2018-03-29 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board March 29, 2018 going to be. And I gave a lot of thought and there was—at no time did the mayor specifically say he wants this guy, or this guy, or that guy. There was never that pressure. But, the mayor told me was, `Bill, you pick somebody who's going to be the yin to your yang." He goes, "Identify your strong suites, identify the areas that you feel are your strengths and then you're going to want to pick somebody who's the opposite of that, so that you can complete the circle. And, as a management team, you're able to be fair and effective as a management team." And so, I did that and I sat down and I listed my strengths and I listed areas of weakness. And when I evaluated potential candidates I kept looking back at Allan's resume and I kept reflecting back to the type of—his job performance as the interim direcdivision head and then under contract. And I felt that Allan was a great fit. The areas I felt that we needed to have be able to apply additional attention to—Allan had that strong background. In my opinion, one of the areas that I reallyI needed—we—that I thought that we really needed individual—more specific oversight was just through the Workers' Comp Division. I'm not sure if you know, but if you look at our budget—Workers' Comp comprises about 50% of our budgetary expenses through claims and everything. And there's also the component— well, omponentwell, I strongly believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And what I thought, and my opinion at the time, through my evaluation of Workers' Comp was that we weren't providing enough prevention. Our safety risk prevention program wasn't as effectiveI'm not even sure how—it wasn't even County -wide. It was, kind of, like, a piecemeal—mismatched, a little bit here, a little bit there. So, I identified that as being a real problematic area, and that's the specific area that Allan comes from. He has a strong risk management background. He worked for Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. He has a strong workers' comp background and he has a strong supervisory background. And those are the areas that I really needed him for. I can't spend every day overseeing the Workers' Comp Division. I just—there's just too much demand as the director. I have 7 divisions, whereas, Allan's first course of business I specifically assigned him to oversee the Workers' Comp Division. So, that takes a lot off me. And then, as we go forward, I'm sure we'll expand responsibilities and, kind of, transition from there and put the right person in the right place. Yes? MS. NAMAHOE: Thank you for bringing this up about your background, Mr. Yokoyama, for risk management and the DLR. When it comes to your time to explain, I really look forward to hearing about what your thoughts are in terms of how to mitigate the risks that we're facing. You might not want to do it today, but I would love to—I'd be very curious to hear it going forward. `Cause that also goes that ducktails into what I do for a living. So, just so that you know, I'm curious. MR. YOKOYAMA: Okay. Page 9