 Thank you. And let's see, we have some other visitors that I hope will also be here. And let me see, let me just say for Elizabeth's sake and also K, although I think you know this already compared to some of the other boards and committees in town, especially the town council, the personnel board is much more informal. We call each other usually by our first names. We don't have to say Mr. This or is that you just say hey you buddy what's on your mind and enjoy the conversation there. And let's see who else are we. Mr. Miller does anybody know if Earl is planning on being here. He did confer, confirm last week that he would be here. I will try to call him as well. And I'll send him a text so I mean I'm going to pop off screen for just a moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me in addition to all those personnel changes in the library. You guys have had nothing, but the comm serene environment with respect to funding, right? Right. Right. We are having long meetings often. We're hoping the town council did approve moving ahead with the town council. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say from there. Lots of plans, contingency and otherwise. Too bad adjectives for meetings. Long. Some consider them a necessary evil. Some consider them what makes everything work. Right. We have a good relationship with the town and we're working on a good deal. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Town Manager. Good morning. I have you with us. And since you are here, even though there may be one or two others we're expecting, let's get the show on the road. So I'm calling the meeting to order. So I'm going to go over among personnel and one of the agenda items, which you'll get to really pretty quickly is some, some introductions. Of the new folks. Do is there anybody here who has wishes to make public comments. All right. And do we have any reports that we might not hear a little later in the agenda. That should be made now. And then I want to move ahead to the first item of new business, which is some introductions and I realize. A very important person and position was left off of this list. And that is the interim HR director. Okay. So, okay, let me ask you to introduce yourself to the rest of us. You're probably known by everybody. But tell us who you are and how you got to be in this position. I just happened to be at my desk when Paul asked me to fill in when Donna Ray left. I've been with. I've been with the town for over 50 years and have used to be the human resources director before I retired a long time ago. And have been helping out with labor relations and basically whatever Paul has asked me to do. So. I'm here for this little stint. I hear that there. Are on the second round of. Interviews for the. Human resources director, so I'm hopeful that it will be a short. Yeah, I know just that. Kay is invaluable. I mean, she's been so supportive of all of our HR directors over the years. And has a memory. Like that remembers everything, every collective bargaining agreement, every discussion that led to a collective bargaining agreement. And it's just that kind of resources invaluable for us. And really appreciate that she's agreed to fill in this role for us at this important time. Well, I second those sentiments and I want to add, given your long experience with the town and previous HR director. And you did say the word retirement. And here you are. And I would like to say, and I use this term to describe my own experience with retirement case. So please don't take offense. Well, let me say this. I've been retired for a while too. And so I confess to people that I have been flunking retirement badly. So perhaps the same can be said for you. But the good news is we're all the better for it. The town is the better for it. Imagine the more perfectly qualified person. Step into the HR director's role for a while and help us keep going until we find a permanent person for that. For that position. So welcome. Hey, welcome back. Okay. Thanks. And now I'm just, I'm working off the agenda here. And since Mr. Crest director Earl Miller is here. Let me say welcome to you. And can you please introduce your. Yes. Can interrupt. So we post this meeting as a zoom meeting, but not as a zoom webinar. So members of the public can't gain access. So we're going to post this link that we're all in. Onto the website and to, there's a reporter who's trying to get in and can't get in. So, um, I just will. Just so you're where you probably, since it's not set up in a webinar, it's everybody will be in the room in essence, but as long as we treat everybody equally. Um, that's the only way we can handle unless we reschedule this meeting. So I don't want to do that. Okay. So the reporter will be able to see this after the fact. He's no, he'll, he'll be in the room like just like us and. And can he participate? Uh, no, he shouldn't participate. Okay. All right. Except unless he had public comment, he won't have public comment. Um, fine. Thanks for letting us know that. Meanwhile. Back to back to Mr. Miller. Who are you? How'd you get here? So I'm pro Miller. Um, I'm from Holyoke. I'm pretty proud of it. I say that a lot. I'm just, uh, I'm proud of where I'm from. Like, I hope everyone gets to be, um, my, my, my trade. I'm a certified peer specialist, uh, through the state. Um, before I kind of got into government work, I, uh, I worked for the wildflower allowance alliance, which used to be the Western mass recovery learning community. Uh, ran a center in Springfield. Uh, pretty proud. It was the busiest RLC center in the state. There are one in every of the five DMH areas. We had 60 to 100 people a day, uh, started a housing program there called finding shelter through peer support. We were fairly successful at getting folks, uh, housing in Springfield without any subsidies. Um, I worked for the center for human development for a period as the director of peer roles. Uh, then I worked to the department of mental health. I guess I thought government would be interesting. It has been, um, I was there for four years as a director of recovery for Western mass, um, working both on some local and statewide policy, um, and program development pieces as well as being responsible for incorporating the kind of lived experience and, um, voice of the folks who we were working with. Um, I've been with the town for six months as of the 21st. Um, I would say some days it feels like it's flown by. And some days I feel like me and Kay started on the same day. Um, but, but it's, it's been really fun. Um, in that six months we've kind of went from, from being the only employee to having a full fleshed out team. There's seven folks, uh, seven responders, a program assistant and an implementation manager. They're actually doing their morning briefing right now. Um, and, you know, in a lot of ways, uh, we are in kind of untread water here. Um, so figuring out how to get this department up and running in a way that serves the unique needs of Amherst, but also hold some kind of common connection with similar programs across the country. Uh, one of the things I'm really excited about is, uh, last night I got to participate in a meeting with folks from, uh, Albuquerque and Minneapolis and Seattle. And we're talking about a responder exchange program now. Uh, so that our folks can go to other municipalities