The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee met 04/23/2025. In addition to receiving an update on the city’s conversion from its old enterprise resource planning system to Tyler Munis, they reviewed four additional information items including the Police Department staffing study, Valley Transit staffing levels, Fire Department negotiations, and the most recent recruitment status report.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
APD STAFFING STUDY UPDATE – This $69,000 study being conducted by Matrix Consulting was approved in October of 2024 and is intended to evaluate staffing levels at the police department and how they are using their resources.
Director of Human Resources Jay Ratchman told the committee that the study had five stages total and they were currently finishing up stage four which was to conduct a comparative evaluation of the Appleton Police Department to identify gaps in service goals versus performance.
The fifth state will be the final report which Director Ratchman anticipated would be available in about a month. Matrix will also be giving a presentation on the report to the Common Council.
VALLEY TRANSIT STAFFING UPDATE – Valley Transit has experienced difficulty over the last few years in recruiting bus drivers. In response, Valley Transit has made a lot of changes, most noticeably changing the schedule to reduce the number of drivers needed from 36 down to 24. The extra hours are now serviced by the Valley Transit Connector demand response system.
Valley Transit has offered signing bonuses and referral bonuses, neither of which were particularly successful. They continue to maintain a pool of part time drivers who can fill in when there are gaps in the schedule.
Their goal is to have 24 full time, trained, fully available drivers. That is a bit of a moving target because currently they have some new employees who are in training and they also have some drivers who will possibly be retiring. As of the date of the meeting, they did have 24 full time driers, but several of them were still in training which caused scheduling issues. They also had 5 part time drivers. The changes had resulted in overtime being reduced.
Additionally, there is a mechanic position open but they have put filling that position on hold and have been meeting with the union about trying to restructure some things pertaining to that position.
FIRE NEGOTIATIONS – The current contract runs through 12/01/2025. Negotiations started 05/06/2025.
RECRUITMENT STATUS REPORT THROUGH 04/17/2025 – There were no items in the report highlighted other than the bus drivers which had been covered already by the Valley Transit staffing report.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1297287&GUID=4EB5A11D-A05D-459C-BFDA-6BC3D2FA0FAC
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