Well, this puts a whole new twist on things.
The question over who has the legal authority to manage anything at the water utility continues to be a question to me, but, its good to see that someone who might have authority is finally doing something. The resolution I introduced passed the council on May 18th and I was hoping to get another alder on the Water Utility Board and more information for the Common Council. The mayor then introduced an ordinance that is along the same lines in that he is adding people to the Water Board, but removing certainty of an alder being appointed and he also tries to clean up the legal issues. This is the ordinance the Mayor introduced June 26th. Apparently, at the last meeting, the Water Utility Board asked the City Attorney for advice going in the exact opposite of the direction of Mayor Cieslewicz’s ordinance. (i.e. they want to maintain control over the Water Utility instead of having the Mayor and City Council have management authority under state law.)
Meanwhile, check out this email the Common Council members received today. And later, I hope to write more on the EMA Contract we discussed at the last council meeting.
Dear Alders:
I am a City of Madison resident, City of Madison employee, spouse of a Water Utility employee and former union steward who worked extensively at the Water Utility in the late 1990’s. At that time I saw that there was a very sick culture there, with the creative, questioning employees regarded as threats to be pounded down and punished by being passed over for promotion, given the rotten assignments, etc. Management in general treated the employees with contempt and disrespect. There was an arrogance and sense of superiority that allowed no exchange of information, no communication because they did not value anything that the employees could contribute. There was no concern for the employees’ well being, safety, dignity, no sense that they were all working together to deliver a precious commodity to the community. It was so bad that I raised my concerns to the then HR director Maryann Stalcup, Mayor Bauman, Water Board Alder Jean MacCubbin and Priscilla Mather. All that happened was Water Utility mgmt. went to Labor Relations and the Mayor demanding that something be done about me!
In any case I have followed recent developments at the Water Utility with interest. It was no surprise to me that the EMA consultants reported in their Appendix B (available from the Water Utility web site–takes about 10 to 15 minutes to read) that the employees were not allowed to give input to their managers, that their managers did not deign to speak to them, that morale was abysmal, that favoritism was rampant, that the employees FEARED their human resources manager, Gail Glasser (imagine fearing the person you are supposed to go to when you need Family Leave because your wife has been diagnosed with cancer, or you have been injured on the job and are dealing not only with the physical pain but the distress of worrying about your livelihood). These were the same concerns I raised back in the 90’s but I was not able to put it into chart form demonstrating how this causes a loss of productivity!
I was happy to see that this was all finally out in the open but I was concerned that it cost EMA $50,000. to find this out when the City of Madison has its own HR organizational development section that deals with issues like this, and we live in a City with a world class university. Then, while watching the July 3, 2007 City Council meeting I was astounded to discover that the Water Utility had spent another $115,000. without permission to continue the work of EMA. As I listened to Robin Piper, the Utility’s finance officer and Joe Grande spout off that morale was up and trust was building at the Utility I was nauseated. This simply is not true. Denig-Chakroff has carefully selected the followers in his dept. to take part in the committees, there are no minorities, none of the employees who have spoken up over the years about the injustices, none of the creative types whose ideas have been ignored, just the people he can count on to go along. What a waste. EMA is being manipulated and their work has become a sham.
So I read their contract with the City to see what was up–how could it possibly happen that the Water Utility would spend $115,000. more without a contract–was it an innocent mistake? Was it because there was a sense of urgency as Joe Grande kept saying at the Council meeting? Well in a way it was–a sense of urgency because of Denig-Chakroff’s incompetence, Robin Piper’s incompetence, Al Larsen’s incompetence, Dan Rodefeld’s incompetence. One Wisconsin State Journal reporter called Water Utility managers the “Keystone Cops” but those guys are funny. These managers border on the criminal.
First of all the contract provides that the City will be invoiced monthly based on the actual hours worked. So every month you are going to know how close you are getting to that original $50,000. sum and when you go over that $50,000. amount, right? You would think so.
This is the first and only contract the Water Utility has with EMA. Here is what is important:
On the first page, #4 “however in no case shall work commence before execution by City of Madison.” “the term of this contract shall be one year from the date of execution.”
second page #10 “extra services may not increase the total contract price . . . unless the contract is amended as provided in Section 9”
fifth page #23 “It is expressly understood and agreed that in no event will the total compensation for services under this contract exceed $50,000.”
fifth page #24A7 “compensation in excess of the total contract price will not be allowed unless authorized by an amendment under Section 9, amendment.”
