The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee met 03/10/2021.
The biggest item they handled was a discussion and recommendation for the alderpersons salary. Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) made a motion to increase the salary by approximately $4,000 to $10,125. There was also a brief status update regarding City of Appleton recruitments in which it was mentioned that they are looking for a new Health Director; it was also stated that they did not get as many quality applicants as they expected for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion coordinator position and so have extended the application period.
Alderperson Joe Martin arrived slightly late so did not vote on the first action item they took up which was the request to reclassify a Valley Transit Road Supervisor to an Operations Supervisor
Per Valley Transit General Manage, Ron McDonald, he didn’t have anything to add to the memo he submitted. Making this change would take the handcuff off them and allow them to assign duties based on the employee’s abilities rather than their job classification. The Road Supervisor and Operation Supervisor are essentially doing the same job and it’s difficult to try to keep the Road Supervisor from not doing the work of an Operations Supervisor.
They voted 4-0 to approve.
The next action item they took up was
Request to award Heartland Business Solutions the contract to purchase and implement a new Palo Alto Firewall high availability system. The amount requested is $86,743 with a 10% contingency for a project total of $95,417
Per Information Technology Director Dean Fox, this is a standard lifecycle replacement. Their firewalls are 7-8 years old and can’t be upgraded anymore. Their 2021 budget includes funds for a standard replacement. They put out a request for proposal but only got 2 bids. The third company chose not to respond. The bids were both in line with what they expected. The cost will cover support for 3 years at which point they will have to look for more funding.
The item was approved 5-0
They next moved on to the discussion of the Alderperson Salaries.
Human Resources Director Sandy Matz said that Alderperson Joe Martin had asked for some information regarding past redistrictings. As far as she could piece together, somewhere around 1996 the Appleton Common Council went from 20 council members to 18. Then between 2001-2006 they went from 18 to 16. Then in 2012 they went down to their current 15.
Alderperson Martin said that he thought it was important that they take into account the fact that Appleton has continued to have the number of their council members reduced which causes more of an overload. If an alderperson is really involved with their constituents, as many of them are, they will spend a lot of time on the phone and in email. He thought it was important to understand the workload. As much as they think serving on the council is done for the betterment of the and as much as they don’t think, and it’s all for the betterment of the community, he thinks they have to have a dialogue and really look at the amount of the workload and how much time alderpersons put into it.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) wanted to clarify the item. The action item said “Discuss Alderperson Salaries”. She wanted to know if the committee needed to put out a proposal in order for the full Council to act on it. If the committee decided they didn’t want to do anything, would they, as 5 people, be deciding for the other 10 Common Council members that they can’t do anything? She wanted to know was the committee’s options were.
Director Matz said that they typically put this item on as “discuss alderperson salary” so there is an awareness to the public that this is what will happen at the committee meeting. Generally the committee will then make a recommendation. Their recommendation may be to give a 0% increase or a percentage increase or a flat amount not based on a percentage. It’s up to them.
Alderperson Martin had a question of a Point of Order. He wanted to know if they would be able to go back and give raises as of 2020.
The attorney said that would not be possible. Salaries have to be set before the earliest point at which papers can be taken out for the position. That has passed for the upcoming 2021 election and we’re way beyond that for 2020 officials. The first people that could be affected are those with terms starting in April 2022, but if the committee did that they would be splitting the Common Council in half and only those who got elected in April 2022 would have the raise so there would be two different salaries.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) wanted to know if the deadline for making a decision was December 1 of this year, why did they need to make a decision now..
Director Matz said that they didn’t need to make it now, but they missed having this discussion last fall and Director Matz is departing her position, so before she left she wanted to make sure she got this discussion before them. She confirmed that they do have until December of this year, and there’s no reason that they have to do it now. She just wanted to make sure the discussion didn’t get missed again.
Alderperson Maiyoua Thao (District 5) made a motion for a 0% increase for April 2023 because she didn’t want half of the Council members to not get raises.
