2018-03-29 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board March 29, 2018 But as to the mid-level managers who felt like they were trapped, I think that's who the whistleblower statute or even a low-level employee who felt retaliated. You're right, they do have the grievance process but something like this, as it relates to hiring practices, I'm pretty sure the argument would be made by Corp. Counsel that that's not an issue that specifically comes under the collective bargaining agreement. But for the individual who actually didn't get the promotion, I'm not sure a third party could file a grievance saying, "Oh, I witnessed that this promotion wasn't conducted properly" or I witnessed that such and such—his nephew or niece or something was provided this position. And the first question would be, "Well, how does that directly concern you? How were you specifically harmed" unless it was another applicant, it would be hard for me toI'm sure Corp. Counsel would raise the issue as to whether or not that individual had standing. So, they don't just going forwardso, it's just kind of like it'sso, and I think that's how it, kind of, came about. So, as to Workers' Comp, like I said, we brought in Allan and he's been working closely with Ryan Chong and they've—currently conducting evaluations of all our Workers' Comp contracts. As you know you may not know NAVRISK and PACBLU, they're engaged with the County through a contract and NAVRISK is a third -parry administrator of our Workers' Comp so they specifically handle the workers' comp claims for the Police Department and Parks and Rec. And so, we did that transition. Through that transition there's been areas where requests from the County's have been—from the County has been satisfied. But, unfortunately, almost a similar number of requests or concerns raised by the County have not been addressed to our satisfaction. So, they signed a one-year contract. The County has the option to renew the contract for an additional year. We are currently evaluating the contract to make a determination as to whether or not we want to offer the option for the next year. And, Allan is spearheading that with Ryan and they're currently going there's ongoing negotiations with the vendor as to how we can address the County's concerns. Within a very short period of time there'll be a determination made whether or not we're going to engage the current vendor with the option or we're going to re-bid—issue a new RFP to cover that area. CHR. TULANG: As a general rule, how many work comp cases are you able to settle in a year, or how many even get back to work or reasonable accommodation or MR. YOKOYAMA: It's a difficult number to nail down when we're actually going back to the basics and really looking at processes and written documented procedures, which was unfortunately, it was loose. So, we're tightening that up so that we can refer back to and be more fair and equitable, but also to look at where can we focus our energies. And that's where I think we're losing some direction and a lot of traction. So, we're really going back to the basics. I'd like to (inaudible) and I hope that Bill will agree but do the right thing. It has always worked well. If you do the right thing, everything will fall into place. So, end up going back to the Board Member Namahoe as far as her question—I'll just, kind of, touch base on that. Page 18