FOR THE COUNCIL MEETING OF MARCH 19, 2024
COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
TO: City Council
FROM: Interim City Manager Alex Posada
BY: Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Dawn Jackson
SUBJECT: Adoption of Resolutions to Approve Seven Positions , Personnel and Operational Changes
Description:
The City Council will consider the adoption of a Resolution approving an increase to the allocation for five Full-time Equivalent Confidential Technician I/II and two Full-Time Equivalent Business Program Leader Positions.
RECOMMENDATION:
Adopt a Resolution approving an increase to the allocation for five Full-time Equivalent Confidential Technician I/II positions and two Full-time Equivalent Business Program Leader positions.
BACKGROUND:
Funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was allocated from January 2022 through May 2023 for the addition of five 1.0 Full-Time Equivalent ( FTE) fixed-term Confidential Technician I/II positions and two 1.0 FTE fixed -term Business Pro gram Leader positions for the City Manager’s Office Administrative and Human Resources Divisions, and Finance Department. The City Manager’s Office Administrative and Human Resources Divisions, and Finance Department are seeking to maintain service deliver y within these central services functions with the allocation of five 1.0 FTE Confidential Technician I/II and two 1.0 FTE Business Program Leader positions in the General Fund.
DISCUSSION:
Business Program Leader serving as the Leaves Manager and Confidential Technician supporting the Leaves Manager : The Leaves Manager is instrumental in addressing complex and time -sensitive employee leave, interactive processes, and modified duty agreements to ensure compliance with Federal, State , and local statutes, laws, and regulations. In the past year , there have been 106 leave of absence notifications and continued communication, 16 interactive process engagements, and 36 modified duty engagements. The appointment of the Leaves Manager and the support of the Confidential Technician are instrumental in supporting the timely processing and recurring matters within each department related to leave of absence. The Leaves Manager and Confidential Technician have facilitated support for 800 employees, which includes full- 2 time, part-time, and limited service. The Leaves Manager has protected the assets of the City from incurring penalties that could occur if the City failed to engage in good faith .
These penalties range from $75,000 to $110,000 for each offense. This essential staffing also helps avoid violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Employment and Housing Act, and the California Family Rights Act laws.
Business Program Leader and Confidential Technician for Employment Services: The responsibilities of the Business Program Leader and Confidential Technician are instrumental in addressing complex and time -sensitive Citywide employment services.
The Business Program Leader and Confidential Technician are essential in providing a high level of customer service to all City Departments, as well as over 800 City Employees. The Business Program Leader and Confidential Technician have processed and engaged in 202 New Hire Orientations, enrolled 549 employees into benefits, processed 982 personnel transaction forms, updated 152 open enrollment benefits changes, processed 248 recruitment requisitions, provided, and scheduled 81 exams for employee bilingual designation, and reviewed 6,436 applications for requisitions . The Business Program Leader and Confidential Technician are essential to provide a centralized recruitment and selection process, which follows the City Municipal Code as well as applicable Federal, State, and local statutes, laws, and regulations , the defining of classification systems, and streamlining processes for benefits, and new hire employee orientations.
Confidential Technician for City Manager’s Office: The City of Santa Maria experienced over a six percent increase in FTE personnel from Fiscal Year 2022 to Fiscal Year 2023 and an increase of approximately eight percent from Fiscal Year 2023 to Fiscal Year 2024. With this influx of new personnel, there is an impact on Information Technology (IT) to support more people, systems, and greater needs from City staff. Though not originally hired to do so, the current ARPA -funded Confidential Technician I in the City Manager’s Office has spent the majority of their time assisting IT. It has become evident th at IT will not only continue to need this assistance to provide day-to-day services but to be able to use their current staff effectively and efficiently to support all City -wide staff members.
