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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 4/12/2016 (5) City of Glendale 5850 West Glendale Avenue Glendale, AZ 85301 rtyll dlk Meeting Minutes - Final Tuesday, April 12, 2016 1:30 PM Special Workshop Council Chambers City Council Workshop Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor/an Hugh Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Samuel Chavira Councilmember Ray Malnar Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 CALL TO ORDER Rollcall Present 7- Mayor Jerry Weiers, Vice Mayor Ian Hugh, Councilmember Jamie Aldama, Councilmember Samuel Chavira, Councilmember Ray Malnar, Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff, and Councilmember Bart Turner Also present were Kevin Phelps, City Manager; Michael Bailey, City Attorney; and Pamela Hanna, City Clerk. WORKSHOP SESSION 1. 16-160 CITYGATE ASSOCIATES, LLC STAFFING AND OPERATIONS ANALYSIS - POLICE Staff Contact: Debora Black, Police Chief Guest Presenter: Mr. Stewart Gary, Public Safety Principal, Citygate Associates, LLC Guest Presenter: Mr. Sam Spiegel, Sr. Associate, Citygate Associates, LLC Chief Black introduced Sam Spiegel, Sr. Associate, Citygate Associates, LLC, and Assistant Police Chief, Rick St. John. Stewart Gary, Public Safety Principal, Citygate Associates, LLC gave a quick overview about both the Police and Fire overview that was done. He said most public safety agencies do not open themselves to peer review of best practices. He commended the City for its transparency. He said most of the national best practices after the recession are stretch goals, or aspirational goals. He said there are no minimum national goals for police and fire service. He said Citygate's recommendations are peer review and best practice based to help the management team decide strategic priorities. He said Glendale's public safety agencies are excellent. Glendale should be proud of its public safety departments. Mr. Spiegel said the results of the study were very positive. Glendale Police Department has a strong professional leadership and employee development does exist. Good management control systems exist, including policies, procedures and practices to guide the workforce. He explained there is a very strong commitment from employees at all ranks and professional, non-sworn staff to help the department meet or exceed its goals and objectives. There is also a high level of trust in the Chief and command staff. Mr. Spiegel said the department has maintained focus on its primary role of providing emergency response and public safety through tough economic challenges that resulted in significant reductions in staff. CALEA accreditation is also a highly regarded accomplishment of the department and the city. He said the department is a highly effective organization with a workforce of proud and dedicated employees. Mr. Spiegel went on to discuss labor relations, and said the professional relationship and mutual respect between the union and executive management team is excellent. There is an essential foundation in moving the department forward toward any changes and City of Glendale Page 1 Printed on 4/22/2018 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 growth. Based upon interviews with union representatives, the study found that excellent working relationships exist with Chief Black and the entire executive management team, the union is very supportive of community partnerships and integrity-based values, and concerns exist with the time consumption of report writing. Mr. Spiegel said policy changes coming out of the 2008 financial crisis have significantly impacted both the city and the department. The department adjusted resource allocations to preserve patrol operations and other critical functions. Non-sworn staffing levels were reduced and vacant positions remain unfilled. He said the Council has had to continually balance the fiscal capabilities and competing demands of the city with the staffing needs for public safety service delivery. There are no mandatory federal or state regulations that exist for police service, staffing, response times and outcomes. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and CALEA recommendations can be used as guidelines. Mr. Spiegel said it is recommended that staffing should be sufficient to support proactive policing. Mr. Spiegel said this study should be considered a continuous improvement tune-up that can be applied in the year-to-year budget process, to fine-tune operations and the ability to implement recommendations is dependent on the fiscal priorities and capabilities of the city. He said funding recommendations will impact the feasibility of implementation and these capabilities will create the need to evaluate phasing and interdependent impacts of what is funded. Mr. Spiegel said Citygate's recommendations include filling existing vacancies, reassess analytics based upon the filled positions, continue data analysis refinement, and reassess call priority definitions. He said other issues to be addressed are enhanced categorization and documentation of adjunct patrol time, adding community service officers to buffer the call load of sworn officers and filling the professional standards sergeant position. Mr. Spiegel went on to discuss calls for service. He said calls for services increased 10.5 percent from 2014 to 2015, and the department has not been able to achieve its response time goals in over five years. Some of this can be attributed to the staffing reductions and slowed growth of the department during the recession, which occurred while the number of calls for service increased. He provided charts showing response data for the last five years for priority 1, 2 and 3 calls. He explained 90 percent of the priority 1 and 2 calls are not meeting response time goals, but the gap is not increasing sharply. Statistically, the department has met its priority 3 goals. Mr. Spiegel went on to discuss response time impacts and said the department places a high priority on responding to the most critical calls, priority 1 and 2 calls. Staffing recommendations should help reduce response times. He explained there is no questions that priority 1 calls, those that are life threatening, in-progress, or with suspects still on scene, should be the highest priority. Citygate believes the five minute response time criteria is consistent with industry standards for municipalities. He explained an opportunity does exist to examine some of the priority 2 call types to refine those that may not necessitate such a stringent response time requirement. Citygate recommended examination of the priority calls to see if refinement of the criteria for calls within the priority 2 category make sense, and, if so, recommend modifications to the Council. In doing this, the response time challenges will be much more definitive and better understood. Mr. Spiegel went