come to the microphone? I have a quick question for you. When we last discussed this, we had talked about it from the private sector point of view and how most private sector businesses would handle this by allowing access to the facilities under a reasonable manner and using flex time, and this is done all over town all the time. In fact, we do this for some of the other programs within LFUCG, and I wanted to double check with you that there is no CAO policy or anything that would restrict or prohibit the CSA from doing what we are proposing here. That's correct. There is a CAO policy dealing with flex time. I believe it's CAO Policy 6, which details the flex time options that CSEA or any other employee may use. And we will not be discriminating against CSEA in any way. They will get fair and equitable access just like any other group. Is that correct? Absolutely. They will just need to work with their supervisor to ensure that the time that they would like to meet is workable with their supervisor beyond that, which is what everyone has to do. Okay, great. I see this as a fair and equitable solution that meets both the government's needs as well as CSEA's needs and also matches what goes on every day, all day in the private sector, so our citizens will agree that this is the proper approach, so I fully support the motion. Thank you, Council Member Blevins. Council Member Hinson? I had some questions, but I think maybe direct them to Joe Kelly. Hi. Hi, how are you? Fine. How many members are in the association or is it a board? I can't tell you myself how many members there are. I've heard estimates from 25 to 40, maybe paying members, there may be more. I'm not sure. I think what the request was for the officers, if that's correct. Yeah, I can. Sure. We have board members of the... Can you say your name? My name is Debbie. I'm the CSEA treasurer, and we have actually, we have like the president, vice president, every other year we have president-elect, secretary, and treasurer, and then we have 15 reps from the different divisions, so they can bring back their, if they have anything in their, like somebody comes and tells, one of the employees comes and tells them that the, you know, problems and stuff, they bring them back to the board, or if they have a grievance, they bring it back to the board, and actually the grievance committee will decide if they have anything, and we get, try to get with human resources to kind of level out the grievance and stuff before it ever goes any farther. So there's approximately 20? Yeah. Now we have, now we have right at 500 members right now, paid members, but actually this is just the beginning of the year, so we will probably get more. Okay. How is flex time, how do you get flex time? How's it accrued? Always before, we've always been given by all the other mayors four hours a month to do these business, and usually we don't take four hours, like sometimes I'll take my lunch time and then take another hour in order to, you know, to. So you currently get those, the four hours a month? No, this administration come in and they've, at first they said we would get it, and then now they're saying that we don't. Okay. So if you take flex time to conduct your business, you don't really have it, right? Right. All right. And, well, flex time, they actually gave us four hours a month, and I don't know what you're talking about flex time, like will we use our lunch time? Some divisions will let the employees use their lunch time, you know, to make up. Some divisions won't. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're very welcome. Any other committee member questions? Yeah, just a clarification. Flex time is available to any employee, not just the CSEA, and what we're saying is, is that all they need to do is try to work with their supervisors to determine time so that, for example, some of the crews that might work out on the roads, maybe they're two-person or three-person crews, well, if you have someone not available because they're at a CSEA meeting or taking flex time, then the crew can't do their work. So all we're asking is that they coordinate with the supervisors and find a time that's agreeable to everybody. And they have not been denied flex time. Flex time was available and always has been since 1997, I believe, for that use. I'm going to turn the chair, I'm sorry, Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I have another follow-up question. Have you all notified the supervisors of this pending policy? And if you haven't, will you? And what if the supervisor doesn't agree to let them use their flex time? Well, again, I think that what the supervisors are asked to do is try to accommodate any employee. So you all have asked the supervisors to accommodate the four hours or whatever hours they need using their flex time. Except to one and a half hours, they can either come in late, have their meeting in the morning, work over. They can do a half hour in the morning, half hour over in the afternoon, and take an extra hour at lunch. I mean, just if everybody will use a little common sense and work together, there's no reason why there should be any problem. Well, and I agree with you. I just hope this problem doesn't rear its ugly head again if a supervisor denies them the right for several employees to meet using their flex time. I would hope that we could work those things out without having to come back to the council. Yes, so we agree. And the supervisor will, if there's a pattern of denial, if there's no time that works for the supervisor, then we'll have to take that up with the supervisor. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Council Member Rebaird. Thank you, Chair. I just think it's unfortunate, let's put it that way, that a situation like this has to come to a head. Something that I assume has been going on even by the memorandum since 1973, pre-merger, and now the hammer drops. We understand that you cannot have collective bargaining for city employees, but that may not always be the case. And these folks may end up being the representative anyway, whether we like it or not. And I think the hard line or the tone is what I have a problem with. The tone of the memorandum, where I understand it's a legal opinion, and most legal opinions have that tone. These are our employees, our co-workers, and I think I just regret that this situation has come to this. