2021-11-19 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board November 19, 2021 are you saying, and we're more associated—we're more concerned about the process associated with it than with the individuals. CHR. CABANAS: I understand what you're saying but the situation that a lot of employees encountered was not only the fear element but the trust issue. And it goes back to Ms. Mathews question about how do you sell it because you want the members of the public and County employees to be able to trust this process, otherwise, this is for naught. MR. BENNER: Mm-hmm. CHR. CABANAS: This is going to be something that the public will say, "You know what, this is another thing they're just hanging the carrot in front of our face and it's not meaningful." MR. BENNER: Yeah, I can definitely understand that concern. What we're seeing the best way to address that and maybe this dovetails back into how to sell it—is we're really trying to improve the transparency aspect of it and that's not just a talking point. We want to publish the investigations that we pursue as a public facing document. So an investigation of these matters would generally be a one to two -paged really concise document that summarizes the general issues, the findings, and the recommendations that were made—and that is a public downloadable document that they can retrieve at any time. So, we're doing our best just to bring about that feedback loop to the process, so that they know that it is—it—that the complaint isn't just being logged down a blackhole. CHR. CABANAS: How do you provide feedback to a complainant without getting to their identity? MR. BENNER: So, when they call in and if they want to follow-up on a particular case—at the end of the phone call we'll give them the case number that we assign to it and they can call in and ask about the disposition of that case number. So, we're not asking who's calling us, we're just asking for the information that was given to them at the end of that first round of phone call. CHR. CABANAS: And will the determination be made only with one analyst or is there aI'm trying to choose the right word—is there a mechanism for collaboration? Let's say it's an embezzlement MR. BENNER: Mm-hmm. CHR. CABANAS: someone is stealing money from—in one of the departments. Do you now collaborate with the prosecutor, with the police department, do you have that in -roads already pretty much established when you implement this for one year? Page 20