Therefore, we hereby request the movement of the Confidential Technician I from Administration to Information Technology. The position currently assists in researching assets for asset management, but will expand the position to include life cycle procurement including obtaining quotes, ordering, receiving, invoice t racking, and payment; asset management including asset tagging, tracking, decommissioning, and e- waste disposal; maintenance/support contract tracking and monitoring; travel arrangement; credit card processing; calendar and meeting coordination and first l evel Helpdesk call taker (take the call and assign to the appropriate IT staff). This position will not only currently alleviate some clerical level workload that has been placed on the IT Analysts, but also some workload that has been carried by City Mana ger Administration staff, allowing better response time by both offices involved.
With the shift of and creation of permanency for this position, the City Manager’s Office will be able to relieve administrative staff of the daily accounting work by shifting this work 3 to the divisions within the department. This provides a more integrated process, allowing each division to manage their expenditures and budget more efficiently and effectively while still providing City Manager’s Office with oversight of the department’s budget.
Confidential Technicians for the Finance Department are essential to timely and accurately process payroll for the City’s growing workforce. The Payroll division consists of one Payroll Manager and three Confidential Technicians. Two confidential technicians were added to the division when ARPA fund first became available. Maintaining the organizational structure will be essential. As a result of this organ izational change, the payroll division has achieved a decrease in payroll processing time by 20%. Processing payroll faster relieves pressure on operating departments to submit timecards to payroll.
The staffing model also allows payroll to perform the following essential workflows:
biweekly and monthly reconciliations of all payroll benefits and GL account s; ability to handle changes to the MOU such as retro calculations for 313 SEIU employees, that add a layer of complexity on top of standard work load; provide constant support and training to departments due to their turnaround in appointed staff for timecards processing; complete CalPERS reports faster; ability to reach out to departments to obtain clarification before payroll is processed, such a s leave balance shortages, shift differential qualification, clarification of separation dates, leave without pay, and workers comp.
The City’s payroll process is limited in functionality to current technology that does not perform all calculations within the system itself. Manual entry of timecards at the department level requires a thorough review of all timecards to catch reporting errors.
Additionally, each of the positions in Finance and Human Resources is an essential piece of the success of the Enterprise Resource Planning project. These positions will provide crucial subject matter expertise for setting up and implementing the system and backfill for the project, as well as to focus on the work of the Council priority of creating a Citywide staffing plan.
All positions, including the City Manager’s Administrative position, will be essential to meeting broad Council and City goals of maintaining talent to deliver both internal and external services to support our growing City staff.
Alternative(s)
A decision by the City Council not to approve continued funding for the positions in the City Manager’s Human Resources Division and Finance Department will result in a negative impact on the current customer service for City employees, reduce the ability to keep in compliance with Federal and State legislation and local statutes, laws, and regulations, as well as necessitate additional funding toward staffing to complete the Enterprise Resource Planning project.
A decision by the City Council to not approve the allocation of the Confidential Technician within the City Manager’s Office, along with the move from City Manager Administrati on 4 to IT could result in employees experiencing a continual lag time when IT is called to assist with technology issues. Without this position, IT staff will continue to handle everyday clerical tasks, tying up the time that would be used to handle technology issues.
Fiscal Considerations
There is no fiscal impact to this addition through the remainder of FY 2023-24 as funding has already been allocated. In accordance with the latest Federal guidelines, ARPA funds are no longer eligible for staff expenditures as of May 2023. ARPA funds will be shifted to eligible projects, while the staffing expenditures will be funded by the General Fund.
No budget adjustment is necessary in the current fiscal year as sufficient funds have been allocated at the fund level. The annualized fiscal impact beginning in F iscal Year 2024- 25 is estimated at $879,100, consisting of $202,800 for each 1.0 FTE Business Program Leader and $94,700 for each 1.0 FTE Confidential Technician I/II
Impact to the Community
Overall, with the approval of these positions, City services will continue to be provided by City employees with no decrease in the level of service to the public. Instead, it is expected that there will be a positive impact and increase to current service levels to the public achieved by attraction an d retention of talent management, successful implementation of the ERP project increased employee job satisfaction , and increased performance to serve the community.