2025-03-13 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board March 13, 2025 So, this next phase involving the testing, is going to be really important as we make sure that the system is working for us and is able to do all the things that we're anticipating that it will do. So, a lot of time and effort is spent in that across a variety of divisions in our office. It touches on almost everybody, so I've identified the whole staff of HR to be part of what is considered —it's called a "Readiness Coordinators Group" this is the group that's going to be —it's, basically, like, "train the trainer" where the software company works with us to help get the entire County ready for the changes that are coming. So, we'll include Human Resources, personnel from each department, as well as payroll staff from each department —so that they can then train their staff. But I thought it was important that all of the staff in HR be familiar with all of these aspects of the software so that we can be resources to our departments, in all of our divisions, if they have questions. CHR. CABANAS: Yeah, go ahead. MS. MATHEWS: So, I've been through a couple of conversions and they're not fun. Have you allocated, in terms of time, and how's that going to affect everything else that you're doing? `Cause it's a time sucker. MS. TOKIHIRO: Yeah. So, it has been. We've had to do it with our existing resources. So, what a lot of —there's additional overtime that has gone into it because it'sin building this system, it really relies upon the historical knowledge that comes from our staff, who has been working with the current system. And, of course, you're able to extract the data that exist in the current system, but understanding the translation of what does this mean in this context and how is it related to this context over here. How does a position relate to an employee and relate to payroll? And what is position -specific, what should be employee -specific? So, it's —for our staff, it's meant increased overtime, kind of being creative, as far as redistributing tasks but it has been a very big lift for us to work on this and then continue to meet our day-to-day needs as well. MS. MATHEWS: My sympathies. MS. TOKIHIRO: Thank you. I will share that with my staff —they'll appreciate it. But I'm happy to answer questions. The other thing that is keeping me busy, I've had to miss a couple of meetings —ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. So, current contracts for all bargaining units expire June 30, 2025. So, we're working to negotiate new contracts beginning July 1, 2025. CHR. CABANAS: Any questions for Sommer? MS. BOND: Are the whole thing with the fed. employees that are being let go and the State and counties trying to pick up the slack on that —or is that happening with our County as well? Page 18