on explain violent crime trends. He said there have been an increase in rape and a decrease in robbery. He said the city's homicide rate is very small and not statistically significant. Property crimes, such as theft and stolen vehicles, have increased in the West, but Glendale has seen a decrease due to the efforts of the City of Glendale Page 2 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 regional work on auto theft. Citygate provided the following recommendations for the operations bureau, which include the deployment model and work schedule remain unchanged, examining criteria for priority 2 calls, filling the existing 14 sworn officer vacancies, establishing 6 civilian community service officer positions and upon filling the vacancies, add 6 FTE sworn officer positions to patrol. He explained that current staffing does match the call load demand. Mr. Spiegel next discussed the operations bureau and special operations recommendations. He said special events impacts were outside the scope of this study and said there was a need to explore funding reimbursement mechanisms for special events where opportunities exist. Recommendations also included filling the squad 40 motor officer position, and this position was filled in December. In the investigations bureau, recommendations include adopting caseload volume/clearance benchmarks, supplement staffing through utilization of 2 FTE civilian community service officers to handle follow-up contacts, information gathering and other non-suspect contact to help balance caseloads and time allocation. Additional recommendations included select and implement a dictation/transcription tool and certify and investigator for forensic computer analysis. Professional standards bureau recommendations included returning an authorized sergeant position to the audits and inspections unit. Mr. Spiegel said the investigations and administrative bureau records unit recommendations included reinstate the records supervisor position to maintain span of control, oversight, training, and evaluation of work force, reinstate two of the call back unit positions to reduce demands on patrol, and add two records technicians or CSO positions. Additional recommendations were to address long-awaited records management system (RMS) implementation. The new RMS system will impact workload in varying manners, and the department will need to evaluate staffing levels after implementation. Citygate also recommended utilization of a volunteer program in Records. Mr. Spiegel said the communication unit recommendations include filling existing vacancies in Communications and eliminating sworn officer backfills, after filling existing vacancies, add 4 FTE communication specialist positions which will facilitate supervisory oversight and develop, train and evaluate performance at optimal levels. Other recommendations include adding two provisional communication specialists which provides a cost-effective backfill of leave time and turnover and buffers recruitment and training time to fill vacancies, and eliminating the automatic call distributor, which will reduce wait time for answering 9-1-1 calls. Mr. Spiegel said the department also should develop and administer leadership training designed to prepare staff for leadership positions in the future. Mr. Spiegel said very appropriate fiscal management decisions have been made since 2008 and the focus was to maintain the patrol workforce, so open civilian positions were left unfilled. He recommended reinstating 4 FTE and adding one provisional detention officer position to reduce overtime, buffer repeated vacancies and allow schedule flexibility for training. Mr. Spiegel next discussed other interagency performance opportunities. The complexity of information technology systems, applications, and software in a police department requires constant and dedicated staff attention. Staff much maintain currency, monitor quality, and ensure reliability, providing on-call after-hours service to minimize down time. Recommendations include dedicated resources to provide self-sufficient support of the City of Glendale Page 3 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 police department systems. Throughout the study, there were recommendations that require Human Resources' leadership to address compaction, compensation, and assist in the implementation of performance evaluations that focus on articulable job performance, by job. Citygate was aware that efforts were already underway on several fronts and applauded both departments for their efforts to address these items. Mr. Spiegel said there is a strong commitment from employees at all ranks and among the civilian workforce, and this department is a well-run and performing operation. There is a high level of confidence and trust in the Police Chief and her command staff. During the financial crisis, the department implemented policies designed to preserve patrol operations and other critical functions, and non-sworn staffing levels were reduced and vacant positions remained unfilled. This approach was appropriate for the circumstances and consistent with how other municipal police departments addressed the financial crisis. The results were now without consequences, however, and these can be addressed as economic conditions improve. Mr. Spiegel explained the next steps in this study will be to absorb the policy recommendations of this police services study. The department should adopt revised data analytics for documentation of proactive time, and aggressively track and measure preventive/proactive crime prevention time. The department should also assess call priority criteria. Upon filling existing vacancies, the department should analyze patrol coverage and response time data and return to Council with recommendations to further impact crime and response times. Councilmember Turner thanked Citygate and staff for the presentation, and staff is doing great work. Councilmember Chavira loved the phrase inspect what you expect. He said they plan for the future by learning from the past. He appreciated the leadership component and how they were making plans for the future by training staff for future leadership positions. He also said the study embraces change and planning for the future. Councilmember Tolmachoff wanted the public to be aware they have been working on a five year plan to bring the best possible public safety service to the citizens. She said this study was step one of that process. She said this is an outline of how the city can get where they want to be. She explained now they have data to make the next move. Councilmember Aldama thanked the police officers and non-sworn for the work they do. He said the study explains how the department made it through the recession, doing more for less. He expressed concern about looking at unattainable goals. Councilmember Malnar asked where the city goes to here as far as putting numbers