2014-05-21 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Board of Appeals May 21, 2014 (At this time, Ms. Gabriella Cabanas, Human Resources Manager II, came forward.) Ms. Cabanas stated that she oversees the recruitment and examination division, and they're responsible for all of the open -competitive and internal recruitments. They have a lot of public contact with both applicants and employees, and encourages everyone to apply for County of Hawaii jobs. They attend job fairs throughout the island and do recruitment talks at the University of Hawaii, Hawaii Community College, as well as other community organizations on an as needed basis, such as the Department of Education and Veterans groups. They do County -wide job placements of their medically injured employees who cannot return to their usual and customary jobs in the County. They also advise the County's 21 departments on how to fill their vacancies and provide general guidance, as needed, regarding job placement and related issues. (At this time, Ms. Teri Spinola-Campbell, Equal Opportunity Officer (and Americans with Disability Coordinator), came forward.) Ms. Spinola-Campbell stated that she's not restricted to the Department of Human Resources. Under the ADA, she takes complaints from the public concerning their County's services, programs, and facilities. She develops policies, procedures, and does training for the County's employees as well as train people in the community, answers questions, and disseminates information. Also, concerning Title VI, she sometimes does complaint reviews for non- discrimination, and for recipients of federal assistance she assists departments with language access under Hawaii's language access law and investigates complaints. She's sometimes involved in conflict resolution. (At this time, Ms. Charmaine Kamaka, Human Resources Manager II, came forward.) Ms. Kamaka stated that they're responsible for the County's Employee Health and Safety programs, and works with departments to create a safe and healthy workplace for their employees island -wide. They're an in-house resource in helping the departments comply with occupational safety and health standards. For example, they'll call and ask what a rule is about. They'll look up the standards and give them options on how they could comply with that standard in the simplest way and in the most cost-effective manner. Employees can call with safety complaints and they'll address those. If there's an occupational safety and health inspection, they would go and defend the honor of the departments. They also conduct in-house training to comply with safety standards. The other side of their function is to manage the County's self-insured workers compensation program. Tax dollars are spent judiciously because it's not their money and they Page 10