#24B3 and 4 “If in the contractor’s opinion the order for extra services would entitle it to extra compensation or extra time, or both, the contractor SHOULD NOT PROCEED TO CARRY OUT THE EXTRA SERVICE (my caps), but shall notify the City, pursuant to Section 15 of this agreement . . .
The City shall review . . . and respond IN WRITING EITHER AUTHORIZING OR REFUSING (my caps) to authorize it. The contractor shall not receive additional compensation or time unless the extra compensation is authorized by the city in WRITING.This contract is pretty clear, even I can understand those words. There was no amendment to the contract.
Now EMA is a professional organization that seems to know what it is doing. I expect that they submitted to the Water Utility, in writing something stating they needed extra hours or time, and in fact, they did. They allotted a certain period of time for Steering Team Guidance but ended up using additional hours and time to the tune of $66,436. to deal with the four chlorine leak crises to help the Utility develop a chlorine standard operating procedure, they came up with a SCADA design plan that they had not intended to do, and they had to help with external communication that was not in their original allotted hours. You will find this in the Strategic Plan Implementation Project Scope, pages 7 and 8.
There is something fishy about the whole contract. It was signed on August 6, 2006 with a one year term but it states that Phase One will take 6 months and that Phase 2 will take 18 months. Apparently, they planned to continue on with another contract without having to bid on it? So as Joe Grande said, there was a sense of urgency, but it wasn’t to increase morale of Water Utility employees, it was so EMA could save managements’ behinds by managing the crisis of the chlorine leaks, and to help them with their external communication so they knew how to “snow” alders and the community alike. And what was Robin Piper doing all this time? Isn’t he paid by the City of Madison and the Utility to handle fiscal matters? Does he or does he not read contracts?
Denig-Chakroff should be held accountable for this huge blunder. As I have said before, if this were a union member, they would have been fired. We have progressive discipline. On the four chlorine leaks alone, a union member would end up fired. On the first leak there would be a verbal warning; the second leak would result in a written warning; the third leak would result in a suspension; and the fourth leak would be termination. Those chlorine leaks are just the tip of the iceberg of all the things that have gone on down at that Utility. Now this spending of $115,000. without permission? Might this be misconduct in public office?
I think the City could NOT pay that money from my reading of the contract but I’m no attorney. I expect the Council will have to approve the expenditure but then cease and desist the contract with EMA. Bring in the City’s in house organizational development people, or ask Alder Schumacher for advice. I don’t want to volunteer him without his permission but he is an expert in this field and even worked with the City in the late 1990’s. We have all the resources here, in house, or at least locally. We as a City do not need to contract out for thousands of dollars, especially, when the process is already being controlled and tainted by Denig-Chakroff so that most employees will not buy in to it. Do you realize too that we are paying EMA employees between $146 to $190 AN HOUR to facilitate!!!! (and that doesn’t count additional “project management support”). Don’t you think we can find someone less expensive locally but equally as good or superior? Have we looked into people at the UW business school or psychology departments? We don’t need experts in water to deal with many of these personnel and communication issues. The EMA report clearly identified the bulk of the problems at the Water Utility stemming from management. The Utility’s high marks came from the workers doing the job well in spite of management.
Another note of concern that even Alder Cnare stated is that there are “deep wounds” at the Utility, but EMA plans to be done with Phase 2 in 18 months. They have allotted a rather small amount of time and small amount of money on internal communication compared to the other monies spent and allotted. I have to believe for “healing” to take place, it will take considerably longer–the employees will have to be given time to confront their managers to air the past hurts and have acknowledgment of the injustices done to them. It cannot be covered up and swept under the rug with the happy faces of EMA and Denig-Chakroff, Joe Grande, and Robin Piper stating that morale is up at a Council meeting for alders to take at face value. This infuriates the employees and these feelings will fester and only scab over to erupt again. It needs to be cleared up now if a true culture change is to take place.
Thank you for your consideration. I would be happy to speak to any of you if you would like more information.
