Well, I will give Greg credit on one thing, before he made the above statement, he admitted he would probably be criticized for it. Well, here comes your criticism.
During the informational meeting, Neitzert said that the recent compensation study done by the HR department should not have been released to the public ahead of time (before HR could explain it in an informational). Ironically, they haven’t released the full report (about 200 pages). Which IMO makes the presentation even more confusing, as several councilors pointed out. There wasn’t a breakdown of different departments (except that our Police and especially Fire Department are compensated well above other cities our size) and that Directors and Management (non-union) employees were left out of the study (which also confused some councilors). First off, that is because this study is for collective bargaining with the unions, which is the excuse HR Director Bill Da’Toole used for not releasing the full report to the public yet (if you give it to the public and unions at the same time what is the harm?) Secondly, management and director pay is pretty much determined by the mayor, and some goofy formula the HR department comes up with, which in turn makes it really up to the Mayor. That is how Former Mayor Coors Light & Olives was able to give corporate/executive like raises to his directors including ‘spiking’ the Finance Director’s pay by $16K before his retirement. I agree with councilor Stehly, city managers and directors are well compensated in our city compared to other cities.
But back to ‘controlling’ the salary data. First off, as I have had to remind our prestigious city council and past mayor, we own the government, the citizen taxpayer. We pay the wages of city employees for services they provide to US. It’s not the other way around. Talking about city employees salaries in a general sense when it comes to job description and not by name isn’t some top secret affair, especially after we paid $65K for the report. Besides, city employee’s salaries are listed HERE on the city website BY NAME (DOC: 2018-Wages), these are also not a top secret, because once again, we pay those wages.
The HR department should have just released the FULL report yesterday before the presentation, not only to the council, but to the unions, the public and the media, all at the same time. There really isn’t any excuse to ‘control’ salary data, it’s not like this is a Events Center siding report.
Respectfully I stand by my commentary. My point was and is that this contains information that without context could lead employees to make an assumption that their pay or benefits may be changed. For example, looking at the raw data one could honestly assume that they may be getting a pay raise or even worse for them a pay cut. As an employer, the City is responsible for taking care of its employees. Holding the report back a few days so that it could be presented with proper context so that there isn’t confusion and jumping to conclusions about what might or will happen is just being a good employer. The report in full is going online, the work order is in to IT to put it on the Human Resources page. Should be up today or tomorrow morning. I would submit waiting a few days for a full report to be released so that it can be communicated properly is different than sealing a siding settlement and having to be sued and forced by the supreme court to release it.
I respectfully disagree. I think most Union employees, whether they are public or not would be naïve to think they are getting a raise based on a consultant’s report. They fully understand that their raises or decreases come through collective bargaining and that is why they belong to a Union.
city employees know a study is just that, a study. The published contract is what shows the wages, nothing else.
The study can be used as a negotiations tool but is usually used just to identify which cities that are getting paid more that HR deleted out.
Directors and management (non union) should have had a similar “study†done. Omaha is two and half times larger than SF, population wise. Most SF directors and top management people make more than their counterparts in Omaha. If a study needs to be done, this is where the city needs to start, not with the rank and file.
WP, I’m researching it right now, and I am finding that SF city directors are well compensated compared to other cities in the region. For instance our HR director makes $147K and Omaha’s makes $153K.
One other tidbit about Human Resources. SF has 4 human resource employees who make more than 95k. Omaha? One. The director. It is not just human resources. Pick a department. They are all about the same as HR. Cotter makes considerably more than his Omaha equal.
How much does two Chiefs of Staff cost? Does Omaha have two Chiefs of Staff?….. (….and with a partisan back ground too?)
The other difference is Omaha’s HR director was interviewed and selected because they were the most qualified.
Bill da Toole was told he had the job over the phone, while he was out hunting because Jen Holsen recommended him for the job.
O’Toole’s first act was to hire Jen Holsen’s brother Reid as an HR manager over many other more qualified applicants who had more experience and better qualifications.
O’Toole also brought Reid in at more money than the other female HR managers at the time.
Also unacceptable.
Councilor Neitzert has a tendency to overthink a lot of things.
O’Toole was also one of the Huether directors that would do whatever Mayor Hubris wanted whether it was ethical or not.
He’s another one that needs to go.