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Baird. I will turn the chair over to Council Member DeCamp. Ms. James. Thank you. I have a couple of concerns that I would like to feel better about to be able to make a good vote today. And I think maybe Mr. Allen may be able to answer one of those. How are you? I'm good, Council Member. Thank you. Good. One of the, when I've spoken with a couple of the members of the CSEA board, one of the reasons that I believe they feel the need to meet has to do with the process in human resources and the grievance process specifically. What happens when an employee goes to human resources and has a complaint about not being able to get their four hours leave or any other related item? What's the process once that occurs? The process for grievances are clearly set out in the employee handbook. And also there's a grievance procedure, which is the employee handbook's modeled after in the ordinances. And also we have a grievance procedure in all of our collective bargaining agreements. So they're all just a little bit different. But in general, Council Member, the individual has the right to present their complaint. And then based upon the complaint, if resolution can be achieved at the lowest level, the supervisory level, then we try to do our best to achieve resolution. If not, there's a formalized process where the grievance proceeds up to, up in Lexington Fed, government, up to Joe Kelly. Okay. I think that's what I was looking for, is the end, where that stops. And so Joe Kelly would be the end all as far as making the determination of the decision. If it ever got, yes, if it was required to go to Joe, yes. And how many of those reach Joe at this current moment? I'd have to check on that. Not very many. We're doing a very good job, I feel, in achieving resolution where individuals withdraw their grievances and withdraw their complaints because we have come to some understanding concerning the issue. In many cases, it's, as we've discovered, it's more the communication or discussion that's important to clarify issues or rules. And once that's achieved, then the employee feels like they have had an opportunity to voice their issue, and there has been some answer. Okay. So the process, you feel like, is a good process right now? I certainly do, Council Member. It's very fair. And how many representatives from CSEA actually come to you on behalf of other CSA members and what they've talked about as a group and say, we're coming to Human Resources through the grievance process on behalf of CSEA? My memory serves me correctly. It's only been maybe two in the last year. Okay. Two out of over 100. So only about two, less than 10%. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Kelly? I think it was Council Member Stennett that was just talking with you about what's our process when a supervisor does not approve or our supervisor is aware that we want to offer the flex time, the flex time is available. Is there anything that you would be willing to formally do to a memo formally regarding today, whatever happens today, to the different supervisors citywide that would say flex time is available, there will, here's the process, can you post this process that says here's what you need to do if you would like to use your flex time, and if a person has a grievance or if a person has a problem with repeat denials of flex time, here's the steps that you need to take. You first see the grievance person in Human Resources. There's some amount of time or some type of, as I think you put it, common sense that needs to go into resolving that, and the last step would be on your desk and I guess a meeting with you to discuss what the problems are. Can we list that process out so that we can try to capture where the problems actually exist? Sure. We can send a note out to all the supervisors, management team, reminding them of the existence of the CAO policy relative to flex time and for them to familiarize themselves if they're not already with the process, be happy to do that. Familiarize themselves and also to have that where it's kind of their responsibility at their next staff meeting or department meeting to say as to their employees, here's what the process is, so that it's not one employee being told something and another employee being told a different thing, so it's, you know, departmental wide, the same sort of procedure. Yeah, we can do that. I would appreciate that, and if you could send a copy to the committee members or council members when you send that out so we are aware. I'm sure we'll get phone calls. Sure. Thank you. Happy to do it. Thank you, Vice Chair. Are you through? Yes. Back to you. All right. I see no one else to speak, so we've got a motion and a second, and I believe it's time for us to vote. Does anybody need the motion restated? Okay. I hope not, because I can't restate it. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And all opposed? Aye. Thank you very much. And our next agenda item. Thank you all for being here. Oh, Council Member, I'm sorry, Commissioner, I ask you. That's all right. Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson. Mr. Kelly contacted me today after a conversation with Mr. Blues, asking that, you know, if we were going to be able to do this, we would be able to do this. So, I'm going to ask Mr. Kelly to come forward. Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I also have a letter from Mr. Blues asking that there be something put in writing about the administration's position. And so I did that. I recognize that we're supposed to have things in advance, but I have the letter here if you all would like to see it. But it essentially goes over what Council Member Blues suggested, except it also talks about break periods and lunchtime being available for use for these meetings as well. Okay. If you will make those available to the committee members, that would be great. Thank you. Council Member DeCamp just mentioned to me that I forgot about Paula Brown here. Would you like to? Okay. Committee members, if you would please give the opportunity for employee Paula Brown to speak on this issue. Hi. You already know my name. It's Paula Brown. Can I ask a couple of questions, please? It's about the CSEA stuff. I believe the procedure would be that you would have about three minutes to talk, to give your side. I can't ask questions? Not really. Okay. If you could speak, you have three minutes to speak, and then you can ask your questions. If a committee member wants to respond to those questions, they have the right to do so. Okay. You all spoke about the flex time. The flex time to employees is when you can come in at 7.30 and leave at 4.30. That's flex time to employees. I think you all are speaking of the flex time as going through your lunch to take care of the civil service, but I'm curious about what is an employee's