and, um, we can host those folks. Um, so I could and do talk about this for hours. So I think sometimes it's easier just to, to take questions if folks have them. I think the piece I just want to share with you all is this is a dream job for me. Um, I remember reading the posting and thinking, well, they must, this can't be true. They can't actually be doing this. And, um, I have found that the town means it, which is really refreshing. Um, you know, there are, there are some scary things coming up. Um, I think that's just true of everything these days, but, um, when I think about the future, I'm, I'm incredibly hopeful. Um, and so much of that is because of, uh, existing managers in this town who have been wonderful ambassadors for me, who have done a lot of work to make me comfortable. Um, and to make sure I don't step any on any landmines by accident. Um, and I've avoided almost all of them, which is, I think pretty good. So, um, glad to be here. Uh, it's, it's really the privilege of a lifetime. Um, and I'm glad to be here with you. Um, and I'm glad to be here with you. Well, we're glad to have you with us as well. I was thrilled. When you were identified as the person to, to fill this slot. Uh, And, uh, have a hard time imagining who would be more qualified. To step into this. Position. Uh, And I'm glad that you, because it is a new position. And everything you do is, uh, is breaking new ground. And, um, here are the person that we need. And I do have a question, but let me ask my colleagues. If anybody else has a question. Or Earl. All right, mine is, I know your team has been doing a lot of training. Are you responding to calls yet? Yeah, we are. This is day 17 of responding to things in town. And. And what I would say is. So I don't want to say surprisingly, I'm very confident in, in what we do. But I think what we found is that, um, The biggest issue we're solving right now is this kind of desperate loneliness that folks are encountering post pandemic real. I'm shocked by how many people are going through, you know, we have a senior who we're seeing on a daily basis now, who was going regularly months without interacting with another person, um, outside of like medical appointments. And so, you know, we're, yeah, we're responding to calls. We're still very much, uh, it's, it's low and slow. I think is what we say, um, chief Nelson would say we're, we're building the plane as we fly it, which means trying to be as deliberative as you can. Um, but yeah, we're responding. Um, we're also doing things like delivering meals for the senior center as they're looking to fill some volunteer positions, um, supporting the survival center as they're having some, some challenging engagements. So they've opened up for live lunch and, um, and, and a lot of ways just, just kind of still being in the town and, and kind of adjusting to the, the temperature of things these days. Okay. But for, I think it's the best 17 days I could have hoped for. Great. Well, let's hope a hundred days from now, you say it's the best 117 days. I can't imagine I won't be. Okay. I would like to thank you for all your work with the library. Because I know that you've been present at various events and very helpful to the staff and the director. And I want to thank you for that. It's the last sanctuary left. So Tony, first, um, Jim Russell is here. Thank you, Jim, for joining us. I'm sorry you're in the, you're in the room. So that's the only way we could get you in, um, effectively. Um, I think the, the, um, One of the things Earl often says is that the way the program looks today, it won't look that way in three months and six months and nine months and 12 months. And I was just at a play at a conference where we talked to people from Durham, North Carolina, who have a very similar model to us. And they said the same thing. It took them two years to get their first responder on the street. We did it in warp speed. Um, you know, and, but I think in doing that, we, I think we are as he said, low and slow, make sure that we, you know, learned from what we're doing and not take on anything that we can't handle and safety of all of our employees and the public is the most is the primary goal. Okay. Thank you. I actually have another question for you. But I don't want to hog all the question time. I have a question. Okay. Catherine. This is probably a silly one, but. Earl, do you all wear a certain, I don't want to say uniform, but a shirt with an emblem or you just come in your regular street clothes. And how do you get to the situation in your own car? Or do you come in a police car or on a bike? Yeah. That's just the basics. So two parts. I would say normally I would be in our uniform. Uh, I was in meetings. Uh, I was where I worked about 12 hours yesterday. So my reward to myself was just wearing a regular shirt. We have shirts that have our names, our badge numbers. We have badge numbers on 2020 one. Um, we all have badge numbers, which are really a dispatch feature. Um, our positions. And then our pronouns, which, um, I know is a real shift for folks. Um, and, and I like often thinking metaphor. So the color of our uniform is gray. Kind of representing that that is what we're here for. Is the gray areas of public safety. So we have gray shirts. Um, we're in the process of buying, um, um, coats and hoodies. It's getting cold. So we want to make sure that folks can stay in uniform. Um, we also all have town badges. Um, and these name plates that also have our badge numbers on them. Um, as far as transportation, we are, uh, like many departments in town, um, on the hunt for vehicles. Um, and we also have, um, Um, which is challenging. We, we, I'm still maybe naively hoping in November we'll have them, but I find that I'll hold out hope until it can't. And then I'll, I'll set another target. Um, the town has been incredibly generous with us. So currently we're using the town electric vehicle. And the senior center has allowed us to use one of their vans. So our folks are showing up to things, uh, in vehicles that have some town branding on them. Um, and that's consistent with what we had, we had, we had offered in a job posting. So, um, we aren't having folks use their own cars for a variety of reasons. Um, and, and thankfully we're able to make that work because of the collaboration. I also just want to highlight that when we do get our vehicles, it'll be another really important collaboration point. The police department has generously offered to help us to outfit our vehicles. Um, and I think that highlights one of the most important features of what we're doing, which is this very close working relationship with the police and fire department in town that I'm incredibly proud of. Um, when I talked to my counterparts in other area, other areas where this has become very political, um, they would give up a lot of money to be able to have the relationship with their chiefs that I do. So I guess that's a, like I said, I don't know how to answer a question quickly anymore. I'm hoping to relearn that at some point. But the great question. I actually have a question. It's sort of before uniforms and that is, and I'm sure I've seen this somewhere. How is it determined that somebody from your team goes out rather than say somebody from the police department. Are you responding to 911 type calls? Is there a different