No Tim Bruer, No Dave Cieslewicz, No Jed Sanborn. No Mark Clear. And a return to ,minimal bk comments.
The new Board of Estimates is of course chaired by our new mayor, Paul Soglin. Lauren Cnare as Council President is automatically on the committee. The other people appointed were Mike Verveer, Satya Rhodes-Conway and Joe Clausius who were all on Board of Estimates previously. They are joined by Larry Palm and Brian Solomon.
Everyone was present, Clausius was late, but there was a bomb threat and the streets were blocked cuz some guy who was from Saudi Arabia and had a “language barrier” ate some food from a buffet at Monona Terrace where he wasn’t invited and they freaked out and checked his bags for bombs. Seriously, not kidding. Well, at least that’s the story on the news this morning.
PERSONNEL ISSUES
Soglin begins by going through these items one by one. Cnare dutifully moves each item, Verveer seconds,they approve them on a voice vote without discussion until they get to item 4 and Soglin stops ans asks if these are all items from the Personnel Board and why they just don’t have one report from the Personnel Board that they can just approve.
Verveer says that traditionally take them up en masse.
Soglin says ok, “moving right along” and he asks for a motion for items 5 – 15.
Rhodes-Conway asks for separation on items 8, 9, 13, 14, and 15.
Palm asks for separation on item 9.
Soglin says they are voting on items 5 – 7, 10 – 12. That motion passes unanimously on a voice vote without discussion.
RESTORING ARTHUR ROSS’ POSITION AS BIKE PED COORDINATOR
Cnare moves approval, Verveer seconds.
Rosemary Lee speaks. (Hey, check that out! Board of Estimates following the rules and taking things up like EVERY OTHER city committee! Instead of having all speakers speak in the beginning of the meeting, they speak as the item comes up on the agenda. You know, like normal. Like the ordinances require. It’s awesome to have a mayor that follows the rules, instead of just doing whatever he wants.) She says she worked with Arthur Ross through the Senior Center, he is intelligent, helpful and she hopes they will follow the mayor’s recommendations to restore him. He was written out of the budget by the previous mayor. He is one of the gems of the city employees.
Cnare asks if this keeps Ross in the position til the end of the year, what happens after that?
Mayor says any one of a number of things, could be same thing that happened last year or nothing, or continues like 99.9% of the rest of the employees.
Cnare asks if would have to renew this resolution?
Mayor says no.
Satya Rhodes-Conway says she has no problem with this item or Ross, but hopes it is not about him, but hopes that the need and desire for a more senior position hat deals with ped and bike issues is noted and recognized by the body and city as a whole. Many people feel that the move by former mayor and council to change this position was important. Many felt it was not the appropriate way to get it done, but do feel position created is a needed one. There are many projects that could be getting done that are not getting done because of lack of higher level position. We tried one, but there could be other ways, she doesn’t want it to go unsolved. Doesn’t want to lose track of the need.
Solomon says that during the debate on the position, a number of issues came up, some solved by different positions. The issues are important, we need to keep on the agenda. If you remember, he spoke against eliminating the position and said if there were certain needs, we should find a way to write them into existing positions. An additional position would be helpful as well, all those needs we need to get them address. He’s not sure if this is about position descriptions or different metrics for the positions doing this work. All the discussion about the needs should not fall of the table.
Motion passes on a voice vote.
ORGANIZATIONAL SPECIALIST/TOTAL QUALITY EFFORT
Cnare moves approval on item 9, Verveer seconds.
Palm says he wants to know more about this.
Mayor says city used to have major effort by Sensenbrenner about total quality, that effort evolved over 15 years and the city made significant changes on delivery of services and then something happened in the last 8 – 10 years and city gave up the program. The position is one where if we reinstitute quality program in the City of Madison it takes a full time staff person. Someone is currently working 50%, is qualified and we’re increasing them to 90% to re-institute a quality management program. One example of the program is that we look at outcomes – for many years losing we were losing 10s of 1000s of dollars monthly in backups with garbage trucks at the tipping site that resulted in a number of staff trying to figure out how to make adjustments and stop waste of time and money. All the trucks converged at the same time. A quality team was brought together, including workers and they devised a system. There are two important things about this. First, no one else came up with it until they involved the workers. Second, because standard work procedures were in place, the deviation for work procedures which if top down would not have worked, instead what resulted was a new system for delivering waste to the tipping place, that saved $600,000. The whole concept of quality is focused on a number of points, with how people are trained, how they work together in workplaces and they get the best results in reforms not by bringing in people from the outside, but have the workers do the analysis. (YES!)
Palm asks how that works with Madison Measures?
Soglin says that data may be of value, mostly looking at outcomes not outputs. Madison Measures is different, not designed to create efficiencies. The Natural Step focuses on environmental issues not working relationships between those who do the work. (YES! I just love the new direction . . . tho fully realize this is the honeymoon phase!)
Motion passes unanimously on a voice vote.
US CONFERENCE OF MAYORS, ETC
Cnare moves approval, Verveer seconds.
Rhodes-Conway discloses she has responsibilities in her day job to run an organization that is comes close to the same mission. They are somewhat parallel but not at the same scale, her program is the Mayors Innovation Project – while this is close to the work she does on a daily basis she doesn’t think she needs to obstain.
Motion passes unanimously
NON-REPRESENTED EMPLOYEES BENEFITS AND RAISES
Cnare moves approval on items 14 & 15, Verveer seconds.
Lorri Wendorf is registered in support and is and available to answer questions representing MPSEA. (Madison Professional and Supervisory Employee Association? Hmm, haven’t had to think about what that stands for in a while.)
Verveer asks City Attorney Michael May – the last council approved precursor to this by resolution – he thinks something was lost in translation, comp group 21 (department and division heads) was not included in that resolution. Comp group 21 has a different process. He wants to know why they were included in these two items. He is worried about precedence and wants to know why this is appropriate. (Cuz Mike May is in Comp Group 21?)
May says that his understanding was for all non-represented employees, so he included them, it was not perfectly clear if that was the case, someone asked on the council floor and he thought it was for all comp groups. Comp group 21 is only an increase in salary range, while other groups would get the increase, they only get increases after all others get increases, then the mayor will look at how much available and then decide how to distribute, that doesn’t change much. The 2nd ordinance is the temporary 5% increase, it is in effect for non-represented employees, this one was drafted so would include 21, not certain if that was what was intended, there could be an amendment to exclude comp group 21.
Verveer says that folks like yourself who are in 21 are worthy and deserve equitable treatment under this misguided law. He just thought it would be handled separately in the individual contracts. He asks the mayor what he thinks about comp group 21 being included.
Mayor says that we have a starting off point where all employees treated as equitable as possible in the so-called budget repair bill, he supports it. The reality is that as we go further and deeper into he year, we have to deal with whatever is adopted. All of these legislative actions are going to be subject to the reality of what will be a significant budget hole that none of us can control, at least not in this room.
Rhodes-Conway asks about precedence.
May says on standard increase it might be an issue but this is a temporary increase, we are dealing with unprecedented law imposed on the city, it’s a policy questions for the council.
Passes unananimously on voice vote
ANOTHER MASS MOTION
Mayor asks for a motion on items 16 – 27.
Cnare moves, Verveer seconds, there is no objection to doing this.
Rhodes-Conway separates, 23 and asks for 26 & 27 to be taken together.
Passes on a voice vote without discussion.
Sister cities, farming, BREWD grant for Royster, undergrounding utilities (who pays and how does it get done), more cops? and that development process report coming up. Part two, before noon? Maybe?