recourse? Because we go to human resources, but that's just, I mean, we don't have an EEOC, and if they're the EEOC, to me, that's a conflict of interest. And Mr. Kelly had said something about repeated denials. For several years, I have attended, I'm a board member for the REACH program. I've attended those meetings. I've attended EEOC meetings with Dean, the emergency response team, and for about the last year, I have not been able to attend any of these meetings without using, there's four hours of community time. So I can use those, but the REACH, you know, like tomorrow, they're going to have like a three-hour meeting so we can get organized and stuff. But as far as the CSEA, I have been repeatedly denied of any request. And when they say to ask the supervisors, well, that's the reason we're here, because of the flex time and the supervisors. But my request today is I would like to get back my last six months of time that I had. This meeting is all because of flex time and them demanding me to use vacation time. But nobody else had to use vacation time. And I would like to request my time back. And I know per the guidelines of the EEOC, the city doesn't tolerate inequality of treatment to their employees. So, and I consider it as unjust and unfair to make me use my time when it was assumed that my three minutes are up, when it was assumed that we could, for the last five years, 25 years of protocol, we did use CSEA, but yet I've been demanded to use my time. So if my three minutes are up, they're not up, but let me keep talking. I just want to emphasize the repeated denials. You know, I can spend 15 minutes extra at a board meeting to try to help people to become homeowners, because I have the desire to want to get behind people and make them appreciate something free, like being a recipient of the REACH. You know, I get harassed and persecuted about spending 15 minutes extra at a REACH board meeting when we have people coming in, coming and going when they want. So this thing about the supervisors, that's just zero. And the thing about the grievance committee, that they handle it, that's zero. So I'm just a recipient of all of it. Okay. Your time is now up. However, don't leave, because this is exactly the kind of, we can use this Ms. Brown's complaints as an opportunity for Joe Kelly. You can meet Joe Kelly while you're here today and arrange a time and whatever procedure they're going to have in place to be able to deal with the repeat denials and that type of thing. You'll be able to deal directly with him. So we'll be able to see if, or we'll be able to tweak the policy to where it's effective. So you be sure to get Joe Kelly's number, email address. I don't think he'll give you his home address or home phone number, but give what information you can from him today. And that is going to be your point of contact, and then he will be able to then figure out a process that works. I think that's a great opportunity. Did you have a comment? With all due respect, she needs to go through the process. She does not need to come directly to me with her issues. I don't know the circumstances around her issues. I don't know how many committees she belongs to. I don't know if they're official committees. I don't know if she's being asked to attend those meetings on behalf of the government or if they're things she has personal interest in. So she needs to go through the appropriate process and start at HR if she has agreements. With all due respect to you as well, what I feel like at this time we have the opportunity to do is you be sure to clarify with her what the process is. As she goes through this process, you can actually be able to see if things are working to the effectiveness that they should as the policy is written. So I think, I mean, it may be out of the norm, but I'm asking you personally as a council member and as the chair of this committee that this be something that you can consider doing. You don't have to do it, but you can consider doing this to see if the policy actually works. So I do agree. I believe she's been through a process before, and it may be important to find out, maybe you need to talk to human resources or whomever to find out what process she's been through, her supervisor. But I think what's important here is we've got, you know, here's the person complaining, and you are the person that would make the decision. And it's not always that those two people are in the room together. I would like for the opportunity to exist. If you don't want to do it, you have the option to say no. However, this is a grand opportunity to perfect a policy that could really make a situation work out a little bit better. I'm happy to work with human resources to see what has been done to this point. And if it's an appealable issue that rises to my level, I'll be glad to address it. I believe, subject to check, that since I've been here 14 months, there's been two appeals that have reached me, if I'm not mistaken. So I think, you know, we want to treat everybody the same. Absolutely. Everybody to go through the same process. Absolutely. And so that's all I'm saying. We just want to make sure the process works. Sure. So anything you can do, and if you feel like it's out of your realm, if you know who would be the person that she needs to work with, if you can put her in touch with that person, that would be helpful, too. Happy to do that. Thank you. Sure. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Brown, I think that Council Member James is articulating a view here that all council members are going to support, and that is that we want to make sure that the flex time mechanism works for the employees. And so we'll be anxious to monitor this and to see that, you know, it's fairly exercised throughout government and it does provide adequate opportunities for, you know, for employees to, you know, to meet or to, you know, to work out other kinds of obligations other than work. You mentioned I have a question. When you were speaking, you referred to community time, and I just wondered what that referred to. It's, I wish we could really, flex time to you and flex time to us is a different thing. So I think if we can agree on the flex time, because we sign papers to come in early, that's flex time to us, but the flex time you guys are talking about I think is something else. Maybe make it up or something, that's a difference. But the community leave, every employee gets like four hours a year to like go to their schools or use city time to do something to, do you understand? Yes, I do. Does anybody else know what the community leave is so you all can? Council Member