number, et cetera, et cetera. So 911 is a capacity we're building to a part of that low and slow approaches. You know, 911 calls are, are the scariest space, right? Callers are, and I, you know, I don't, I think sometimes this can sound like blaming, but in the middle of a crisis, sometimes the person calling is going to all, you know, struggle to accurately describe everything that's happening. They're also certainly not going to know everything that's happening. Right now we're getting calls either directly from folks or we're getting referrals from the senior center or other entities in town for us to engage with folks. The, so, you know, we're not law enforcement. That's a tricky job, but I couldn't do it. So if there's a law enforcement need, if there's a crime that's been committed or violence that is reasonably expected to be there, then we wouldn't respond. Same way. We wouldn't respond if there was a fire. We wouldn't respond as the reporting agency in those situations. We have found that there may be a role for us to doing traffic things that at calls where another public safety agency is going to be the lead. But for us, it's really, we can't do non consensual stops. So the person has to be willing to engage with us to some degree. And often what it looks like from the police perspective is if it's our first call took five hours, which is a, I think an information point that I wasn't quite expecting. What we can be the best that is we don't need to shift the liability. We're not, you know, an ambulance where you need to get that ambulance back on the road. So what we're seeing is most of our calls are homeless folks who are looking for resources, seniors in town who are looking for social connection. Or other folks who are just have some concern that doesn't involve a crime, medical response or a fire actually. So right now we're taking calls on our phones and we're also being referred by other departments, including we've had one call so far where the police actually decided that, hey, this is a crest thing. And so, and they were right. We were able to resolve something fairly quickly. So I would say the way we're, we're deploying now is either folks asking us or this kind of constant conversation that's happening in public safety as folks are engaging with folks and, and we're a new tool. So I think for some folks, there's a hesitance and we're seeing the other thing with some folks where they're saying, no, Chris will do everything. And we're having to temper that expectation a little bit too. So again, I'm going to learn how to answer questions shortly soon. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else with questions for Earl? If not, let's meet our new DEI director Pamela. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Good morning. So I knew to the role was sworn in on July 5th. I am a lawyer by trade. So practice law for about, I guess, 12, 13 years have worked in higher education, probably equivalent amount of time. Moving back to Western mass, I've been back and forth between Massachusetts, Indiana and the DC area throughout my professional career. And I became aware of this position because of a very close friend now judge, Mary Beth Ogilovitz had worked for the town of Amherst and told me about the job and thought that I would be a good fit for it. And it would be something that I would be interested in. So followed up on Mary Beth's recommendation and was able to accept the position that was offered. And then moved out. I think I was a, they drove out like the weekend of July 4th and started the next day. And was able to stay with a friend of mine in Springfield until I moved into my home, which is actually an infield Connecticut. So it has been a very interesting first sort of 90 days. I've been working with Jen Moisten, whom I'm sure you all know very well. And I can't really imagine being in this job without her. So I sort of, I sort of think of. Of me having the technical skills and Jen having all of the background and personal knowledge and. Interaction with the Amherst youth. It's presented some challenges for I think Earl, myself and the police really still trying to figure out a lot of the parameters of this position. I've been working with Jen Moisten, whom I'm sure you all know very well. And she's been working with her government. And especially in intimate relationships that will make this position in the department really successful. So she and I have been working on a number of initiatives. We are the staff liaisons to the human rights commission. To the African heritage reparation assembly. of those various groups and trying to, I guess, fulfill their missions and they're at various stages along along the way. Okay, welcome aboard. Thank you. Another person in my view with just wonderfully appropriate credentials, experience for this new position. Are any of my colleagues have any questions for Pamela? I do. I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. It's been a total pleasure working with Dr. Young, Pamela, as in her chairing the search committee for the new human resource director for the town. I've learned a great deal from her. I really appreciate Pamela, your steady hand and your open and humble hand too. And there's Catherine's tale of the cat, which is exactly what I'm saying. So just it's been such a pleasure. And it's if you've been here all along. And like, yeah, this is exactly how it's supposed to be going. So I just really want to share my appreciation for you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. So I should probably give you, so we are an update on that search. So I am chairing the HR director search. We are in our second round interviews and are hopeful that we will have some finalists to for it on to to Paul. Good. All right. My question for you was actually have to is your team fully assembled now? Are you staffed up to the extent so I think to the extent that we expected to be at this at this point. So Jen and I are a team of two. And I and I really teams is the wrong is really the wrong word to use. I mean, I see us as really partners in this because we have very complimentary skills. I think so. This is one situation where, you know, one plus one equals three, and that together, we're probably much stronger than we would either be individually and the sum of our holes is much greater. So yeah, we are where we expect to be at this point. And we shall see as time goes on, whether there is a need for additional staffing, I think it will be dependent upon some of the objectives that are laid out for the department. So there are some calls for, for example, in town for a teen youth empowerment center, which some folks would say should be a part of this department. If that were the case, then we might need to staff a little differently. I think it's probably the case that a teen youth empowerment center would be better housed in rec. But you know, that's a question for the future. So at this point, we are where we expect it to be. Okay. Thank you. I actually have another question. I should know the answer to this because I've probably seen it at some earlier meeting and some organization chart. This is actually, excuse me, for both you, Pam and Earl, who do you report to directly an organization chart? The good thing is the answer is the same. We both report to Paul. Oh my God, you got in for a