municipal organization-past, present, future douglas j. schmitz city administrator

8/10/2019 Municipal Organization-past, Present, Future Douglas j. Schmitz City Administrator

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TO: Mayor Jason Burnett and Members

of

the City Council and Citizens of Carmel by the

Sea

FR:

Douglas

J.

Schmitz, City Administrator

DATE: 4 November 2014

RE:

THE MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION---PAST,

PRESENT,

FUTURE

This report was requested by the Mayor and City Council in early October 2014, asking for a one month

overview

of

my impressions

of

the municipal organization. I want

to

state that there will be further

reports in the months ahead as I become more familiar with the personnel, policies, practices, budget,

equipment and projects

of

the agency. It is not the purpose

ofthis

review

to

cast personal aspersions on

person(s)

or

their management style(s); rather, the purpose is

to

show where the Council, the staff and

the community should focus in the months ahead

to

address the needs

of

the community and

of

the

organization.

I do want

to

acknowledge the ongoing service provided

to

the community by the dedicated employees

of

this organization during

the

recent times. They continued

to

carry forth

with their

responsibilities and

duties to keep our operations ongoing. Thank you

I will be asking Council tonight to consider eight 8) action items

to

begin to rebuild the organization and

to regain the trust

of our

citizenry.

For this initial report, I have broken

it

into

four

(4) categories: Personnel, Financial and Contracts,

Transparency and Communications and Projects.

PERSONNEL

The budget adopted in June 2014 lists 81.27

FTE.

As of today, 16.23 positions or twenty percent (20%) of

those allotments are vacant or filled by temporary staff. We have a business with little "institutional

knowledge" and one that is only able to undertake the barest of tasks because we have, in sports

parlance, no "bench strength."

As

an example,

with

vacancies in Community Services, the Library

Director and Local History Librarian are the staff for all community and private events which require

permits. In October, the two librarians processed twenty four (24) events, both private and public.

Permit processing

for

events involves discussions

with

applicants before they file; working with the

applicants

to

secure the necessary insurance

to

protect the City; coordinating with other departments;

making sure the noticing has been correctly done, or, in the

case

of

City events, initiating the noticing

requirements; issuing the invoices; processing payments and issuing the final documents. Due

to

the

number

of

permits in October, the number of hours Janet and Ash lee spent on library matters was

minimal.

Thirty percent (30%)

of

the staff are involved in four grievance investigations as witnesses, alleged

perpetrators

of

questionable actions,

or

possible victims. A fifth investigation may soon commence. This


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means that nearly one

in

three

of

our employees are being interviewed

as

part

of

the Municipal

Code

specified process

for

grievances. Three of the investigations are nearing completion, one

has

recently

begun and the

fifth is

in the early internal investigative stage

to

determine

if

sufficient evidence exists

to

proceed

to

a full inquiry.

Of the terminated employees, the City Attorney

is

in

negotiations

with

the attorney

for

John Hanson.

The Council

is

to hold a Closed Session this evening on this matter. The Administrative Hearing for Leslie

Fenton was held in June but no decision was rendered by my predecessor. The attorneys involved in this

matter

have verbally stipulated that I could be substituted in

as

the Hearing Officer and final decision

maker; however, the

written

stipulation remains unsigned

as

each attorney tweaks the language of the

document

as

it

is

circulated. I have read the June transcript of the hearing and reviewed all the evidence

but will not issue a decision until the stipulation

is

signed by all the parties.

As

with the Hanson case this

matter

is on the Council s Closed Session agenda for this evening.

Numerous dates have been proposed in November and December for the Perotti Administrative Hearing

which,

if

similar

to

the Fenton hearing, will last almost four days. However, the attorneys have been

unable to secure amongst themselves a definitive block of time for when that hearing can be scheduled.

We currently have no one performing Human Resources functions due

to

vacancies. Thus, we have no

HR expert to advise employees on benefits issues, retirement, personal counselling or employee

assistance plans, or to undertake recruitments for the sixteen-plus vacancies. We have no one sending

out reminders that employee evaluations are due (or late) or to schedule training. We have no in-house

person to assist outside counsel on labor negotiations. I have asked the City of onterey to lend us

an

employee from its

HR

Department

to

assist

with

the above matters and

with

recruitments

for our

vacant

positions until our Human Resources managerial position

is

filled. onterey HR staff members have

been reviewing our needs and I expect a response this week.