Director Matz clarified that if she was making a recommendation for an increase in 2023, that it would apply to all of the Council. The only problem was if the increase would be for April 2022 in which case it would only apply to half. The other half wouldn’t get the raise unless they were reelected in 2023.
The motion failed for lack of a second, and Alderperson Thao also stated she wanted to drop her motion.
Alderperson Martin made a motion “that the 2022 salary increase equals the percentage of the dollar amount of the money that is paid in Green Bay Wisconsin to the council” He said he believed Green Bay Common Council members were paid $7,000-something.
Director Matz said that the 2019 data that she has shows that the Green Bay alderperson salary is $9,887. She wanted to know if that was what his motion was.
Alderperson Martin confirmed that was his motion then went on to say “and again, my motion is to start at a point that, to some degree, equality, and what I mean by that is they have 100 and some thousand with a member of, I believe, 13 or more. Um. My point is the city of Appleton council members interacting and involved; they are acting and involved, and there’s lots going on, and so as much as you will hear and debate, um, that, you know, we’re doing it out of the better kindness of our hearts, and I love everyone. I love you. However, it is time and time is money in everyone’s eyes. Thank you.” [Note: Green Bay has 12 alderpersons]
Alderperson Van Zeeland seconded his motion.
She stated that she agreed with alderperson Martin. She thought they had an extensive discussion about this last year but decided to hold off in order to raise the salary for the city attorney. She thought that they wanted to make sure that government was accessible to their citizens, and she didn’t know of many working people or parents who could afford to be on the Common Council. She thought that was a problem and she was going to support alderperson Martin’s proposal.
Alderperson Thao asked to confirm that with this proposal of a 2022 increase equal to the percentage amount of $9,887 the increase would start April 2022.
Director Matz said that it would only be effective for half of the Council.
The attorney pointed out that it had to be approved by the Common Council first.
Director Matz said that if the motion was approved by the Common Council then the alderpersons in even numbered districts would get the increase in 2022 but the alderpersons in odd numbered districts would not get an increase until 2023 if they were reelected.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said she misunderstood that the motion would only apply to half of the Council so she was going to withdraw her second.
Alderperson Martin asked the attorney if there was any way that they would be able to effectively make all Council members who are elected and on Council in April 2022 receive a pay increase. Was there a way to do that within our constraints?
The attorney said that he was happy to answer the question but he also wanted to clarify that now that Alderperson Van Zeeland had withdrawn her second the motion had failed for lack of a second.
No one else seconded it and they confirmed it failed. Alderperson Thao then asked the attorney to answer the question.
The attorney stated that there is no way to change the salaries of people that are on the ballot right now. There is no way to increase salaries in a way that would include all of the odd numbered districts. The only way to allow everyone to have the same increase would be to vote for the increase to begin April 2023. That vote would have to be done prior to December 1, 2021 because that’s when papers can be taken out for the next election.
Alderperson Thao if the attorney and Director Matz could both help the committee figure out how to do this.
Director Matz said that if they wanted to do what Alderperson Martin suggested, they simply needed to change the effective date to April 2023 which would mean that salaries would stay the same as they are in 2022 and then in April 2023 they would be adjusted to $9,887. If that’s the desire, then they just need to change the date.
Alderperson Thao wanted to confirm that if they did that, the whole Council would get the $9,887 pay raise starting April 2023.
Alderperson Fenton confirmed they were still in the discussion phase because Alderperson Martin’s motion failed and asked if she could ask a general question.
She was told she could.
Aldereperson Fenton wanted to clarify what Alderperson Martin was proposing. Green Bay has approximately 100,000 people. Appleton has 75,000 people. Was he proposing that the salary be 75% of the Green Bay salary, or was he saying to take their salary 12 alderpersons and allocate that among Appleton’s 15.
Alderperson Martin said he wanted to make a new motion. Effective 2023 the Appleton Common Council members will be paid $10,125.