boss? Well, hang in there. Okay. And all right, so far. Yeah. If you run in any problems, let us know. It's hard to complain about supervising 10 people when he's supervising 14. So we wish you well. Thank you. Welcome aboard. And I'm running down my list of on the agenda of new business introductions. And the next one on my list is our new HR manager, Elizabeth. So let us know who you are, Elizabeth. Thank you for welcoming me to the personnel board. I appreciate being here. I'm Elizabeth Peru. I'm the new HR manager. I've been here for a little over a month. I have been an HR for about five years. I came from a nonprofit that supported individuals with disabilities called Viability. I started there as a recruiter and worked my way up to an HR manager there as well. You know, I have experience in FMLA benefits, open enrollments and employee relations. Kaya has been a great support to me during my time here, as well as Donna Ray as she transitioned out, as well as E, and I look forward to learning more about the town and how I can support everybody here. Welcome aboard. Questions from folks? I would just like to observe. So you said you've been here about five months? No, about five weeks. Yeah. All right. All right. So then my observation was, boy, you've had in a very short period of time, you're going to have three different bosses because was Donna Ray still around when you signed up? Okay. Yes. And then Kay and and sometime in not too distant future, we hope we will have a new HR director. And we hope everything goes well. But once again, the town is blessed to have somebody so well qualified to be in that position. Thank you. Welcome. And just if I can jump in there. Elizabeth has been a real trooper and, you know, we talked with her before so that she knew that Donna Ray was was departing. And so she made the decision to continue to come to the town, which I really appreciated a lot and has just jumped in and sort of taken on a lot of stuff very quickly and would really appreciate the work that she's been doing. And it's hard work. You know, the HR has been doing some really difficult work. So both she and Kay have really stepped up in a big way. Yep. Thank you. Now again, I'm working off the new business item on our agenda. We've had an update. Looks like Pamela has her hand raised. Sorry. Okay. All right. Pamela. Oh, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you. I actually have to jump off the call for another engagement, but I look forward to spending more time with you. So thank you very much. Same here. Thank you all so much for welcoming us to your community. Can you hang on for just a moment, please? I know you got a race off. For sure. There was one set of introductions we haven't done. I think we should. And that the members of the personnel board. No. Because these may be new folks for you as well. I'm Tony Butterfield. I am the current chair. I've been in this position for a while, actually probably longer than I should have. I'm a retired professor from the UMass Eisenberg School of Management. My field is organizational behavior. My particular research interest is kind of relevant for what we do here. And it's gender and leadership. So you are all my research subjects. So that's who I am. Who else can say a few words about yourself? Okay, Tammy. I'm Tamsen Ely. I'm representing the board of library trustees. I am a retired librarian. I actually worked for 36 years in Springfield at Springfield Tech Community College, where I was the director of the library. And I joined the board of trustees here in 2012, shortly after I had retired. So it shows that you don't really retire. You take on additional work. But I'm glad to join the board. Chris Hoffman had been the board rep for many, many years, but he did not run for reelection in November of 2021. And I volunteered to take over the library's personnel policy and planning committee and therefore join the personnel board. Great. Thank you, Tammy. Catherine? Yeah, hi. Catherine Porter. I was a faculty member at UMass. And when I retired, I was serving as the ombuds person. So everything that's come up since I've been on the personnel board, I can relate to because if you know what the ombuds person does, it's everything that deals with the problem of some sort. So everything that we talk about resonates. I feel like I'm a really pretty good fit for the personnel board and have certainly liked working with everybody. And I obviously we're a quiet part of the town government, but an important part because the fact that we deal with personnel in so many ways. So be mine. Thank you, Catherine. Rebecca? Hi, I'm Rebecca. And I am decidedly not retired. But look forward to that in 20 years or so. But I'm a professor of educational leadership policy and administration at UMass. I'm a former middle and high school teacher. I'm a former director of dropout prevention. I've worked with homeless and abuse kids for years before I was even in higher ed. My specialty area is effective teaming and collaboration so that we have organizational learning and people that are like psyched to be working where they're working and make things happen. So I think I'm probably a decent fit for being here. And I just wanted to give a shout out to our high school principal, Talib Sadik, who is a guest speaker in my class yesterday. I teach a big undergraduate class called schooling in the United States. And he's been a guest of mine in class for many semesters. But I just wanted in this forum of town folk to just say how lucky we are to have Talib at the helm of the high school considering what an end it was to last year and what a beginning it has been this year. And just so just wanted to put a shout out because I think early you've met Talib, right? You've yeah. So anyway, we're joined at the hip. I'm joined at the hip. We like that. I just want to say I think this is something important. This is the most people of color I've ever worked with in leadership in a space. And I always wondered what that would feel like. And it really does like change what you think you could be. And so like Talib is one of the folks who has really changed the way I even see myself here. And so I appreciate you putting a lens on that. And I think that is a testament to what this town is doing. And it it feels important. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you colleagues on the personnel board. We're done with those introductions. So if our visitors need to race off to another meeting, feel free to do so. I do want to ask since we the board members just introduced themselves, we are one person short. And I wanted to ask Paul or Kay or whoever might know the answer to this. There is a member of the personnel board who is designated as representing the town employees and is a person who was is a retired town employee. And where are we and finding a replacement? So yeah, so we have I've reached out to non union employees to see if there's anybody that they could think of who lived in town, who they would like to have represent them. And so a couple names have been forwarded. Many of the people who names came forward are not living in town or anymore. We do have someone I just reached out to this morning actually who could be a good fit to see if they would be interested. The way it's been in the past is that we had Teresa who basically sort of said, here's here's who we want. And I'm not sure what process the non union employees used in that. I don't think there was a much of a process quite frankly at all. But they everybody was satisfied and pleased to have Charlie Sherpa represent the non union employees. So now that that's opening up, I'm reaching out to the non union employees who would you recommend to me to a point. So we're continue is it is a recruitment process really at this point, because this is a unique position. It's not just an open seat. Right. So working on it. Okay, and open to suggestions for anybody. Okay, it's in process. Obviously, one criterion is they got to live in town. Yes. Yeah. That's the the most difficult criteria. It doesn't actually have to be a retired employee. We've just been fortunate to have retired employees that have been willing to serve in the past. The the bylaw requires that the employee representative be a resident of Amherst. So a lot of names have been put forth by employees, but the majority of the folks that have been suggested have lived in Amherst or don't anymore. Okay, so that was my misunderstanding about having to be a retired employee that is sort of trumped by having to be a citizen or a resident of Amherst. And okay, so somebody currently on board somewhere in the system could be the representative, right? You mean a current employee? Yeah, right. Oh, potentially. Yeah, I don't know. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I was wondering about that. So now I'm I'm understanding the shades of difference. It can be a member of the public that does have that has no affiliation with with being a employee of the town. Got it. Okay. But somebody presumably that the employees are supportive of being on the board since it's this is the slot that in there is representing them. Okay. Thank you very much. Now, under new business, again, I'm working right off our agenda. I think we're down to discussion of the part time wage scale. And I'm not entirely sure why that is on there as a discussion point. But I know there's some news. I think people mostly know about this. But why is that item on the agenda? Because we put it on the we put it on the agenda because as some of you might recall, it's been about four years since we updated the part time chart. And well, we don't do colas on the part time employees. We do need to because of the compression of of the chart due to the increases in minimum wage. I put it on for discussion so that we can talk about what we might want to do with the chart for the future. One of the suggestions I think that was put forth last year was to add a step at the top of the chart. And there may be other creative ways that we want to address the chart. But at this point, the top pay in level one is 1545 an hour. So there's not much room to move off of the $15 that the minimum that we went to in July. Okay. All right. So that's why it's on there questions. Comments about this. I actually have some some some questions. I actually thought it might be on here mostly to announce to those who aren't aware or were only vaguely aware what I consider to be a signal event. And that is moving up to the required $15 an hour wage six months early. The law well for the law sort of says this has got to happen on January 1 2023. But for a while now I know Paul has been talking about desiring to move that up early and it happened. And so kudos to that for happening. I hope all the folks are benefiting from that feel that this is a good thing. And they appreciate how the town is looking out for them because this is a raise that really came six months early. So you be Paul. Thank you for that. Yeah, it's all about budgeting the fund so all the departments were held harmless when the rates went up. I think what what K is saying is I with that we do need to relook at the part-time wage schedule and if that's okay with the I mean sort of previewing it with you and then come back to you with a recommendation in a future meeting. Oh well again I don't want to hug the my answer to this absolutely do that but I have to confess Paul I thought that you know or the part-time wage scale we just did an outside consultants review of that whole system and I thought that was going to include how to make future pay raises for part-time people in an equitable manner. There were all those you know salary charts that I think were projected way beyond 2022 to accommodate that. Am I as my memory failing me again as it frequently does that they aren't already baked in to pay raises? I don't think your memory is failing you at all. We did have projections to January of 2023 but Sandy Szebczynski who did the study for us didn't go beyond 2023. Oh okay. So you know time flies and we didn't we didn't make any provisions or any discussion beyond January of 2023 which is when the $15 was coming into effect. Okay. So so now I have a related question and this I should have had this on the on our on our agenda but that is the bigger study which we've been talking about Paul's been talking about for a while that was a request to the town council for funding I think it was called a capital project that my understanding is has been approved and that's for a more full-blown that's not just for part-timers that's for the whole shebang the full-timers as well as the part-timers because as we all know there's some complexities involved here of keeping the system sort of in some equitable logical manner as folks move ahead in their position and the steps and what's the next grade that they might be considering so where are we on that project Paul let me just ask that directly to you because you got the okay from the town council yeah so we have the money yeah so that was on Donna Ray's list but then with her departure that sort of her priority before she left was to work on all the union contracts that we had in in play and we had a lot of other things happening with union contracts so that was that was bumped down it's still something we have the money set aside for hopefully with a new person coming in we'll be able to do the RFP for that and move that forward okay so we've got to go ahead to have the relevant folks involved before before moving too far ahead so that's something on the horizon that I think we'll all look forward to and I don't know okay whether how closely we should look at the part-time wage scale issue without keeping in mind that there's going to be a bigger study done sometime in the not too distant future that we would want those to be moving in sync would we not I don't want to get it certainly possible for them to move in sync and this is not an urgency because although we don't have to do the state minimum wage we historically have because it's just simply the right thing to do right so this is this has no urgency I just wanted to get out there that it was something that we needed to put on the radar great good thank you yes we're sort of where we want to be maybe a little ahead of time but that doesn't mean everything stops its time rolls right and particularly in these inflationary times everybody's looking at his or her paycheck and wants it to try to keep up with the cost of things they're buying in the grocery store and at the gas pump and so forth okay so Sharon has her hand up Tony hey all right pardon me for not noticing those things Sharon welcome hi you guys I'm so sorry