on the plan. Chief Black said she will be addressing some of that in her presentation. Mayor Weiers said he will hold his comments until the end. Chief Black thanked Citygate for their review and thanked the Council for the opportunity for the review. She also thanked the police officers being open the process and responding to questions with candor. She said it demonstrates their commitment to excellence. Chief Black said the review provided 41 recommendations, which were categorized as administrative, those requiring additional evaluation and those which will be recommended for immediate adoption. City of Glendale Page 4 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 Chief Black first discussed the administrative recommendations. For the records unit, recommendations were to organize the unit, create performance expectations and elimination of backlog, all of which are all underway or completed. The communication unit recommendations including compensation, performance evaluation criteria and supervisory expectations are all underway. Chief Black indicated local research has indicated that discontinuation of the ACD is not recommended. She said staff will consider doing further research beyond the valley before making a final determination. The department has identified several different ways to utilize dictation software for the criminal investigations unit and they are currently in a 90 day pilot program. Implementation should occur within 30 to 60 days. Chief Black said recommendation requiring additional evaluation include examining criteria for priority 2 calls, developing caseload volume benchmarks for investigations, CSO support for non-patrol functions, increased officers assigned to patrol, and restoring detention staff to 14 and overfill by 1 FTE. Chief Black said recommendations for immediate adoption include filling current budgeted vacancies, certify investigator in forensic computer analysis for sex crimes, continue patrol deployment model and work schedule as is, establish CSO classification, with 6 assigned to patrol in the FY17 budget. The department is also asking for one sergeant FTE to restore to the audit and inspection department and one dedicated IT FTE in the FY17 budget. She said they are hopeful the classification and compensation study disparity will be addressed, and they agree that leadership training should be developed. She said they always are looking for volunteers to expand their quality of service. Mayor Weiers asked if there was anything not covered in the report. Chief Black said she didn't think anything was missed. They met with Citygate to discuss issue prior to the review and said it was a fair and thorough review. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked for a description of CSO duties for the benefit of the public. Chief Black said the city used to have civilian accident investigators and call back officers. She said the position would be civilian in a marked vehicle who would primarily work on calls regarding accident investigation. She said there are many models of that job in the valley and they want to take the best parts to create a position to allow patrol officers to be available for the higher priority calls. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the CSO would respond to a minor accident, complete paperwork and stay on the scene until the accident is cleared. Chief Black said that is exactly what the position would entail. Mayor Weiers spoke about civilians who worked with DPS who did a similar type job. Councilmember Aldama asked about what impacts body cameras would have in delaying response times or increasing reporting times, and what positive impacts the body cameras will have. Chief Black said staff does not know yet what the impact of the body cameras will be. She said other departments that have implemented body cameras have seen an increase in administrative time, but the department will have to take that into consideration. She said this will all be taken into consideration when calculating officer time spent on each duty. She said they will also be looking at direct reporting and the new RMS system to City of Glendale Page 5 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 get a better picture of what their needs are. Councilmember Aldama asked if the positions that are going to be brought forward for consideration are of the highest priority and will have the biggest impact on the department. Chief Black said yes. Councilmember Turner asked about the drop in applications for the police officer position over the last couple of years. Chief Black corrected herself and said in 2014, the department had 1,200 applications and in 2016 there were 600 applications for police officer. Councilmember Turner asked why they haven't been able to fill vacant positions if there were 600 applications. Chief Black said the process for hiring a police officer is very comprehensive. She went on to detail the process, which included a written exam, an agility test as well as an interview panel. She explained as applicants move through that process, the numbers of viable candidates drop dramatically. She said after receiving the 600 applications and moving through the first 3 phases,there were only 54 viable candidates remaining. Councilmember Turner asked how many of the 54 remaining candidates may be hired. Chief Black said probably about 6 to 8 candidates. Councilmember Turner asked if the department could use more volunteers. Chief Black said they could use more volunteers, although they would have to go through some sort of a background check, depending on the position they would be working. She also said she would like to expand the department's use of interns as a way to attract and keep good employees. Councilmember Turner said the message to the public is the department will not settle for less than the best, but encouraged anyone interested in a police officer position to apply. He asked if there were any other opportunities in the hiring or recruitment field that Chief Black wanted to mention. Chief Black said it would more appropriate to come back with a more comprehensive plan. She said several police officer positions are already in the academy and she would love the opportunity to continue to hire officers as long as they have qualified candidates. She wants to close the gap of hiring new officers and retiring officers. Councilmember Turner asked about the automatic call distribution point and if it was a significant point. Mr. Spiegel said his staff does not have the ownership and heart that employees of Glendale have and Chief Black's staff brings a component to this study that Citygate does not have. He said ACD works well for some organizations and not as well with others. Other agencies in the valley are very strong proponents of the ACD system. He explained staff will continue to look at that issue and will make the right decision for Glendale. City of Glendale Page 6 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 2. 