2026-03-20 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board March 20, 2026 CHR. CABANAS: Mm-hmm. MR. THOMAS: I do have a couple of questions. CHR. CABANAS: Yeah, go ahead—mm-hmm. MR. THOMAS: And these reflect the fact that it might be a good idea for some of us, at least, to have some more training on what these different activities are, ‘cause it—they get referred to on the way by and I read right over them. For instance, what is a “position audit?” What is done in that? MS. TOKIHIRO: So, that’s where our Classification and Pay staff will review the duties that a person is completing in a particular position. So, it could be a desk audit which would be they’re just reviewing documentation provided by the department, as far as what the incumbent is doing job-wise. And they’re looking to see if the duties that are being performed are consistent with the class of work that the person is—that that position is assigned to. And what we’re evaluating is to ensure that they’re properly classified and they’re doing work within their class. If it’s outside of their class of work, we may need to reallocate the position or have the department reassign duties. There is a position audit happening today where they’re actually meeting with the incumbent and talking to them—sometimes they’ll—if they have questions that they’re not getting just from the written information provided by the department. And then, we also, at times we’ll go and do audits where we actually observe the incumbent doing their job so that we can fully understand what’s being described. So, just to ensure—in some instances a department will say, “Oh, we’ve been assigning this type of work to this position”—and if it’s not accurately reflecting the class of work that the person is performing, then that position would need to be reallocated so that the person can be properly compensated for the work that they’re doing. MR. THOMAS: So, how is it initiated? Does the incumbent say, “Hey, I’m being assigned stuff that isn’t in my classification” or does the department initiate it? MS. TOKIHIRO: So, it could be—it will be initiated from the department to HR, but that discussion could start with the employee raising questions within the department, and then the department would ask us to complete that audit. MR. THOMAS: So, without prejudice in the hearing that’s coming up, is that an example of that sort of thing where there’s a question about what constitutes supervisory experience and is it included within the position description? Page 8