Levins knows a little bit about that. In short, it's in ordinance you have four hours a month that you can use for community service related. A year? A year. Oh, it's a year, my bad. Subject to the supervisor approval and all that stuff. So that's one way that you could do your reach service, for example, using those four hours a year. I realize that's probably not enough, but that's one thing that you could use. Flex time is very different. That's where you come in early, move your lunch hour, leave late, those kinds of things, and that is what we're talking about in terms of for CSEA in particular. You'd have to use flex time because the community service wouldn't apply. Council Member Beard. I just am amazed that it's four hours a year. That's not at all what you find in the private sector for a parallel type of situation. Four hours a year is ridiculous. That's all I can say. It's absolutely ridiculous. You can't get anything done in four hours a year, especially if you try to pace it out over a 12-month period of time. It's, you know, you can breeze in a meeting and back out again. You spend more time getting there than you will be being in it. So, anyway, I just find that that needs to be looked at. Let's just put it that way. That's not what the private sector does at all in a parallel situation, and we might go to school on the private sector on occasions. It might help us somewhat. Thank you. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say I agree with that because the reach board meetings, I mean, we have them. Even though we have them quarterly, I mean, an hour and a half, an hour and a half. I had turned in two hours at my last meeting. I was only there. Richard only asked that we only stay like 20 or 30 minutes, and I tried to change my time back to an hour, and I couldn't do that. Repeated denials. But the bottom line is that four hours to try to help people to become homeowners or to go to the EEOC training classes, I mean, to go with knowledge to an EEOC training class and to go without knowledge is completely two different things than four hours a year for me to try to help out. And, you know, I don't mind using my time some, but, you know, I just think right's right and wrong's wrong. I just think it's all about inequality. Sir. Paula, thank you so much for coming to talk on this. I think you've opened committee members' eyes to certain things, and we look forward to following your process as you move forward with it. Appreciate you being here. Thank you for being bold to coming up. Well, I need to, will you all answer my one question? Am I, in the past six, the reason this meeting is going on is because I've been using my vacation time, and my time is my time. Everybody else used city time for the last so many months. City vehicle, city's gas. I use my vehicle, my gas, and my time. And I just don't think that's right. And the only reason I'm here right now is to ask for my vacation time back. Ma'am. I'm hoping that through Joe's contact with Human Resources, maybe that's something that they'll be able to find out if that's been requested. Council Member DeCamp has a suggestion. Yeah, I want to ask you specifically, what is your job in the city? Is it related? I mean, for instance, you go to the REACH meeting. Does that have anything to do with what you do in the city? Yes and no. We're in the city to help people. The REACH program helps people also, our citizens. Richard Maloney asked me several years ago to be a board member to represent low-income people. Right. And I am a recipient of that, and I don't mind talking about it a bit. Right. So it doesn't have to do with my job, but it has to do with the citizens. Okay. But what I'm trying to figure out here, if it has something specifically to what you do in the city, because I do think if you were in some capacity in the city that had to do and somehow related to housing, then I could see that. But you were asked because you have participated in it and you have an interest in it. I mean, that's right. A strong interest, and Richard asked me to be a board member. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Paula. Okay. I'm sorry. Our next item on the agenda is employee compensation update. Council Member Gordon, did you have any preliminary information on that? Did you want to say anything before we have human resources come forward? Just simply that if I recall back in the ancient annals of history, this came about originally after we talked about the high-risk supplement pay, and then it kind of was an outshoot of that, and so I'm looking forward to the update. I'm not a member of this committee, so I can't vote on anything. But thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Would you like to step forward? Thank you. My name is Wally Barker. I'm the manager of compensation and human resources. I work with Michael Allen. I was here one time before and introduced the chart that you have in front of you as part of your handout. We're working on putting together a market pricing compensation program to replace the program that we currently are using. As part of that, we're going to match jobs directly to current market rates versus the Mercer job evaluation process that we go through right now. The building blocks of the process are exactly the same as I introduced the last time, starting with the first step is to document all of our jobs and then ultimately ending up applying our current employees, all the folks that are on staff, into the new system based on the procedures and policies that we would have set along the way through the process of the program. We have it beginning this month and ending about a year from this time so that we could have all the positions integrated and the current employees slotted into the new system so that we can quantify what the ramifications might be as far as costs or benefits that we would reap from the new program and that that might be built into the next budget round. So we're hoping to have everything in place by January, February next year so that whatever we're recommending can be taken into account as far as the budgeting for fiscal 210. There are some key dates. This is the same chart that you would have seen the last time, but we've put in some dates as the dates have begun to solidify for us. Again, we're going to be starting now as far as all of the brass tacks and groundwork in putting the program together and that would include documenting the jobs, reviewing them as far as the FLSA status, as to whether a job by law should be eligible to receive overtime or not receive overtime, pulling in all of the market data that we need based