16-161 CITYGATE ASSOCIATES, LLC STAFFING AND OPERATIONS ANALYSIS - FIRE Staff Contact: Terry Garrison, Fire Chief Guest Presenter: Mr. Stewart Gary, Public Safety Principal, Citygate Associates, LLC Guest Presenter: Mr. Sam Spiegel, Sr. Associate, Citygate Associates, LLC Mr. Gary spoke about department strengths, which included dedicated employees, strong partnerships and relationships, two-way communication in the labor management partnership, strong regional automatic aid system of closest units, strong command, safety and health programs with chief officers and safety assistants, fire prevention programs and public education and a crisis intervention team. Chief Garrison discussed weaknesses which included capital equipment replacement of SCBA and paramedic technology and protective clothing needs. Mr. Gary said the fire department has opportunity for improved delivery service with low acuity units, services and revenues of annexing county islands and new ambulance possibilities with or without a certificate of necessity. There are other opportunities to restore investments in community education, preparedness and crisis intervention. Mr. Gary said there are increasing EMS incidents which have an impact on crew training, costs and availability for serious emergencies. The aging population is also a factor. There are also economic challenges absent new development, including equipment replacement costs and restoring fire prevention and office support FTEs. Mr. Gary discussed fire service delivery policy choices and said there are no mandatory federal or state regulations directing the level of fire service response times and outcomes. Thus, communities have the level of service they desire and can afford. The body of regulations on the fire service provides that if fire services are provided at all, they must be done so with the safety of the firefighters and citizens in mind. Deployment is about speed and weight of the response. Speed indicates single neighborhood based units, and weight and strength indicates multiple units amassing quickly enough to stop serious fires. He said the fire department response times follow typical suburban city patterns. Incident volumes are also typical, reflecting the demographics and socioeconomics. He explained 71.77 percent of the incidents are medical events and the number of incidents are modestly increasing each year. Crew turnout times exceed recommended practices and crew travel times exceed recommended practices. Mr. Gary provided graphs showing incident demand trends by hour of the day by year and the number of incidents per station. A graph showing hourly incident demand was provided. Response times were also broken down by turnout, travel distribution and dispatch-to arrival distribution. Mr. Gary provided further explanation about the importance of reviewing response times. He also spoke about the cost and economics of putting in another new fire station. Several maps were provided showing hot spots and response times with varying criteria. Mr. Gary said fire dispatch times need to be tracked on all incidents. He explained crew turnout time is excelled, although travel time is longer than desired at 4 minutes. Due to station location, traffic and simultaneous incidents, travel time cannot be significantly improved. If the citywide dispatch to arrival time of 6:44 has 1 minute added for call taking, then a time of 7:44 is not far past a Citygate recommendation of 7 minutes. Addition of a low acuity unit could improve these response times. Mr. Gary explained City of Glendale Page 7 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 peak hours for incidents are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. workdays and slightly less on weekends. Engine 151 with a 23 percent unit hour utilization (UHU), is the busiest unit, but is still below Citygate recommended limit of 30 percent. Given EMS is 72 percent of the workload and much of the demand occurs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the low acuity 2-firefighter unit is exactly the best decision, and a second may be needed. Adopting best practices performance measures to include all pieces of the response timeline is recommended. This includes 1 minute call processing time, 2 minute turnout time, 4 minute travel time, and 7 minute total response time. The department has to work with the ambulance system to stop responding to some low acuity incidents with engines and even some incidents that may not even need a 2 firefighter unit. Agencies have to start controlling the volume of demand and reserve capacity for true emergencies. Mr. Gary discussed recommended deployment policy measures. For distribution of stations, to control small fires, the first-due engine should arrive within 7 minutes with a minimum of 4 personnel, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 9-1-1 call in the Phoenix regional fire dispatch center. For medical aid calls, the paramedic and firefighter team should arrive within 7 minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 9-1-1 call in the regional dispatch fire center. This equates to 1 minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company turnout time, and a 4 minute drive time within the city limits. For multiple unit effective response force for serious emergencies, the recommended deployment policy measure to confine fires near the room of origin, and to treat up to five medical patients at once, a multiple-unit response of a minimum of 3 engines, 1 ladder truck, and 2 battalion chiefs with aides, totaling 20 personnel, should arrive within 11 minutes from the time of the 9-1-1 call receipt in fire dispatch, 90 percent of the time. This equates to 1 minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company turnout time, and an 8 minute drive times spacing for multiple units in the most populated areas. Mr. Gary said in the headquarters overview, a wide array of services are provided and best practices are used when feasible. The city has converted to computer-based program Telestaff for time and hours tracking and a SAFER grant was written to add FTEs to ensure line staffing minimums were met. Finding under line supervision include the existence of good health and safety programs. The logistics was redone and is working well. He explained the firefighters spoke openly about the pride they took in taking good care of their equipment. He said an excellent regional training center and programs exist. He said annual training hours are not being met, some due to recordkeeping, but most of this is due to call volumes. Mr. Gary said logistics recommendations included a second set of turnouts are needed for all firefighters, turnout washers are needed at all stations, and this is a decontamination, safety and health issue. He also said paramedic defibrillators are 10 to 13 years