no my only question is so I'm thrilled to see this on the agenda actually and okay thank you so much for this and I'm I was wondering could we consider adding a cola to this wage chart every single year that way we don't get back to where we were a few years ago I have PTSD from that and I bet you guys do too so I know there are financial implications but I yeah I would just love it if you guys would consider that I agree with with K that it's not it doesn't have to happen today the the chart is really quite fabulous but in a couple of years it's going to be outdated thank you guys okay I think I see some heads nodding yes to we can consider it okay which is not a promise it shall be done all right but it will be considered okay now on the agenda I'm looking at I think we are down to old business and the first item there is additional discussion and this is just on on the list to make sure we haven't forgotten all those things that were mentioned by the employees at our wonderful townwide employee meeting on March 9th a list was developed and reported in the minutes of that meeting and then the minutes of our most recent meeting May 11th also has a list of some of the topics that were discussed then and I just want to make sure there isn't anything on there that we are going to forget about or have already forgotten about and if you if you could maybe peek ahead at the minutes of our May meeting to see what's on that list some of what we've been talking about already has been discussed like the capital of $50,000 projects and we have already moved to $15 an hour early another item was zoom meetings and where are we on that is this now zoom optional or required or no longer necessary paul for for committee meetings we're staying with zoom for the time being we're permitted to do it by state law until March 31st is 2023 and the council is doing their main meetings in a hybrid format they they just voted last week or two weeks ago to allow people in the room if they so chose their committee meetings which is the bulk of their meetings continue to be like this like zoom meetings with virtual participation so that's our intention we have limited room capacity right now still given the sort of prevalence of of the different versions of of the COVID-19 disease so and there's we're still seeing a lot of COVID out there so our health director has continued has encouraged us to stay in this format for the time being and you know quite frankly there is a debate in town is too many people really appreciate the zoom approach because it makes things a lot more easy a lot easier a lot more people participate in council meetings for sure because of the availability of zoom they don't have to come into the building the then people say well why not why can't we do hybrid like the council does and that's a very intense technical and support only one room in our in town buildings is equipped with that and that's the town room these hybrid meetings are if you think about it what they are are basically zoom meetings where everybody has their laptop in front of them but people some people are in the same room and when you have people in the same room there becomes a lot of audio overlap and that becomes you need a sound system to manage that and that's why the why it's it's not just why can't we just all go in the same room and turn on a camera it's it's not as simple as that so we're working with it to set up a just additional room so we can do that going forward okay thank you again looking at the list from our may 11 minutes an item raised at the at the employees meeting was parking permits rising fees and parking for town employees on spring street anything happening there no i mean we we recognize that that's going to be a challenge it's going to be more challenging going forward um you know there's a new building being built on spring street we anticipate that that will sop up some of the spaces um that employees typically park on we can't we don't we're not creating that we can't create additional parking spaces we have talked to the Amherst college about utilizing some of their parking that they have there they have a big alumni parking lot there and they're open to that discussion although they can't commit to it all the time because they may need it at different times so um so they're they're they're willing to have the conversation in essence for that but i think that's it hasn't really people are finding that they have to park farther away from town hall and that's a nuisance right right okay remote work policy was revised can really put a policy in place that mr bakaman has not received yet he's thinking about it yeah so that wasn't well that was one of those things that donna and ray and i were working on um that didn't complete before she left is somebody gonna take the range with that and talk about that uh for some time okay when our new hr director comes back that it's you know a lot of people are sort of and settled into their patterns i think we we just haven't formalized a lot of the things there's some people who are working remotely some people working on a hybrid schedule and some people working full time in the building and it really we've really left that up to the department heads to manage and that's been actually pretty successful good we just don't have a written policy on how we're doing it and we've looked at a lot of other communities lexington has a pretty robust policy on it um and a lot of communities are struggling with it because a lot of a lot of companies are struggling with it too like and they it's just a philosophy thing you know some companies are saying i want everybody in the room you know other people are saying i could care what less where you do just do your job so okay thank you and the other items on our the may 11th minutes uh from the employee meeting we've sort of already talked about but i want to go back to the march 9 list uh that we develop at our meeting immediately after the employees meeting because there's some stuff that the reason i'm doing this is that we asked folks to tell us what's on their mind and they did we made a list of it and i don't want us to forget what's on that list and some things maybe can be forgotten about because they've been dealt with but i just don't want it shelved and somebody said would the personnel board do about whoops we forgot about it so now i'm looking at the march 9th minutes because there's some items that i want to ask about um one was actually the first uh bullet point was something about comp time earned do we know what that means because i have to confess i'm not sure hey do you know is that referencing um i think that that was probably referencing what the personnel procedures manual says um and i think that the practice has been for earning comp time is none of the uh managerial employees are um earning comp time and but basically the procedures manual has a category that says that they every that management employees are expected to work 40 hours a week and that they will not earn comp time until after 40 hours and some there's some interpretation that management employees don't earn comp time at all and that's created some difficulties and then there's a distinction between um who is really management and who is who is not in the non-union employees um so that that's created some confusion about whether