The attorney asked to clarify that he intended for this to be for the members sitting on the Council in April of 2023.
Alderperson Martin confirmed that.
Alderperson Thao asked if anyone seconded it. When no one did, she seconded it herself.
Alderperson Van Zeeland asked Alderperson Martin for his reasoning behind that number.
Alderperson Martin answered, “Thank you. I’m glad that was asked of me. The reason for the jump is when I look at the city of Appleton, I look at it as not an island but everything we do on around our borders effect the Fox Cities. We are a major component–I shouldn’t say ‘component’. We are a major…center for the Fox Cities. And so we do a lot of things that are not as the same as some communities. And I’ll take for instance our biking and pedestrian plan, and Alderperson Fenton knows this herself. She’s a biker. Many of you are walkers. This is so important to have the vision and the direction move forward, and I think having this kind of a salary, even though people will look at it and go ‘Oh, wow’–I think I have to ask all of you, and I will ask the Council. Do a sound inventory of your time, and every time you work on the city of Appleton chart it and you will realize how much you are involved. Thank you. Does that answer your question?”
They voted and the motion passed 3 to 0 with Alderperson’s Martin, Van Zeeland, Thao voting in favor and Alderpersons Fenton and Firkus voting against.
[The item barely made it out of committee and not even everyone who voted to move it out of committee necessarily plans to vote for it in the Common Council meeting. We’ll see how it fares in front of the full Council. Alderperson Van Zeeland plans to post on her facebook page this coming Monday about this issue.
I have to think that multiple alderpersons recognize a pay increase of nearly $4,000 as being highly controversial–particularly given that the pandemic is not over yet and we have no idea what the long term economic repercussions are going to be.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that on a per capita basis, Appleton alderpersons make slightly more than Green Bay alderpersons. Green Bay has 12 alderpersons to represent 104,777 people; that means each alderperson represents approximately 8,731 people. A current salary of $9,887.00 per alderperson works out $1.13 per person represented. Appleton has 15 alderpersons representing a total of 74,139; that means each alderperson represents approximately 4,943 people. A current salary of $6,221.00 per alderperson works out to $1.26 per person represented.
There are certainly some reasonable arguments in favor of increasing the alderperson salary; although there are also reasonable arguments in favor of keeping it low. I do think that, if the city of Appleton wanted to go ahead and increase the alderperson salary by so much, so quickly, to something that would be fairly out of line with what surrounding communities pay their Common Council members, perhaps that shouldn’t happen through a Common Council vote. Given that the Common Council has recently started demonstrating a willingness to have the residents of Appleton weigh in on important items via referendum, one wonders why the issue of an alderperson’s salary could not be put on the ballot as a referendum so that the taxpayers who will be paying that money can weigh in.
At a minimum, it seems like a decision that should be put off until the April 6 election has happened and the new Common Council members are sworn in.]
After voting on the action items, the committee moved onto the information item which was the Recruitment Status Report from 3/4/21.
Director Matz said that recruitment is pretty full right now. They can’t fit all the vacancies onto one page.
They extended the hiring process for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion position. They didn’t draw as good of a pool as they thought they would, so they have extended the deadline and are accepting applications for that position again.
They’ve also started a search for the Health Officer, and that position will be showing up on future reports as well.
Alderperson Van Zeeland asked if an alderperson would be chosen to help pick the new Diversity Coordinator or the new Health Director.
Director Matz said that was a question for Mayor Woodford. The DEI position reports to Mayor Woodford and the mayor is in charge of appointing the Health Officer also, so it is up to him whether he wants input from the Council or the community.
Alderperson Thao wanted to know when Director Matz’s last day was.
Director Matz said it was April 2nd and asked that they be kind to her fill-in at the next Common Council meeting. She’ll be on vacation, and won’t be there if the discussion surrounding the alderperson salaries takes a different turn on Wednesday night.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=832172&GUID=CA6BA1B3-3E2B-4335-997E-EE995C00B060&Options=info|&Search=
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