old and past reasonable life by about 7 years. Traffic light preemption is not citywide, is an older system and has issues from lack of maintenance. The fire department needs to keep up on apparatus replacement and breathing apparatus is at the end of life and no more upgrades are possible. The fire department has prevention, education and crisis intervention teams that are all understaffed due to recession reductions. Citygate recommends conducting a rigorous workload analysis to set service level expectations, reevaluating the policy of cost recovery and fees, and consideration should be given to creating a citywide special events manager. Overall headquarters recommends include restoring 1 fire inspector and 1 to 2 clerical office support. Also, determine the cost and net revenue realized if prevention billed for permits. Study, implement and fund from user fees a citywide coordinated special events team. Further, staff should understand turnover and design a succession plan program. City of Glendale Page 8 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 Mr. Gary said next steps are to absorb the policy recommendations of this fire services study. The council should adopt revised, complete fire department deployment measures. Staff should aggressively measure and expand the low acuity EMS squad response model. Study implementing additional user fees and keep watch on fire prevention staffing levels. Chief Garrison respected the study that was performed on the fire department and is excited it was done. He said this study was done for the purpose of continuous improvement. He said he has reviewed the report and is encouraged by what he has read. The fire department's two primary goals are to always ensure firefighter safety while providing the highest level of customer service. He said the study provided 31 findings and 12 recommendations. Chief Garrison described how the recommendations were processed and said there were no recommends the fire department did not agree with. A recommendation was made to adopt deployment measures policies to direct fire crew planning and to monitor the operation of the department. Also recommended for immediate adoption that funding should be provided, as soon as possible, to make the two person, low acuity team permanent. The pilot program should be expanded with at least one more unit as data shows the first low acuity unit cannot handle all of the designated incidents, and a funding request is in the FY16/17 budget for two permanent low acuity units. Chief Garrison said another recommendation for immediate adoption is the city and fire chief must accept lower fire prevention customer request processing times and resultant lower annual work output, or should add a minimum of one fire inspector/investigator position. He said a current vacancy will be filled. The recommendation that the blue card certification program should be adequately funded and time should be allocated for members to participate is accepted, and this is currently being completed, Chief Garrison explained this is a state of the art number one program in the country. He said the blue card training program is a sole source program and is supported by other firefighter training agencies. Recommendation number 8 recommends replacement of the paramedic cardiac monitor defibrillators. Chief Garrison agreed and is requesting funding in the FY!6/17 CIP budget. Recommendation number 11 is to develop a replacement funding account to save annually toward replacement of firefighter interior firefighting breathing equipment apparatus. Chief Garrison said they agree with this and funding requests will be in the FY16/17 and FY17/18 budget. Recommendation number 12 is the city should fund two sets of turnout equipment, which Chief Garrison agrees to, and requests for funding is in the FY16/17 CIP budget. Chief Garrison said the next few recommendations are phased in implementation. He said they agree to these, but know they will have to be phased in over time. Recommendation number 3 indicates the department will work with the medical director and the ambulance provider to send only basic EMT, non-paramedic ambulances to low acuity incidents. The department agrees with this, but does not control ambulance dispatch. He said staff will discuss this process with AMR and move forward with this recommendation. Long term step 1.8.2 recommendation to monitor the effect of AMR's buyout of Rural Metro and consider applying to the state for a certificate of necessity for ambulance service. The department agrees and will begin the application process and Chief DeChant will lead the department on moving forward with the CON. Chief Garrison said Recommendation number 4 could use more evaluation and they will need to conduct a desk audit to determine the workloads of headquarters position and use civilians in some of those positions. Staff agrees with this and every fire department needs to do that every few years. They will conduct this evaluation over the next year. Recommendation number 6 is implementing a single citywide special events manager. Staff agrees with this and would like to begin conversations with several departments who will be impacted by this position to determine how best to fill this position Recommendation number 7 is for Council to consider setting a 75 to 100 percent cost City of Glendale Page 9 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 recovery policy for new construction and annual maintenance inspection work, as well as design an appropriate fee program and billing system. Staff agrees with this and will be providing further information on this tomorrow. Recommendation number 10 to reinstate the requirement for certification as emergency vehicle technicians requires more evaluation. Staff agrees, but this is not in the control of the fire department and it is managed by equipment management. He said equipment management does a great job in keeping their aging vehicles running at top notch, and this is very unusual in the fire industry. He said they will work with equipment management to implement the certification process. Councilmember Chavira asked what the definition of NFPA was. Chief Garrison said it was the National Fire Protection Association. Councilmember Chavira asked for explanation on why it is important to be aligned and compliant with NFPA standards. Mr. Spiegel said the federal government does not design and set safety standards. He said they publish and adopt private sector best practice safety standards. NFPA is a private entity and used certified processes and publish recommended standards. He said these standards are not binding on local government and are advisory to the governing body. Citygate looks at the accreditation commission recommendations and NFPA and other local department to determine what each agency needs to serve its unique mission. Chief Garrison said it is also important to know where the numbers come from. He said studies done regarding medical events help set those response time numbers. These numbers are for firefighter safety and to provide the best possible outcome for the customers. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about conducting audits in house. Chief Garrison said staff would ask for expert help from Human Resources to look at this issue, and it helps justify the examination. Councilmember Tolmachoff said a consultant would not be hired. Chief Garrison said no,this could be done in house. Councilmember Tolmachoff if hiring a consultant for the CON was in this year's budget request. Chief Garrison said staff would have to hire someone for this particular item. Several other departments are in various stages of the CON process. He explained it will take an expert to determine if a CON is right for the city. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if there is a budget request to fund that consultant in the FY16/17 budget. Chief Garrison said staff is still in discussions on how much that will be. Mr. Phelps said he knew this was an issue prior to his and Chief Garrison's arrival to the city. He said they are working on outlining how they will move to the next step. He said the process will have to begin as a policy discussion and will be brought forward to City of Glendale Page 10 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 Council soon. Councilmember Turner spoke about the committed and caring city employees and said he was glad Citygate was able to see that. He appreciated that employees took care of their equipment. He asked if the preemption program will help with travel times and the safety factor. Mr. Spiegel said it started as a travel time improvement device and is now a firefighter and resident safety device. He said there is a slight improvement in travel time. Citygate recommends every developer who puts in a traffic signal also fully fund a preemption device at that intersection, conduct a survey assessment of most frequently used routes by fire trucks and would make preemption devices a priority at those intersections, and take the system citywide as CIP funds are available. Chief Garrison agrees with that and said staff will not drive faster to get to a call quicker. Firefighters follow rules and guidelines in place for safe travel to calls. Councilmember Turner spoke about keeping response times low and said firefighters have reduced turnout time by 25 percent. He said this speaks to the quality of staff. He complimented Chief DeChant for stepping forward and putting a two man low acuity crew in place as a pilot project with very little additional cost to the city. He said it is clear that this program is making a difference. He said moving forward with the budget, the Council does now have data to make decisions that will make a difference. He said all the budget requests are for firefighter safety and to assist employees to do their jobs better and serve the public well. Councilmember Aldama said he appreciated what staff has done during the downturn in the economy to continue to provide quality services to citizens. He agreed with Citygate's assessment that the fire department is in no way dysfunctional. He appreciated the firefighters for the work they do. Mayor Weiers was impressed by the decisions made by Chief DeChant by implementing the low acuity response team. He said they want the crews and trucks they have to work more efficiently. He said many things still have to be done with both Police and Fire and they need to make sure employees get the training and equipment they need to do their jobs effectively. He hoped the economy continues to improve so the Council can provide employees with what they need. 3. 16-166 CLASSIFICATION AND COMPENSATION FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Staff Contact: Jim Brown, Director, Human Resources and Risk Management Guest Presenter: Mr. Andrew Knutson, Segal Waters Consultant Mr. Brown said this item is about the non-represented classification and compensation report. He introduced Andre Knutson, Segal Water Consultant, who conducted the study. Mr. Brown said in April of 2014, Council was briefed on compensation issues for non-represented employees, including lack of across the board pay increases for non-represented employees from 2009 through 2013, three years of furloughs, and pay ranges below market at the range minimums and midpoints. Staff recommended to Council for non-represented employees a phased in approach to correcting non-represented compensation. This included 2.5% across the board pay increases City of Glendale Page 11 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 beginning July 1, 2014, effective October 2014, adjust the pay range minimums upward by approximately 20% and bring employees below range to a new range minimum, and in FY15/16 conduct classification and compensation study and review recommendations with Council prior to the FY16/17 budget implementation. He said an RFP was completed and Segal Waters performed the classification and compensation study. Mr. Knutson said it was a pleasure to work with the city. The project had five steps, the first being project initiation. Segal gained an understanding of what the issues were and determined what the goals were. Step was a detailed classification analysis, where employees were given a questionnaire to collect detailed information about their jobs. That data was collected and a classification structure was developed. Employee questionnaires received from staff were high quality. Step 3 was the compensation market assessment. Published data from the private sector and other peer cities were used in data analysis. Step 4 was developing recommendations for salary structures. Several different models were used and a detailed estimation to implement those salary structures. The City's pay policies were also evaluated for recommended changes. Mr. Knutson said the city does not does not have a formally adopted compensation philosophy, which is a formal statement that documents and organization's position about employee compensation. Employers can benefit from being transparent about their compensation philosophy and having an official pay strategy that guides city pay policies and practices. He said a compensation philosophy should include benchmark sources such as selected Arizona public sector organizations. He said the private sector can also be monitored through published sources. All aspects of the compensation philosophy are subject to the annual budget and the City's ability to remain fiscally responsible. The methodology used included benchmarking which takes a sample of representative jobs and compares them to peer organizations to assess competitiveness in pay and other benefits. Benchmarking has been an industry standard for decades and benchmark jobs are often linked to other jobs in the City, which is one way they