or not they can earn comp time and accrue it so what should we do about this issue well i think that one of the things that's happening is that you might recall a number of years ago i think maybe 2018 the procedures manual was revised so there is a committee of employees that are um planning to attempt another revision and will bring something to you on that um it i know it's for sure on their list of uh items to tackle okay and there are a few other things that um people would like to see addressed uh that either need to be updated or haven't been addressed in a while oh so there there is a committee uh they're in hiatus right now because of the HR director's situation but um there is a plan to to start reviewing the procedures manual again oh good all right that's good to know and some of the other bullet points on this earning overtime in weeks with a holiday noted it's really a concern for the clerk's office and and elections right and that's actually the other than the town clerk the employees in the clerk's office are under the sciu contract and we have to follow that contract so for the personnel board this is kind of a non-issue okay all right well we're happy to leave alone items that aren't our business anyway no complaints there and i'm looking at the other uh items on that list um my quick well add a retirement notice incentive you know what that means yeah it used to be before the retirement reforms in in 2012 uh it used to be that people could get if they provided um advanced notice sometimes up to a year notice of retirement um they could get additional compensation that was added to their base pay to enhance their retirement uh that all changed in 2012 uh i'm not sure if people really realize that um but it's no longer considered regular compensation but some places still do it i believe like the school department has a somewhat of an incentive if they provide notice by december of the year before they retire uh and i you know there's probably people that are aware of that practice in the schools okay is this something that the task force that's going to take a look at the personnel procedures manuals might want to incorporate in their work they may i mean it would be a new uh a new uh suggestion and and the only thing i would add to that is you know once we put something in the procedures manual that's new it tends to filter out to all the unions so this would be a budgetary situation that we would have to look at and we should look at it more globally than perhaps whoever was suggesting it would suspect well k there you go again demonstrating how lucky we are to have you on the board or unlucky depending on you that we need it you know and um there's a bigger picture here and uh so thank you for these uh these answers to my to my questions and um and again the rest of the items from the march nine minutes we've basically dealt with so i just want to want to be able to say we're looking into all those issues and some were able to deal with some not some where you have to wait for a while can we get a new hr director but we haven't forgot about and uh so i think yeah i think there really is something with the pop time and and the way it's being administered and some feelings of unfairness by some of the employees uh in regard to how it how it's taking place yep so that is something that definitely needs to be addressed okay thank you and from my perspective we're doing due diligence on that list of issues that the employees raised at our march nine meeting uh we now um again following our agenda second bullet point under old business is update on employee retention and i don't know for sure i mean that's been an issue still an issue i know some steps were underway uh to try to well do a better job sort of onboarding people when they first arrive match them up with folks uh who can be mentors or guides um i don't know if anything has changed in that respect um well yeah like you're just ready to yeah so so we have been more purposeful about that in terms of retaining people connecting people um having sort of an informal mentorship with with folks as they come on on staff and that's that has been um successful on in the sort of socializing department heads into their new positions um you know i think that we do acknowledge that there's a general trend of of quicker turnovers in general for staff we're noticing it especially high with the police department we have many police officers who are now departing um for various reasons many um looking to go every police department is hiring some to some are looking um at um other um communities that they feel more uh conducive to their their goals as police officers so okay um let me let me throw an additional observation about employee retention that's actually quite relevant as we're searching for an HR director and that is are the things we could do before we actually hire somebody with the candidates or even with the preferred candidate to make sure the fit is going to be what the candidate is expecting as well as us their uh HR literature there used to be a concept it's probably still around but i'm not keeping up with it called realistic job preview and that is do the candidates really know what they're getting in for if they take this position are there some things they hadn't fully appreciated while they were being recruited and uh and a candidate yeah so yeah uh so this is a constant con um conversation among managers i mean it's just at a conference of in managers from across the country recruitment and retention is a big thing just because of the job market we're often in a situation where two things happen one is we're trying to recruit people and convince them to take the job so we're in a competitive environment we're in a seller's market in essence and so putting up challenges to say are you sure is sort of defeats the purpose of trying to get a talented person the other thing that we have done is recruited from people outside the municipal sector and that comes people come into the municipal sector and are kind of stunned by the challenges that that working in the public sector brings and we've done a pretty good job at recruiting people from alternative places which is what our one of our goals has been to sort of mix up the applicant pool but it has come with with certain challenges that for someone being successful in their position so that has taken additional management time to try and support them and and right now what you know we talked about this before is what we used to do is like okay here are the keys to the car you know start driving and we don't tell them where to drive or how to drive um and trying to do better at that especially for certain you know i'm focused on department has but for all employees really um that that's the case um you know i think we we benefit from people coming from other um from outside the municipal world because they have different experiences and bring new ideas you know and i think that that's a real real plus for us but um you know retention is a challenge um and i think that you know um i hear what you're saying about the like realistic job explanations is sometimes you can say that that can convey to people that you don't want them to be here you know well it's a fine line and uh but let me just keep with your analogy i like that analogy of here's the keys to the car um