I am asking the Council

to

approve proceeding

with

a rewrite and overhaul

of

the Personnel Code,

particularly Article

IX Disciplinary Action. The attorneys for Leslie Fenton raised an objection at her

appeal hearing to Jason Stilwell being the party initiating the process which lead to her termination and

then serving

as

the Hearing Officer.

Even

though best practices would suggest

an

independent hearing

officer not previously involved

in

the disciplinary process

of an

employee, there

is

no specific provision

in the code for such a substitution. Additionally, the Code is silent on what the process should be

if

an

employee has a grievance involving the City Administrator. The Personnel Ordinance was adopted in

1987. Best practices and case law have evolved over the past quarter century and it

is

time to update

and rewrite this part

of

the Municipal Code.


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I have recommended

to

the Council, and it has acted,

to

eliminate the position of Director of

Administrative Services. For the near future, the Managers of Human Resources, Finance and

IT

will

report directly

to

the City Administrator.

The City

Attorney

and I are reviewing Whistleblower policies from

other

agencies and,

if

Council

so

directs, will bring forth in the months ahead a draft policy applicable

to

Carmel by the Sea for Council,

staf f and public review.

FINANCE AND

CONTRACTS

Obviously, our internal systems did not work. Whether through force of personality, doing work fast

and loose or details to follow, or intentiona l avoidance or ignorance

of

the City's policies and

practices, the safeguards failed. The City

has

no centralized system to monitor contracts including

contract costs or conditions.

I will soon begin setting up a contracts moni toring system

so

everyone can easily access information on

all

of

the City's contracts. This will involve reassigning an employee(s) to develop and oversee this task. I

have asked the City Treasurer, David Sandys,

to

assist the staff with this effort.

I am recommending to Council this evening the following actions:

That

our

auditor undertake a review of all City credit cards and the expenses associated

with

purchases

over the past 6-12 months. I do not know if there

has

been any misuse but such a review is just one

more step to assure the community, the Council and me that we take our fiduciary duties seriously and

that our expenses are appropriate. The preliminary estimate to undertake this examination is $3000-

$5000.

Questions have been raised by some in the community regarding the Deposit Fund. There are currently

101 accounts within the Fund. The Deposit Fund contains monies

for

which the City

is

the custodian. No

interest accrues

to

these deposits. Examples of accounts are: donations

for

specific uses such as park

or

beach benches

or

public art and fees collected on behalf of

other

agencies such as fingerprinting monies

that

are sent to the

FBI

and Department

of

Justice.

Because of the concerns expressed that the Deposit Fund accounts are a slush fund

as

some have

referred

to

it), I have asked the

auditor to

undertake a review

of

the 101 accounts when the team

is

here later this month and to provide me a report on their findings. This report will be shared with the

Council and the community.

Because our technological and financial hardware systems are obsolete, many types

of

information we

would like to have immediately available must be entered by hand. I would like the monthly warrants

list to not only enumerate the amount paid to a vendor

for

that month, but to also list the cumulative

amount paid to

that

vendor since the contract was entered into with the City. The City

has


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approximately ninety (90) contracts. Even though the information will need to

be

manually entered, I

have asked the staff to prepare information that will

be

distributed in the Council s monthly agenda

packet th t lists the cumulative total expended per contract

as

well

as

the authorized contract limit. If,

fter starting this effort, entering this data manually proves too time consuming,

as an

alternative, we

will focus on adding the cumulative details of the fifteen (15) largest contracts until the system

is

overhauled and upgraded.

I am asking Council to authorize staff to seek proposals for outsourcing our payroll. Many private

companies and public entities now use the services of ADP or Paychex. I will be asking members of the

community to serve on a committee to evaluate the responses to our RFP once we have received

proposals.

I have asked our auditor,

JJACPA

Inc.,

as

part of its current work, to review our internal financial

systems---our checks and balances---to ascertain where we need to strengthen our protections and to

suggest improvements. Part of their review will include the adequacy

of our

Purchasing ordinance which

was last updated in 2003. Their report

is

due

in

December.

COMMUNICATIONS

AND TRANSPARENCY

For some good news, changes over the past several months to the practices involving responses to

Public Records Act requests appear to

be

successful. Requests are being responded to in a timely

manner and without redactions.