are used as reference points to making comparisons. Mr. Knutson said 11 public sector organizations and 3 published sources to represent the private sector were used for this study. Mr. Knutson provided information on the peer and published sources which were used for the study. He said based on the overall data, the city is competitive at the pay range minimum and pay range midpoint. He explained the city is a little less competitive at the pay range maximum. He said there were 101 benchmarks total, with 43 benchmark totals that were below the market, less than 95% at the midpoint. There were 45 benchmarks that were at the market, or between 95% and 105% of the midpoint market average. There were 9 benchmark above market or above 105% and there were only 4 benchmarks that did not have sufficient data. In summary, Mr. Knutson said at the minimum and midpoint of the pay range, the City is more competitive, while the maximum is further behind the market. The City recently increased the minimum of its pay grades, while not adjusting the maximum. This increased competitiveness of the minimum and midpoint of the pay grades, but left the maximum of the pay grades to trail the market. Segal Waters recommends increasing the pay range maximums and provided two updated salary structure options. The first with a 45% pay range width and the second with a 50% pay range width. After discussing these options, the City chose to go with the 50% range spread in order to be more competitive with the market. Extensive cost modeling was done to provide information on costs to implement the new salary structure. He explained if an employee has been in their position between 2 and 4.9 years, they should be at least at 25% of the salary structure. If the employee has been in their position between 5 and 7.9 years of service, the employee should at least be at the midpoint of the salary structure. If the employee has been in their position for 8 plus years, they should be at least at the 60% City of Glendale Page 12 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 of their salary range. The total cost for bringing employees to the minimum and bringing everyone into the new structure under this criteria is$2.5 million. Mr. Brown said this was applying the new, revised pay ranges to market and placing employees in those ranges based on criteria mentioned. Mr. Brown provided information on non-represented employee turnover data. Based on some of these salary issues, in FY13, the city has a 20.2% turnover rate, and that number has declined to a 14.5% turnover rate in 2015. Mr. Brown explained that a 14.5% turnover rate is still extremely high. He explained the cost of turnover is 20% of the salary for that position, which includes recruitment,training and overtime to cover that position. Mr. Brown said one of the findings was that the pay ranges were found to be below market at the range maximums. The recommendation was to bring range maximums in line with the market by moving them upward so the overall ranges now have a 50% pay range width. By doing this, the City will be market competitive at all points within the pay ranges. Mr. Brown said with regard to the classification portion of the study, the pay ranges for some positions were not in line with the market. The recommendation was to adjust positions that are determined to have a current salary range outside of the market, to a salary range determined to be within the positions' market. Mr. Brown explained another finding was based on the criteria established by City staff in conjunction with Segal, a number of employees are in need of pay adjustments to ensure market competitiveness. Recommendations include employees with 0-1.9 years in current position be adjusted to range minimum if currently below. Employees with 2-4.9 years in current position adjusted to 25th percentile of range if currently below. Employees with 5-7.9 years in current position adjusted to midpoint if currently below, and employees with 8 plus in current position adjusted to 60th percentile of range if currently below. Mr. Brown went over the impact of the pay adjustment recommendation. He said out of 1,028 non-represented employees, this impacts over 400 employees, or nearly 40%. It will cost nearly $1.79 million to the general fund, and approximately $1.31 million across all other funds. The total cost is approximately $3.1 million, which includes FICA and ASRS costs. Another finding was the City currently does not have a Council adopted compensation philosophy that guides the City's compensation policies and practices. The recommendation was to adopt a citywide compensation philosophy that documents the principles and values that drive compensation decision making and allows the City to have an official pay strategy that is transparent to the public and the organization. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the$3.1 million would impact the FY17 budget. Mr. Brown said that would be in the proposed budget the City Manager is bringing forward. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if that has been projected into the budget Council is working on now. Mr. Phelps said yes and staff can do the increases in FY16-17 instead of doing a phased approach, and still hit the five year fund balance goals. He explained the real cost to the organization is the skill, knowledge and understanding of what we do that walks out the door when people leave. He said he was shocked at the 20% turnover rate. He explained a high performing organization has a 7% to 8% turnover rate. By making policy changes, they will see that number go down. His goal is to build a highly skilled and highly talented, productive workforce, and he cannot do that with a 20%turnover rate. City of Glendale Page 13 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if compensation in city governments is based on tenure. Mr. Brown said there is a pay structure for public safety that is based on years and steps, but the non-represented side doesn't work that way. He said employees who have worked in a position for several years, come with skill sets and knowledge that are valued more than an employee with only a year or two on the job. He said they want to reflect that in the way they pay per years in position. Councilmember Tolmachoff said the good news is the city is not at a 20% turnover rate anymore. Councilmember Malnar asked if benefits and other compensation were taken into consideration as part of this overall study. Mr. Knutson said it was not a part of the study as they were not hired to do that. Councilmember Malnar said if Glendale has superior benefits to other cities, are the comparisons equal. Mr. Brown said staff did look at benefits they do try and remain competitive. They continue to look at benchmark cities about benefits offered. He explained Glendale is comparable with other cities in the valley. Councilmember Malnar asked if industry is