2023-08-30 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board August 30, 2023 Communication No. 23-06, Dated July 25, 2023, From Salary Commission Chair, Steven Pavao, Requesting The Merit Appeals Board's Participation In Providing Information To Determine Whether Future Salary Adjustments (Increase, Decrease, Or Status Quo) Be Incorporated Into The Fiscal Year 2023-2024 For The Director Of Human Resources CHR. CABANAS: Moving along, we are now on Number 5, "Communication." Mr. Patel, I understand that you provided the Board, via our secretary, with information that was provided in an earlier process? It's in the green folder for Board's review. This information was done back in 2019. Can you explain to us, basically, what transpired back then? (At this time, Mr. Danny B. Patel, Acting Director, Human Resources Department, came forward.) MR. PATEL: Sure. This is all new, so I'm making sure I'm using the equipment CHR. CABANAS: It's just the right button the far right button. MR. PATEL: Yeah. So, back then the Salary Commission was considering pay raises for those under their charge, right—department heads—elected and appointed officials. To, kind of, start the process, they needed some baseline information from each of the departments to, kind of, help guide them in where they wanted to head with any proposal for potential salary increases. So, the letter that was sent to you, back in 2019, that was the response from the Department of Human Resources responding to the salary commission at that time. I believe back then the director had prepared the response and sent that to the salary commission after first having, at least, some baseline discussion with the, then sitting, Merit Appeals Board. The sample was provided—fast forward to today the request made by the current salary commission to you all, as a currently sitting MAB, is essentially the same request—asking for the same information, with the addition of one additional piece of item—and that is, the current salary commission is asking the Board if you would like to propose or provide any input on what the salary increase for the director of human resources should be. So, essentially, putting a number on it—if you're comfortable with that. As far as—so the current request is requesting 7 pieces of items. The first 6 are identical. Really, nothing's changed. It's the same information as what the sample letter provided to you all, from 2019 would contain, except for the updated pieces—like, our current budget is significantly higher than it was in 2019—we have more positions. That, I think, could be easily updated. Page 7