An

exception are requests for the production

of

large amounts

of

documents made from attorneys involved in litigation with the City. Due

to

the magnitude

of

the

requests, staff has asked for time extensions in these instances. There are also some requests which

can t be complied with due to exemptions in the law such

as

in criminal cases.

There has been some criticism regarding the lack of timely responses to inquiries from the press. I will

be working with the Department Directors and Managers on being more expeditious in our

responsiveness

as

well

as

our being more anticipatory of the needs and time ines of the media.

The British Parliamentary system has a weekly, single session when the Parliament

is

meeting whereby

the Prime Minister comes to the well of the House and answers questions from the Members. This

is

known

as

the Prime Minister s Questions.

No

question

is

o limits (although some are rather

distasteful.) I am proposing th t at least quarterly beginning in 2015, the Council and public meet with

Department Directors and Managers and the City Administrator and

ask

any questions on any subject to

the staff. The citizenry can also

ask

questions of Council. I would hope this would alleviate concerns th t

the City Administrator is a bottleneck

to

the flow

of

information between the staf f and

the

Council and

citizens. Managers in both public and private entit ies have dif fering styles. I have no concerns about

such an open forum

or

the answers staff would provide to the questions raised.

PROJECTS


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The Council undertook

an

ambitious program of projects for 2014-15 and beyond.

To

date, due

to

many

reasons, success and completion have been evasive or progress thwarted. I

am

asking the Council to

scale back its projects and reprioritize, focusing on a smaller list. Council's budgetary agenda

of

projects

has

been impacted by the following: 1) the political

turmoil

that has

put

the organization on the

defensive, focusing attention internally on personnel and contracts; 2) the issues, Council and staff time

surrounding

PG E

and the nearly eight months

it took for

the

utility

to resume normal operations

within

the village; 3) personnel matters, grievances and terminated employee lawsuits; 4) contract

investigations, and 5) employee vacancies amounting to twenty percent (20%) of the authorized

positions.

The Council's project goals for this year have become the casualties

of

the five disparate topics listed

above. Despite the upheaval, some progress has been made. The restrooms on Scenic Drive at Santa

Lucia

are underway; Forest Theater has been given the go-ahead; and the tennis courts and play

equipment at Forest Hill Park have been refurbished.

Council should determine a date in the

future for

a study session

to

begin a preliminary discussion

of

where to reprior itize its projects list. But until we have more bench strength in the organization with

the filling

of

vacancies, we don t have the horsepower to undertake a lot

of

new initiatives.

TIMELINES

In

the months ahead, we will essentially

be

reconstructing the organization, reviewing and reworking its

policies, practices and ordinances. My time ine is

to

have the matters involving the three terminated

employees resolved by the end of this year. Due

to

the tragic circumstances involving Mr. Mclnchak, I do

not expect his case

to

be concluded by year's end. Three of the four pending grievance matters will also

be

resolved by January 2015.

Due

to

the vast number

of

witnesses involved in the

fourth

grievance, I do

not expect it to be concluded until well into 2015. I do not know at this time if there will be a fifth

grievance which will involve the commencement of

an

investigative process as information is being

gathered now to ascertain whether the filing is credible.

I expect

that

by the end of the fiscal year, we will have filled the

HR

Manager position. With the hiring of

this person, we will begin the rewriting of our Personnel Code. Until then, we will utilize the services of

the City of

Monterey

or, if

that

does

not

work out, another agency

to

help

us with

basic efforts such as

recrui tments. The City

Attorney

and I will present a Whistleblower policy

to

the Council in early 2015.

In January, we will have received the auditor's review of our internal financial and contractual systems

and those will be shared with the Council and the community.

I will

be

reassigning an employee

in

the near

future

to work with the City Treasurer on the development

of

a system to track the monies and conditions

of

contracts into which the City enters.


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At some point

in

the future our Policy Manual needs

to be

updated. This is going

to

take a substantial

amount

of

effort----staff time

to

rework the policies and Council time

to

review tweak and adopt. s

import nt

as it

is

to

have current policies this project will

not

proceed until the other matters identified

above are addressed and resolved.

In

the months ahead all

of

these efforts will take resources including both personnel and in some

instances money. My goal and my hope

is

th t

we will have completed many

of

the implementing

tasks out lined above by June 2015 the end

of

this fiscal year.

municipal organization-past, present, future douglas j. schmitz city administrator

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