2025-10-30 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board October 30, 2025 Oh, I’ll read it again. “At the same time,”—add “changing”—“economic conditions and priorities further affect workforce stability and labor availability. The result is a challenging environment for recruiting and retaining qualified public servants.” MR. THOMAS: So, the word “frequently,” is also— CHR. CABANAS: I deleted—delete “political”—delete “shift frequently”—and instead of “affecting”—change it to “affect”. Everything else is good. It’s just that we don’t want individuals to poke at the wording, especially how things sometimes develop. MS. TOKIHIRO: Understood. CHR. CABANAS: Yeah—or interpret. Okay. The next paragraph, “HR”—okay, so this is the second in the—the second thing I was focused on, “HR has changed its recruitment efforts to a more active strategy.” Okay. “This results in overtime for staff,”—and then we have the figures of the overtime on the next page. Please forgive me for asking, but under previous directors depart—under previous—and Dee Ann can attest to that—under previous directors, staff were told to go flex time or change their hours. So, if they had to work overtime—let’s say till 8 at night because the department didn’t have enough overtime money—change your hours. So if you were going to work till 8 at night, come in later. Has the department looked at that as an option? MS. TOKIHIRO: Yes. So, that’s always what we try and look to first, and I’ll just say that the bulk of the overtime in the Department of Human Resources is going to our Admin. Services Division. It is not going to the Recruitment Division. So, they do things after hours and on weekends and attending career fairs but it’s—their overtime is minimal as opposed to what the department’s overtime expenses. CHR. CABANAS: Okay, because this paragraph says “its changed its recruitment efforts”—and “This results in overtime for staff”—so, the manager would budget overtime for staff, especially if there’s written exams, right, late at night or—does that still occur? MS. TOKIHIRO: It does not. So, we’re able to schedule written exams because we’re only administering written exams for police and fire promotionals, so that happens during the workday. CHR. CABANAS: Okay, so is that—because it looks like the overtime is for Recruitment with the verbiage in Number 6, the first paragraph of Number 6—when, actually, you’re saying that it’s for testing of the new system? MS. TOKIHIRO: Well, the overtime is for the department as a whole. Page 23