on what we're viewing as the relevant marketplace for each of our job families and positions, updating our salary structures, which have not been updated in quite some time, and then again finalizing policies and procedures. All of that will be completed by the end of this calendar year, by the end of December. What I would like to do is build in within that there are certain key dates, one of which would be coming back to see you in June and work with Paul to get on the agenda here every three months during the process. So as far as the timetable is running, I'm looking at June, September, and December within this year, and then February and May to come back and reiterate what progress we've made and to get your views on the direction that we're taking through the program. There are several issues that we've noted that have been problems in the past with the current program. One is the broadness of our job classifications. There are certain job classes which have hundreds of employees in them, and those need to be narrowed significantly, and that's one of the things that we'll be building into the new program. And that, as you're aware, when we hire someone in, right now we're working under the ordinance that we need to calculate inversions to keep everyone sort of on an equitable pay distribution. The classes that we have right now, some of them are so broad and the populations are so large that the inversions have become ineffective for that purpose. A couple of other things that have come to light just since I've been here last September would be the volume of reclassifications that have been coming before the council for approval. The new market-driven program will actually eliminate the volume on those coming before you. Let me see. We've also been working, since I saw you last, on streamlining the process of new hires, and part of that, either new hires into existing positions or new hires into newly created positions. And there are certain parts within that process that the compensation department played a part, and that was funneling things through the Mercer Committee, and that was one of the big delays in the process of hiring new folks. So we've been working on streamlining that process and are keeping an eye on that as far as the new program so that reclassifications when they come up or new jobs as they come up, the turnaround will be very quick compared to what it has been in the past. I've also been speaking with a couple of the local HR organizations. One is through World at Work. They have a bluegrass chapter and SHRM, which is the Society for Human Resource Management, and we're looking at putting together our own custom survey to go out and canvass the local pay rates for here in Lexington. There are other third parties that we can participate in salary surveys or purchase market data, which would typically be regional or geographic in nature. But what we're trying to put together is a custom survey that would simply address Lexington, so that for all the positions that we use, just the local market, we would have a read on what those rates would be. So the key dates that we're working on is to have the preliminary portions of the project completed by the end of the year. I know that the PeopleSoft, the HR module of PeopleSoft, should be getting underway hopefully shortly, and we're looking at hopefully the beginning of next year for that to be implemented. And what we're hoping is to have this project move hand in hand with that project so that January 1 next year, we're up live and our employees are integrated within the new program, within the new system, and that by the time budget season starts, we will be able to provide all the tools that will be needed for that. Thank you very much. I have a few council members that would like to speak, beginning with Council Member Stinnett and then Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of questions. Describe for me what our current system we're under. What system are we using now? Right now for job evaluation, we're using a point factor system that was put together by Mercer. So we're using the Mercer system now. Right, that we purchased about over 10 years ago, I think. The process, though, would be we have a seven-member Mercer committee that every reevaluation would need to go before them, and they would have to reach a decision as to what the evaluation should be as far as a grade level. So have you all compiled a list of what's wrong with the current system? Yes. And give me your top three then. What's the top three issues from your all side? I know what they are, I can tell you. I've been here long enough to know. On our side, just that it was cumbersome. The committee only met once a month. The appeals process took up too much time. I think from one of my big issues, and I'm new to government here, was that the process was not transparent to the employees, so there was a distrust of the process. Not only was it lengthy, they were in the dark a lot of times about what was going on. And when an answer would come back to them with regard to a reclassification, all they would receive was a yes or a no, and this is the grade, but really didn't have an understanding of how the process worked. And it really is not a bad process. It's just been communicated and perhaps handled badly. But as job evaluation programs go, the Mercer program is not a bad program. And also, is it one of the reasons that it hasn't been successful is we haven't funded it as a government, put the right amount of funding towards that system? Correct. I think it was funded only the first three years. Right. And since that time, that's why the volume of reclassifications has been so high, is that that's the only means that management had to elevate an employee's pay. You touched on a couple of things I want to elaborate on a little bit. One, you said our job categories are too broad, and I assume you're not meaning that we don't have too many categories, yet we have too few categories that try to cover too many people. Because back before Mercer, we had 700-and-something categories. I think it narrowed it down to 300-and-something, whatever we have now. We didn't like that before, but now it seems like we want to go back to that. You know, I guess speaking of that, what is really the market pricing going to do? I mean, is it going to give us more categories, 700 again? I don't know. No. We don't know that yet. Definitely not. With the population that we're working with, we're looking at really about 1,500 employees, and there are so many multi-incumbent positions that 300 would be reasonable, I would think, for this size