i think we we want to be sure that uh they know how to drive a stick shift because this job you know involves driving a stick shift it just you know putting it in automatic drive and where you go and we we may have some jobs that we're searching for that our stick shift like jobs there's some elements are not as smooth as people might be accustomed to so but it's tough you know it's a fine we want we want this good person to come but do we really want to tell them everything that's so bad about the job elizabeth is here all right let's see anything else on the employee retention staffing report is the next item on the old business list and elizabeth worked hard to give us an update on who's been going and who's been coming the observations that you want to make about this or any of my colleagues on the uh board who had the chance to uh to look at sure um obviously since the last meeting was made there's the number seemed quite large just but um so for terminations there was a total of 17 um eight males nine females the majority four came from the police department three from fire obviously two from hr two from the library a dispatcher crest senior center ambassador and a fire inspector there was a few of those were retirements as well which i think is important to note and for the new hires there was 22 which i think is exciting um many of them were the crest responders in july so i believe they're almost fully staffed they have one more spot left open to fill there was eight males hired 14 females 14 of those were white five were black two hispanics and one that was two or more races and positions that are still um needing to be filled again the one crest responder which i know they're actively interviewing right now for the hr director which we spoke about there's one emergency dispatcher still needed and there's a dpw maintenance worker as well questions comments observations from my colleagues and well i would like to observe their their sure a lot of people who resigned uh from that list do we know why in those cases was it a bad fit where did they all get fabulous job offers from other places that uh we couldn't match or well each person has we do do exit interviews their hr hr does exit interviews so there there's a story for every departure um many people have gone on to get significant increases in their salaries um from here um some as i mentioned in the in the police department it's more um the stress of the job and um and the atmosphere that they're working in um you know a lot of the uh is a bunch of them are um just people making the decision that i'm not i'm done you know especially after the pandemic there were several people who just said i've this woke me up and i'm going to do something different in my life but well i i hope we're tracking the people we lose because they've moved to another community or taken another job where there's a significant increase in pay and benefits we need to know that the town needs to know that and um you know the question are we as good as we used to think we were which was uh and we had some data that said we were in the 75th quartile of municipal pay and are we losing ground in that uh and maybe the study that we're about to launch uh will produce some data on that i know we had a year ago paul you would we had heard that great barrington had done this study at the department head level uh which indicated well actually what we're paying our department heads is pretty similar to what our comparison group is so we didn't have to feel too badly about that although on an individual basis it seems that when we lose people and it's to their credit you know they have found another job maybe not exactly the same job they had here but had a significant pump up in pay and that's tough to to compete with but at least we want to know the data uh and i think the study that's about to get launched should produce um good comparative data but we also have people seeking additional challenges outside so we have three former employees since i've been here who've become town administrators um we've had uh i think two police officers who who've become chiefs and the same with the fire department so we tend to incubate people and then arc there isn't people want growth and um when that isn't really easily um manifesting itself in our organization people will seek other things and that's that's a that's a positive for us quite honestly it is indeed and it's a it's a it's a it's a good reflection on the town and on new paul that that we we hire good people we develop good people they get good jobs uh some within the town some because the pickings are better somewhere else and uh you know the last thing you want to do is is prevent people from growing and developing and it's inevitable that we're going to lose some good ones and there's just uh that's just part of the cost of doing business and doing a decent job hiring and developing the talent that we uh that we do have um but it's a constant push you know this better than i do i would like to given the all the folks leaving but especially coming on board to commend the HR department for doing hiring all of these people during a time of some turmoil within the department itself i mean joanne left but the end of may i think uh and so there's a pretty important resource uh to lose right in the middle of trying to hire a whole lot of folks and then uh don array uh more recently so kudos to the folks i'm sure they've been busting their buns in the HR department to bring on board this rather large number of people so congratulations and i'm sure paul will make sure there's an extra five thousand dollars in your christmas bonus this year and please delete that from the tape of this movie and deep trouble i think we are at the moment we've all been waiting for which is approving the minutes of our may 11th meeting tammy yes question yeah um christopher hoffman was listed on this um on these minutes and it should be me i don't know what happened because the march ones were correct but um i don't know if joanne just used a previous template so that needs to be corrected yes i'm glad you caught that i'll make that change thank you yep um anything else that folks have noticed that needs to be corrected or added or deleted um if not do i hear a motion to approve the meeting of our minutes uh from may 11 i move that we approve the minutes for may 11th is there a second second any additional discussion dear colleagues olympavers ai wave your hands okay thank you now i'm i'm the one who said let's meet next on wednesday november the 16th which means we're skipping october i could be talked out of that but my reasoning was that's only if we if we meet at the second week in october that's only two weeks from today and that seems a little bit um yeah too soon soon so but if folks feel you know november 16th is a little bit too late we can we can reconsider a different time but i thought it was just simplest to say okay let's push things back to november 16th are there any comments or concerns about that dear colleagues all right are we do i have any topics i did not reason we anticipate four-year yeah i've already inserted them sort of in our discussion so are we ready to adjourn yes yes thank you everybody good to see you see you thank you hang in there everybody we got work to do thank you see you all it's wait all right bye