The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee met 05/14/2025. They took up two department reorganization requests. One was from the Department of Public Works related to the Parking Utility. They wanted to replace one of the two current Parking Enforcement Person roles with a new position titled Parking Enforcement Lead.
The second request was from the Finance Department which wanted to redistribute the tasks handled by the Customer Service Accounting Supervisor and the Property Tax Specialist, turning the Customer Service Accounting Supervisor into the Customer Service Supervisor and reducing the number of staff members they supervise from four to three, and renaming the Property Tax Specialist the Staff Accountant/Property Tax Specialist, having them take on more critically timed accounting functions.
Both requests were recommended for approval unanimously by the committee.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
PARKING ENFORCEMENT LEAD – The city currently has two parking enforcement staff members. City staff would like to create a new position titled Parking Enforcement Lead which would replace one of the two current Parking Enforcement Person roles. The new lead position would be a Grade 5, as compared to the Grade 3 of the currently enforcement position, and the cost of the increase this year would be paid through budgeted and vacant salary funds in the current budget.
Department of Public Works Deputy Director Pete Neuberger said that since the parking enforcement positions had been created, the city had improved the Parking Utility technology. “We’ve got electronic ticketing software, mobile phone parking applications, significant written communications and productivity software, online tools such as the city website and social media. I think all of these things were not really part of the vision for what it takes to be a successful enforcement arm of the parking utility when the current table of organization was developed.” The new lead position allow the city to better leverage this new technology.
Additionally, the new position would be able to provide better support to the Parking Utility Manager and would be able to help with decision making, marketing, a operational leadership and oversight.
Finally, the new position would improve enforcement, particularly during times of peak demand and when staff members are gone on excused absences.
The change did involve an increase in pay grade. The current enforcement role was a pay grade 3 with a maximum pay of $24.82 an hour. The new lead position would be a pay grade 5 with a maximum pay of $30.03 an hour. This year, that increase in pay would be covered by vacant budgeted salary dollars, and city staff did not anticipate issues covering salary in future years. Revenues in the Parking Utility have gone up because of the development that has been occurring downtown, particularly the increase in housing in the downtown area. Additionally, per Deputy Director Neuberger, “The enforcement arm of the parking utility can be quite effective at paying for itself.” However, he stressed that the primary goal of enforcement was to achieve compliance with parking regulations not to gain revenue.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked why they were going ahead with creating this role now instead of waiting to see what the recommendations were from the parking utility strategic planning and marketing study that was approved in April. Deputy Director Neuberger responded, “As we on board a new parking utility manager that has a tool set available with some training and experience more geared toward strategic thinking, marketing, the financial side of things, we really felt like now is the right time to give to give our new parking utility manager those tools needed to be able to hit the ground running and be successful and immediately begin implementing positive changes in terms of our operations. So, I don’t consider this as a one-way street. I think we’re very much open to the recommendations that are going to come out of the Walker strategic planning study, and we’re going to make sure that Walker gets a fair shake at doing a an analysis of our needs, and we will respond accordingly.”
FINANCE DEPARTMENT REORGANIZATION – The Finance Department wants to redistribute the tasks handled by the Customer Service Accounting Supervisor and the Property Tax Specialist, turning the Customer Service Accounting Supervisor into the Customer Service Supervisor and reducing the number of staff members they supervise from four to three, and renaming the Property Tax Specialist the Staff Accountant/Property Tax Specialist, having them take on more critically timed accounting functions.
Finance Department Director Jeri Ohman explained that they have had significant staffing turnovers in the Account Clerk positions which has required the Customer Service Accounting Supervisor to spend a lot more time on the first floor working on daily schedules, dealing with vacancies, and training employees. ‘So, what we’re trying to do is really revamp the responsibilities of that supervisor to make the other items that they need to complete more of a flexible nature. They still have other work to do, but if it’s more flexible versus rigid and needs to be done day to day, it’ll help that that position out. So, this is really just taking items between two positions and flipping them around to put the flexibility where we need it.”
The changes would result in one position decreasing from pay grade 9 to pay grade 8 and the other position increasing from pay grade 6 to pay grade 7. Human Resources Director Jay Ratchman said that in a worst case scenario where the city was paying the top wage for each employee, this change would actually result in a decrease in budget because the decrease from grade 9 to 8 resulted in a decrease of $5.25 an hour and the increase from 6 to 7 resulted in an increase of only $3.31 per hour.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) asked if there was anything specifically causing the increased turnover in the Account Clerk positions. Director Ohman answered that it was a combination of factors. The position was on the lower end of the pay scale so some staff members will start there and then grow into other positions. Additionally, there is turnover of individuals who did not understand exactly what the position entailed when they took the job and find out it’s not the right fit for them.
Alderperson Wolff said the reason he was asking “was to see if, potentially, there were mental health issues going on, and maybe like expanding and making sure that we’re talking to people more and making sure that they’re all right was part of the issue. I guess I don’t really know if that’s part of what we do on this committee, but I do think that it’s important, especially in the month of May, to make sure that people who are dealing with our people, our citizens, are being looked after the same way say our police department does, because we spend a lot of time making sure they’re okay, and they deal with unruly people. So, like, people giving their money to us might be upset sometimes, and we—you know, that’s more or less where I was looking at.”
Alderperson Hartzheim, the chairperson of the committee, suggested he could talk directly with Director Ratchman about that outside of the meeting
The committee voted unanimously to recommend each of the items for approval.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1305660&GUID=76A79DB9-25DC-4098-BB53-69B4149A326D
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