doing the same type of adjustment. Mr. Brown said the city was hit particularly hard during the recession and it has taken Glendale a little longer to come out the economic downturn. He said they have seen it happen earlier in the other benchmark cities. He said Glendale's turnover is the highest in all the benchmark cities and one of the reasons is because the pay standards have been lower. He said other cities have done this earlier than Glendale. Mr. Knutson said Segal Water exclusively deals with public organizations. He agreed with the comments made, and Glendale is falling behind at the maximum. Mayor Weiers asked about the classifications that could not be compared to other cities. Mr. Knutson said administrative assistant was one of the positions, and it wasn't compared because there was not enough internal data. He said city prosecutor, landfill supervisor and transit operator did not have enough data. Councilmember Turner said he thought there was not enough data for civic center manager, not city prosecutor. Mr. Knutson said that was correct. Councilmember Turner said they are looking only at salary or wage compensation. Mr. Brown said that is correct. Councilmember Turner asked if the city does exit surveys and if that information is tracked. City of Glendale Page 14 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 Mr. Brown said exit surveys are sent and they do have the information available. He said the reason people leave is not always compensation, but pay is one of the top 4 reasons. Councilmember Turner said if the exit survey report is available, he would like to see it. He wanted to know what the turnover target ought to be. Mr. Brown said from a local government standpoint, the benchmark has always been around 8 percent or lower. Councilmember Turner said there are a couple of positions where the maximum was over 105%, and asked if there was any reasons for that. Mr. Knutson went over several positions that were above 105% at the midpoint and said there was not a real trend about these positions. Councilmember Chavira asked where the city stands about employees pursuing higher education and if the city was competitive. Mr. Brown said they have worked with providing assistance with funding for represented employees. The city also have a reimbursement policy for non-represented employees once they achieve a Bachelor's or AA degree. He said the program is not as robust as it once was. Councilmember Chavira said he just wanted to put a spotlight on that issue. Vice Mayor Hugh asked how staff knows what the right amount of employees is. Mr. Brown said would be something brought forward in individual department budget presentations. He said justification has been made to increase the number of employees over the last couple of years. Vice Mayor Hugh spoke about GE which fired about 10% of its workforce each year, but said he was not making that proposal. Councilmember Aldama asked why Council would not create and approve a compensation policy before bringing forward the compensation increases. Mr. Brown said there has been a practice in place for market maximums and minimums. He asked Segal to take a look at the practice of having a compensation philosophy. He said they want to get a compensation philosophy in place so they don't fall into having the same issues with salary in the future. Councilmember Aldama said he didn't know if Council would have had enough time to create a policy before this study was done, but would have preferred to have done a policy first. He asked if the 40%figure is the one they need to deal with. Mr. Brown said the 40% are the employees most impacted and affected. He said the other 60%are at a competitive rate. Councilmember Aldama asked if the 40% would get the secondary increase if approved by council. Mr. Brown said it is staff's recommendation that once those 40% of employees are placed appropriately within their pay range, that they also be given whatever salary City of Glendale Page 15 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 increase is approved by council for the rest of the employees. Councilmember Aldama clarified that the 40% of employees would be brought into the pay range and then also receive any salary increases approved for this year. Mr. Brown said that was correct. Councilmember Aldama asked if 95% is the pay range midpoint, how will staff address those employees in the 108% range. Mr. Brown said those number do not refer to employees, it refers to the range for that classification. Staff would have some positions that would need to come down and it would be matched to the appropriate range. He said the recommendation is to extend the pay range maximum so it would not impact the earning potential of an employee. Councilmember Aldama said the city has really good employees and doing this would boost morale. Councilmember Turner asked how staff knows they have the right number of employees on a department by department basis. He said they look forward to hearing from Mr. Phelps on this at a future date. He also said the city has great employees throughout the organizations. Many have had opportunities to go elsewhere, but have stayed because they see opportunities here. Councilmember Aldama said some of the benchmark cities have represented employees in some of the same positions that Glendale has non-represented employees in. He asked how they know if those other represented employees are getting raises while Glendale employees are not. Mr. Brown said Segal looked at only compensation. Mr. Knutson said they did not take into consideration the union aspect. Councilmember Aldama said it seemed like the study would take that into consideration as represented employees would be above the maximum. Mr. Knutson said they could go back and look at that. He said they did a very large study for the city of Phoenix, so they have more detailed data. Councilmember Aldama asked about the difference between represented employees receive raises and Glendale employees' wages being frozen and not receiving raises for a period of time. He asked if that information could be included in future discussions. Mr. Phelps said public employee pay is a sensitive subject. He said his goal is to build a highly skilled workforce and employees will be asked to do more and up their game as well. He said the city is still hovering at the midpoint range and will be able to invest in training for its employees. He said this is some they can make as an adjustment to the budget and still be fiscally responsible. He said this is the best way to commit building a great workforce. Mayor Weiers said the city has lost many exceptional employees and said this will be a tool to retain employees. City of Glendale Page 16 Printed on 4/22/2016 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes-Final April 12,2016 ADJOURNMENT The City Council adjourned at 4:50 p.m. Printed on 4/22/2016 City of Glendale Page 17