2023-08-04 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission August 4, 2023 MS. GREENBAUM: Commissioner Judy Greenbaum. Commissioner Namahoe, thank you so much for that clarification, `cause that does make a huge difference because not only are the employees burdened with the additional out-of-pocket health insurance premium taxes are also increasing. So, those things should be factored in. So, thank you, again, Commissioner Namahoe, that's good to know. ACTING CHR FARAHL I'd like to go back to the conversation we had last week. I think to efficiently do this job and have specific recommendations that are well -thought out that contains the information we heardI think we need to come up with the recommendations and come up with a mechanism of how to make those recommendations. And then give the public an opportunity to comment on that before we make a final recommendation or final decision depends on how we look at it. That, essentially, as I said before three specific things that we're dealing with. One, is the salary associated with the position. We're not talking about the salary associated with the individual, but the salary associated with the position of a public works director, a police chief, and so on. That salary is already in the human resources base and the human resources have the description of the job associated with that position. If they don't have it, then it would be sad thing to realize that. So, you look at those two things the initial one—and the position description—and we need to find out the criteria of how we judge the worth of the position. How many employees that that position supervises, how much is the operating legend of that, and so on and so forth. What qualifications are needed and all of those things could be listed. I could tell you off the top of my head 7 or 8 essential ones, and human resources could figure that out. That is Item number one that we need to make a determination of what a particular position is worth based upon the description of the job, the budget associated with the work, the number of employees being supervised. This is the "x" for, let's say, public works. The second part of it is that we need to make a recommendation or a decision about how to deal with the increments associated with these positions. The bargaining unit employees have an automatically built increment into their positions. And if you don't do this for your managerial or non -unit employees, as we call it in New Jersey, you will find out that very soon most of your managers will make less money than the employees that are represented by unions. This is also a fact. I remember for sure, when I worked for—when I did the same thing for the County of Union, there were 14 people in the corrections department that made more money than the county manager or anybody. What the New Jersey law said that when you retire, the average of your last three year's income is going to be used on 55—and the number of years you worked to determine the pension that you get. Page 6