population. The jobs that I was speaking of are support-type jobs, administrative jobs that across the various divisions are doing very distinct and different functions, yet right now they are all categorized in one class. Right. They need to be broken out. And they'll be broken out more along functional lines. Okay. And then last but not least, we talked about inversions. I know this council in November of 2006 paid off the final pay inversion, if I'm not correct, Mr. Allen, but yet today I see our new business more pay inversion money asked for. Why are we still having pay inversions? I think you're talking about the pay equity. Yes. That Michael marshaled. Is that not the inversion? That's not? That's two different things. As per ordinance right now, as an employee is hired, we go through a process where a score is assigned to that employee based on their education and their background, and that in turn comes up with a very distinct salary for that individual. Okay. We take that person's score and their salary and place it against all the current incumbents. Per ordinance, if there is anyone in there with a lower salary but a higher score, they need to be inverted up to the salary that this new person is being paid. So you are still going to see periodic requests for inversions until that ordinance may be amended. So what's pay equity then? Pay equity, I think, was to rectify a lot of old sins that had grown before that period. Michael will be able to answer that more. Because, I mean, you mentioned the current system is causing inversions, and you just described an inversion, but so what's a pay equity? Can you help us understand that? I like to learn new things, Mr. Allen. I'm never too old to learn. Council Member, they're very similar. So it's semantics, right? It's a wee bit of semantics. Pay equity involved the process that we, with the help of council, I guess two years ago now, were able to correct the sins of the past that had been building since the Mercer system was unfunded, to your point. So those issues were addressed, but the same principle applied. But we looked at it, the whole government, every employee in government, we did the analysis of inversion, and that was the pay equity issue. Now we're at a point, and to tell you, to be quite candid, Council Member, two years ago, or two and a half years ago, I would initially see inversion numbers to the tune of $200,000. We don't see that anymore. We've corrected those problems. What council will now see, based upon the ordinance, we do, as Wally said, the analysis on inversions. The individual divisions must fund the inversion if they agree on the salary. But what council sees, and what you're seeing now, is we have to wait. Even though the trigger occurs at hire, if it's a civil service position, the person isn't permanent until six months later. So that's why you'll see some of those inversions going back or being retroed. But relatively now, they're a handful compared to what they were before. But isn't that contrary to what the council asked? We said, when we're going to fund this once and for all, until we get a new pay system, which is what we're talking about today, we don't want any more inversions. Do not hire people. And I know the previous CAO made sure it didn't happen. Do not hire anyone if it's going to cause an inversion. That was not our marching orders, council member. It was do not hire anyone if you can't fund the inversion. Well, why are we being asked to fund the inversion on today's docket with extra money going into the next budget? Well, the individual divisions have to fund the inversion. That's not what it says today. And, you know, this practice has got to stop. I mean, we can't keep hiring people in this government that causes everyone else to have to be inverted. It's not going to work. We're going down a black hole. And hopefully this new pay system will get us there. Well, market will definitely. See, that's one of the larger problems with the Mercer system that you didn't mention. I thought for sure you would. And that's compensation in a vacuum. You know, we do PAQs, we do everything else, and the committee would make a recommendation. But at no time did we ever go to the marketplace and say, well, is this what we should be paying for this job? And we will be doing that. But to Wally's point, we do have an ordinance that gives us quite clear margin orders as to what we have to do for inversions. I'll make sure you get a copy of it if you don't have a copy. And I'll make sure every counselor gets a copy. Maybe we need to amend it and make a different margin order because this has got to stop. I mean, unless you want to bring this to us and get a new pay system tomorrow, we can't keep doing this. Agreed. We can't continue to keep raising, as we would say, our general and administrative overhead. Absolutely. And I thank you for bringing us down from 200 to 17 that we see today. But it was my understanding of several counselors, why we supported the 1.8 million was to solve this once and for all and not have any more going forward. We saw the great issue, Councilmember, which was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And as I said, we will see individuals, because we are trying to maintain market, you know, and hire the best and brightest talent, you know, for government. And sometimes that's going to impact current employees. And currently we're required by ordinance to raise that up. Now, if you tell us we don't have to do that, then that's another issue. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Councilmember Baird. I keep on barking this. A couple of questions, if I might. The first, I guess, is you mentioned new hires into created positions. How does that occur in the environment of a hiring freeze? It doesn't. Oh, okay. Business as usual, that would occur. But during a freeze, unless it's a position that is unique and required and has a special approval, you're correct. There wouldn't be any newly created jobs. This whole thing about the Mercer system, and Councilmember Sennett took some of my esteem away from me because of that. It's funny that the Mercer system seems to work in thousands of business places around the country. Obviously, if you don't fund it, it pretty much cuts the legs out from under it. Right. I was involved in installing a Mercer system myself at one point in my life. And we used market numbers initially to plug into the various categories and levels, and then you had a minimum, midpoint, and maximum within each one. The thing that most of these salary surveys don't do is give anybody any credit for tenure, special skills, education