2023-12-21 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board December 21, 2023 CHR. CABANAS: Not that I know of unless—did they ever develop one? No—Glynis is shaking her head. There is no employee handbook, but there is a New Hire Orientation—of course, that's for new hires. But I'm thinking that maybe the department—and we can recommend to Sommer that this be incorporated—and not only for HR but for all line departments because all departments have an internal complaint process. MR. KUNZ: And I think, on one hand, one might consider that this opens up a can of worms that people go, "Oh, my gosh, oh, I didn't know this" but, really, I think what's prudent is that they have access to what their rights are and what the procedures are not anybody worrying about, "Well, we going see a lot of appeals come now" CHR. CABANAS: Yeah. MR. KUNZ: Because, if it happens, then it probably was meant to happen. But if the individual the employee doesn't have this in their toolbox, I can see why it can get a little daunting and confusing not understanding the steps and who we are and what being in front of us themselves. CHR. CABANAS: Because if the person—if you look at the second column, the last block, employees who are adversely affected or suffered a legal wrong, and excluded from collective bargaining, and holds a civil service position. A person from the public can come before MAB. In other words, an applicant whose application is not accepted, doesn't meet minimum qualification requirements we've had that. Or an applicant who is not selected for a position, can file an appeal. So, there are matters that MAB has jurisdiction over—recruitment and examination, classification and pricing, and there are other matters, like, suspension, demotion, discharge, dismissal. If you noticed under the footnote, "Matters covered by a collective bargaining grievance procedure may not be appealed to the Merit Appeals Board"—and that's because they're going to go through the grievance route. And if it's not resolved through the grievance route, it could possibly end up going to arbitration. MR. KUNZ: So, is an exempt employee has rights to file? CHR. CABANAS: So, an exempt employee has rights. Yes. And a member of the public has rights. So, that's where the differentiation occurs, and that's where employees and members of the publicI agree with you, it should be transparent—what their rights are. The purpose of the internal complaint process is for the issue at -hand to, hopefully, be resolved so that it doesn't come to MAB or if it's through the collective bargaining process, it doesn't end up going to Page 7