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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1967 12-14 CC ADJ MIN153 MINUTES OF THE ADJOURNED MEETING OF DECEMBER 12, 1967 OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NATIONAL CITY, CALIFORNIA December 14, 1967 The adjourned meeting of the City Council of the City of National City was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by Mayor Morgan. Council members present: Colburn, Harris, Reid, Morgan. Council members absent: Hogue. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Attaway, Niederfrank, Camacho. Commission members absent: Knight, McKinney. ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICIALS present: Deputy City Clerk Fasig, Linn, Osburn. CITY MANAGER OSDURN introduced Warren F. Schwegel, Survey Director, and Merle F. Hauser, Survey Analyst, who made the classification and salary survey for the City of National City under a contract between the City of National City and the State Personnel Board. Mr. Schwegel said the two reports presented earlier in the day represented the end results in a process which began in the latter part of September, 1967 with distribution of job description forms to employees in the City service; from that time to this time they had developed a series of recommendations concerning salary range and classification of various positions in the City; after the job description forms were distributed to the employees, each employee described in his own words the duties and responsibilities which applied to his position; these were reviewed by the supervisors and forwarded to his office in Sacramento. Mr. Schwegel continued, after reviewing the job and description forms, he and Mr. Hauser returned to National City the last week in October and held personal interviews, individually and in groups, with 101 of the 178 employees whose positions were included in the survey; after getting a full range of information on the duties and organization of the various City departments, they then developed a classification which was a plan describing the various types, levels, duties, and responsi- bilities; it was composed basically of a group of class specifications; each of the classes may contain one or more positions; the question they attempted to resolve and the answer reflected in the various class specifications was one of degrees of similarity and dissimilarity; having completed this phase of the survey, Mr. Hauser and he selected roughly twenty-five classes within the plan which they used as bench mark classes in collecting salary information from other cities and public employers in the general Metropolitan San Diego area; on the basis of their classification findings, they then developed salary recommendations for each of the classes included in the classification plan; at this point, they met with City Manager Osburn to discuss their findings; following this meeting, they completed and prepared for the Council the Classification and Salary Survey Report which was now before them. Mr. Schwegel said generally they found most of the positions to be properly classified; they proposed some changes, new classes, vacant classes for possible future use, some changes which reflected new org- anization or re -organization of several departments since the previous plan was developed and some changes which would provide a more consistent approach to relationship differentials between classes. Mr. Schwegel and Mr. Hauser explained changes in classification and salary range for positions in various -departments and reasons for the changes. Mr. Hauser said the overall cost of adopting all of the salary recommend- ations would be approximately 9.5% of the present City payroll. Vice Mayor Colburn asked in their discussion with the employees and in creating the values and percentages, what weight was put on the off - time in the City and had it been included. Mr. Hauser said it had been included in some cases within the class classification where there was an employee in a department who was subject to recall; it had not been 12/14/67 154 given any weight from the standpoint of the salary range; such items as overtime, etc, they regard as fringe benefits and should be considered apart from salary recommendations. Vice Mayor Colburn said in a compar- ison of the cities, did all cities have the same amount of days off per year, not counting vacation but counting holidays. Mr. Hauser said once again this was a matter of fringe benefit and not given any weight. Mayor Morgan said he noticed the Fire Department and Police Department still had a difference in pay and inquired what the status was for this. Mr. Hauser said the status varied state-wide; they collected salary information for both the Fireman and Police Officer; in analyzing the salary information they attempted to determine the prevailing differen- tial, or lack of differential, in similar classes in the survey agencies; the City presently had a 2-1/2% differential in favor of the Police Officer Class over the Fireman Class; this differential very well - matched prevailing practices in the market area; another aspect was that the City was not experiencing recruiting difficulties in either class; there were other labor market areas where the differential may be 5% and there were a few areas where the differential did not exist at all. Mayor Morgan said the National City Custodians did more than just regular work and inquired if they realized this when they made the survey. Mr. Schwegel said from the standpoint of comparing classes and collecting salary data, in their opinion, for a class to be comparable enough to collect their data from another agency it had to be comparable in duties and responsibilities which would vary from one agency to another and from one individual to another; those duties and responsibilities were similar enough that an adequate comparison could be done reasonable through the listed educational, experience, knowledge and ability re- quirements of the job specification; the recommendation for the Custodian Class was made in part on the basis of salary data collected from other agencies within the labor market area; the recommendation puts National City in approximately the middle of public agency data and matched very well private industry salary data. Mr. Hauser said they found that the overall duties of the Custodians were such that they were properly class- ified. Councilman Reid inquired to whom the information was turned over after it was received from the enployee. Mr. Schwegel said the forms were not turned over by them to anyone; they were reviewed by him and Mr. Hauser and supplemented with information which they obtained by discussion with the employee. Councilman Reid inquired if they were changed in any way. Mr. Schwegel said the forms were not changed; the instructions were given when the forms were passed out; the department head or supervisor were not allowed to change any of the words of the employee; there were methods by which either the supervisor or depart- ment head could indicate he did not agree with what the employee said. Councilman Reid