levels, things of that sort. It's just a job description, job title, and generally people, you just plug them in there. And most of the people that do the surveys will just search around and say, that looks about right, and we'll stick this job in this category. So going to the marketplace is not the be-all and end-all, in my opinion. It's flawed. Go ahead. I don't think it's the be-all and end-all either. I think the way the Mercer program, and Mercer is a very reputable company, and I've worked with them with various companies in the private sector, good reputation, and what they installed here actually was good. As you said, if you don't fund it, then it's sort of a moot point. You're going to wind up with what you're paying for. Typically, any compensation program is tied to the market, and you update that annually. I think the last time that we purchased the updated market data from Mercer, which was our key supplier to keep the system here updated, was that same three-year period. Since then, the salary ranges that we're using have been updated simply by an index that World at Work releases each year, so that one would think they may perhaps reflect the market, but we don't know that until we actually get into the marketplace and start pulling in the market data. The integrity of the data is always an issue, and that's why we need to work with professional companies where we have a complete understanding of the numbers that we're looking at. Compensation professionals are used to looking at this data, knowing what all the variables might be, knowing what the requirements for a job are. Typically, if you have those requirements both in education and in work experience, then you should approximate the midpoint of what the market data is saying the range is. So there are some quantifiable distinctions that we can make there, but some companies, as you said, the integrity of the data is key when you're using market pricing. You will have some parallel processes that go on that are going to look like some of the processes within the Mercer system, are you not? Yes. And the indictment of the Mercer system was that we handled them poorly. Now, what is the assurance we have that we aren't going to handle the new processes poorly also? Well, I think any process that's new has such attention on it that things are done properly in the beginning, just as they were with Mercer. The problem comes in maintaining. They drift. Yes. Yes. And I think that the Mercer program that we have in place right now is a very good program, especially for internal equity. It's very documented. There are ten factors that we rate every single position on, and when we tally those scores, it's very easy to see what the hierarchy within the organization is. So it's a very useful tool, and we have lots of very credible historic data for that, which will be very helpful going forward into the new system. The problem has been that our system for about a decade has ignored the marketplace. Right. Well, you know, I've been hearing for five years about everybody turns their nose up at the Mercer system, and then at the same time says, but we didn't fund it. The indictment of the Mercer system has been somewhat unfair, I think, over the years because of that. Anyway, that's all I wanted to ask. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, my first comment is to tag on to what Council Member Beard just said. It's interesting that while Urban County Government didn't fund Mercer, and so it didn't work well here, right down the street, the health department, which we funded at the time, did fund their Mercer system, and their Mercer system has worked beautifully before and after they had their dedicated tax. It works very well. And I think any indictment of Mercer is really unfair if you look at a Mercer system that's funded correctly, because I personally know a fair amount about how that worked at the health department, and it worked well. So I did have a question, though, about you brought up World at Work, so I'm going to go there. And I want to relate that back to something that Commissioner Coe said at our budget and finance meeting. And if I misunderstood, I'm sure you'll help me understand. I think I understood that in our personnel costs that we're looking at, we're not looking at any increase, any pay increase for any employees unless they're under collective bargaining. Is that – did I understand that correctly or not? As a part of the exercise that I provided to you where we would be $25 to $30 million down, that $16.9 million did not have any raises for employees other than sworn in it. That does not mean that that's what we will be bringing forward. That was an exercise in this is how far down we go without adding money. Okay. Well, I appreciate that clarification, because our World at Work ordinance is still on the books. So we're going to have to – well, we're going to have to work that as salaries come forward for the new fiscal year, and we still have the World at Work ordinance in place. So I just kind of wanted to bring that to the forefront and be sure I understood. But clearly no decisions have been made around that. But that was an exercise in delivering a message about what the shortage could be. Okay, and how that fit into that with the personnel costs. Okay, good. Thank you. And then, Wally, I wanted to ask you, in the management audit, one of the things, if I recall, about our compensation system was this very thing, that we don't reward people for performance and for merit. And so I guess how does that fit into this pyramid of duties? And do you have any idea right now how that will fit into the new compensation system, or is it too early to tell? It's actually – it isn't covered right here on this chart, but it is something that we're wanting to integrate as we bring up the new program. Right now there are five performance ratings for employees, and it's my understanding that everyone rated 2, 3, 4, and 5 all receive exactly the same increase, which is definitely not pay per performance. So what we're hoping to do is institute a pay per performance program as we bring this new program up. One of the things that definitely undercuts that would be the ordinance covering inversions, because inversions ignores performance. It brings everyone up, regardless if they're a 2 or a 5, brings everyone to the same inflated salary, in my opinion. And those two programs could not work hand-in-hand. If we do go with pay per performance, then we definitely need to take a look at the inversion ordinance and either eliminate it or work some other method to ensure that we have internal pay equity. But