2009-12-17 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

Home

with their counterparts in all the other jurisdictions and negotiate like they have done before where the HR directors represent the various executive officers. They are now working on setting meetings with the one remaining union, the United Public Workers. 2) The department wasn't asked to cut a specific percentage from its budget, but they were asked to cut as much as they could. Therefore, in that process, the department trimmed its proposed budget for the next fiscal year by 10 %, which amounted to approximately $200,000. The 10% cut was from the department's total budget as opposed to this current budget where they were asked to cut 10% of their operating costs. The cut is a significant amount and leaves the department with a "bare- bones" budget given the fact that about 76% of the total budget is for salaries and wages. The biggest item that was reduced came from money allotted to the equal opportunity officer to make modifications. That budget was originally $100,000, but the court order was a minimum of $50,000, so they went with what the court ordered and reduced it by $50,000. The other big money item was the advertising budget of $90,000, which they reduced. They will continue to fill key, essential positions such as Fire and Police, but as they are on a restricted hiring order from the administration, they don't expect to be filling that many positions. The travel account was cut by $15,000 or $20,000, although that may be difficult with collective bargaining proposals coming up. The other cuts were small amounts taken from different accounts. The 10% cut did not include the workers' comp budget. 3) The personnel evaluation committee has completed all interviews with departments and are finalizing their recommendations to the Mayor. 4) The Board had noted, at the last meeting, the increase in accidents from Fire and Police in 2005 and 2006 on the report from Ms. Kamaka, and the Board inquired into that. Ms. Kamaka found that there were no external factors on why the numbers increased. Basically, she found that those accidents were pure carelessness on the part of the drivers. More importantly, as her report states, Fire and Police now have effective programs in place, and that's why in 2008 and 2009 there was a tremendous drop in the number of accidents. Police are now taking sterner action against police officers who are careless and 6