inquired if anyone else entered into this. Mr. Schwegel said to his knowledge there were no changes in the description of the job after the employee edited it; this did not mean the employee was the sole source of information; they discussed the job with the employee, supervisor and with the City Administration; the basis of it, however, was the information given by the employee. Mayor Morgan inquired if anyone had influenced their thinking on the report. Mr. Schwegel said not at all; his personal feelings were that the Council had set aside a certain amount of money to pay Cooperative Personnel Services to make recommendations based on the consultants' concept of good personnel practices and not from the standpoint of someone else's concept and not from the standpoint of whether or not the recommendations could be afforded; consequently, they were their recommendations only. Council- man Harris said at the present time there was a difference of 2-I/2% in the salaries of the Fire Chief and Police Chief and they were propos- ing the salaries to be equal and inquired if it was generally done. Mr. Schwegel said with the department head salary data or from the stand- point of recruiting, you have to look at a wider geographic area; within 12/14/67 155 this wider geographic area they found 10 of the survey cities who had classes comparable to both the Police Chief and Fire Chief; in seven of these both chiefs were assigned the same salary range; they quest- ioned this a little further as they realized it was a little different survey design; they went back to the cities included in the basic salary survey to see if the existing differential carried on up to the Chief level; the prevailing practice in the San Diego Labor Market was that it did not carry on to the Chief level; he found it extremely diffi- cult at the department head level to measure the difference between jobs at as fine a line as 2 I/2%. Councilman Reid inquired how they arrived at the Y Ratings. Mr. Schwegel said the Y Rating may be arrived at in one or more of several methods; basically, a Y rate results from consideration of the total acts that go into any - other classification and salary recommendations. Councilman Harris said they have proposed the salaries of the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief be the same; however, there was a difference in the pay of their Assistant Chiefs when at times they may be performing the duties of the top man. Mr. Schwegel said this was true; at the assistant level there was not an adequate enough or consistent enough description of the jobs throughout the labor market area to collect any sort of meaningful information; they have related the Assistant to the lower end of the realm rather than the upper end. Commissioner Attaway inquired how the salary of the Assistant to the City Manager was determined. Mr. Schwegel said basically the same factors went into the classification for his position as to the other department heads and classes for other employees. Mayor Morgan said before open- ing the discussion to the audience, he wanted to thank Civil Service Commissioners Attaway, Niederfrank and Camacho for their presence that evening. Merrill Stamper, Fire Department employee, inquired if they thought there should be any bearing made upon the hours worked against the salaries paid. Mr. Schwegel said actually he thought they were talking about two different things; if they were to look at the data on Page 45 for the Fireman, including in your look the salary range and examine the hours of the work week, there was an almost inverse relationship; the two agencies having the longest average work week for Fireman were reflected in the 2nd and 3rd from the bottom of the tabulation; if there was some inequity in the work week of the firemen in National City, it was something for the City Council to work out with the Fire Department; typically, the average work week did not relate to the -salary range. Mr. Schwegel said in discussing the class concepts with the department heads, it was made appa e nt to them that a Fire Engineer was expected to perform the duties of Fire Captain whenever necessary; when they collected salary information for classifications, it was included in their -description that the -indi- viduals were supposed to serve as supervisors on a relief basis. Bill Wright, President, Fireman's Association, was -present and -presented copy of a pamphlet, "Inequities of Disparities," to Commissioner Camacho. Mr. Wright said they felt this was the opportune time to sHHevteter:the 2 1/2% disparity which had existed for about 2 1/2 years between the Fire Department and the Police Department; disparity had - not solved the problem of police recruitment and retention; Workmen's Compensation Insurance rate in the State of California in 1965 was $6.35 per $100.00 for firemen compared to $4.50 for policemen. Mayor Morgan said Council had e few personnel matters it wished to discuss privately and inquired if it was legal to do so. City Attorney McLean said if they were going to discuss specific persons who occupied positions in the City service, it was proper to discuss them and their salary in en Executive Session; if it was the general subject of pay, the answer would be "no." The Mayor inquired if it was proper to have the Civil Service Commission with them. The City Attorney said they could take whomever they wanted. An Executive Session was called by the Mayor (8:20 p.m.). 12/14/67 156 The meeting reconvened at 8:30 p.m.: Council members present: Colburn, Harris, Reid, Morgan. Absent: Hogue. Mayor Morgan asked to have the classification and salary review booklets which had been distributed earlier returned; Merrill Stamper, President, National City Municipal Employees' Association, inquired if he could have one of the booklets. The Mayor said not tonight. City Manager Osburn said they would get the booklets out as soon as they could; Moved by Colburn, seconded by Harris, the Council go on record stating generally the survey be accepted and the increases be made retroactive to December 1, but the action of the` Council on the acce tance not take lace until next Tuesda ni ht's meeting. Motion carried, by the following vote, to -wit: Ayes: Colburn, Harris, Reid, Morgan. Nays: None. Absent: Hogue. Mayor Morgan expressed appreciation to Mr. Schwegel and Mr. Hauser for pre- senting the survey to them that night. Councilman Harris said he wished they had the booklet earlier; it was a big decision and they could not read it within an hour and feet they had done a good job digesting its contents well enough to vote on it. Councilman Reid said the survey looked good to him but he needed more time before voting on it. Mr. Schwegel said while working on the survey, they sttrration,ethe d hCity e oemployees, and peration and sthe tconsideration providedance provided bte �by theini- City Council. Moved by Harris, seconded by Reid, the meetin be closed. Motion carried, by the following"vote, to -wit: yes: Colburn; Harris, Reid, Morgan. Nays: None. Absent: Hogue. The meeting closed at 8:40 p.m. M' ATTEST: CITY 'ATIONAL CITY, CALIFORNI 12/14/67