2022-04-08 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board April 8, 2022 So, just a very brief background. The issue central to the original audit had to do with the creation of the Staffing Review Committee or SRC. This body, which consisted of the department head, a designee from the mayor's office, and the human resource director created conditions which allowed the SRC to exert undue influence in and throughout the hiring process and this led to credible complaints of unfair hiring practices. Recommendations in the following slides are based on what we found. So, "Recommendation 1" well, the Staffing Review Committee has already been eliminated. We recommend the Office of the Mayor, the Department of Human Resources—ensure that hiring selection rests solely with the appointing authority and prevent preferential treatment of new hire candidates. This may include updating policy and procedures, County Charter and/or the County Code. In December 2019, DHR revised the Rules to refer the top 5 applicants plus high scores—"Rule of five"—for open -competitive recruitments that replaced referring the entire list. Registration recruitment is selected through a random generator. Ten applications are randomly selected using this method. There's duo control in place. This replaced using the skillset evaluation criteria. The appointing authority determine the hiring method—and this eliminated the Staffing Review Committee entirely. To verify the status, we tested the "Request to Fill" process and found no exceptions. We found "Status 1" to be completed. "Recommendation 2," we further recommend that the Office of the Mayor and the Department of Human Resources consider implementing an independent "whistleblower program and system" to allow anonymous complaints to be reported. I'm going to provide a couple of subsequent slides to explain this a little bit. But we consider this "Status" as "Resolved." And so, the Office of the County Auditor is an independent office free from the influences of either the Legislative or Executive Branches of government. In January 2022 OCA implemented a "fraud, waste and whistleblower (abuse) hotlines"claims can be made either in-person, over the phone, through email, or by filling out our online forms. We've had each one of these options—we've had at least one claim made through each one of these mediums. Individuals can be assured that our claims are treated confidentially. OCA staff are trained to research the claims. All staff complete statements of independence to be mindful of potential conflicts of interest. Our staff is also going to be attending an Association of Trade Group association meeting in Dallas in May. And we have meetings scheduled to work with a couple of our counterparts who have mature programs in place to continue our development as well as some educational programs that—some modules that will be offered as part of that to help enhance our understanding and handling of those issues. Page 11