that definitely does away with any pay per performance incentive. It's a delicate balance, isn't it? Well, I've always felt that it's not really right not to reward employees who are actually performing at a high level. That's an incentive to work well at your job. The current program is a real disincentive because it brings everyone down, actually. And whether you've been here, you know, you can get into all those comparisons. If you've been here a short while with government, 2 or 3 years, but yet you are a high-performing employee, that is, I personally think, very important. And then you look at an employee who maybe has been here 20 years who's doing the bare minimum. And, you know, there is a balance there. And I'm really interested to see what you bring back to us to work that balance because I think longevity is important and dedication to the business, so to speak, but high performance is also very important. I agree. Well, then let me ask you my last question. In your pyramid, what is, when you have defined the rules, what are the rules? Just in general. I don't mean what are the specific rules, but what are you going to be doing there? That's talking about addressing our internal pay policies and how we handle, especially in looking at the marketplace, we can determine what the current going rates are in the market. But do we want to pay the market median? Do we feel that we could lag the median? So we need to determine where we want to place ourselves in the marketplace. Do we want to lead the marketplace so we're a premier employer? So that would be one of the primary questions as far as integrating our current employee population into the market rates is how do we say that we want to pay our employees? And then the next would be, as far as increases in pay, would be moving to a pay per performance where we do recognize the high performers and that someone can't be hired in from the outside that then is going to move all the poor performers up to the same salary. So those are key elements. What that is referring to is the rules as far as our internal pay policy, how we choose to pay our employees. So can we afford this? We're not going to know what the aggregate either cost or savings is going to be until later on. I think the turnover rates here are relatively low except in seasonal positions. So one would think we pay the market or approximate it. So until we get into it and see, we won't know. But I'm assuming or I'm hoping that it's going to be a wash, that it's going to be somewhere in the middle. Some are overpaid, some are underpaid. Okay. Well, I look forward to hearing more. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gorton. Council Member Blevins is next. Thank you, Chair. I want to jump on the merit pay bandwagon because I think if we don't do that, we're wasting our time. And here's why. Currently we're seeing all of these reclassifications from first and second line managers because they have no other way of rewarding a decent employee or making their pay equitable to what they're actually doing. And I don't mean equitable to their peers. I mean to their job requirements. So if we just change systems, what are we doing? Okay. So I'll just tell you right now, I won't support any change unless it includes a merit pay function of some sort. I want to signal that to you because otherwise it encourages and enforces the one thing that we don't want in this government, which is mediocrity. That's exactly correct. Thank you. So bring that. I am very much looking forward to that. We have situations right now that I'm aware of with critical employees. I mean mission critical employees that I would dearly like to get some money to, and we don't have a mechanism to do it, and that's pitiful. Pitiful. All right. That's not your fault. I'm not yelling at you. I look forward to your future presentations, and I'm going to tell you why. This will have a dramatic impact on the way this government runs, and I think it will have a dramatic impact on money. I'm not as optimistic that you are that it will be a wash. So as we go through, I want you to come back and do exactly what you had said earlier. In fact, I'm about to make a motion to enforce that. Will you come back and you walk us through, as you all come to your decisions, I want to hear each step of the way, because I see this as a critical policy decision and change for this government, and I think this committee needs to be a big part of that. So I'd like to make a motion that we take Mr. Barker. We take Mr. Barker at his word. And, Shannon, did you get the months that he had suggested way back, or we can have him repeat? I'd like to make a motion that we accept Mr. Barker's proposal of dates for future presentations for updates on this. So moved. I've got a motion and a second by Congressman Blues. All in favor say aye. Aye. And all opposed. All right. That passes unanimously. Thank you, Chair. Let's go ahead. Sure. Council Member Beard. Just one other point. One of the moving parts in this whole complex scheme is the evaluation process. And if you were to say that all twos, threes, and fours get the same raise, I wonder why we even bothered with an evaluation process. That's a good question. And then going forward, I assume we will still have an evaluation process. It has always been a bugaboo as far as I'm concerned if Supervisor A over here is using the same criteria as Supervisor B over here. And you can't get parity if they have totally different fluid ideas about what is acceptable or what is outstanding performance. And the two, three, four, and five just blows me away. I can't imagine a two getting any kind of salary increase, to tell you the truth, and a one. Obviously, we're in an environment where we can't do that, but, again, in the private sector, a one doesn't get anything except the front door. Right. Anyway, so some type of training program to get the supervisors all on the same page as far as how an evaluation is done is probably a requirement also, and it would have to be ongoing. It can't be one shot and then go for a while. It would have to continue and continue. Right. That would be an organization standard, actually. Right. Also. Thank you. I have no one else on my screen to speak. Are there any other speakers or any other motions? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Barker. Appreciate it. And our next agenda item is just an update on committee items. If you will turn to the back of your packet. Does anybody have any comments, any to remove? All right. Motion to adjourn. Was there a first? Okay. We've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you.