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A public workshop meeting of the Minden Town Board was held on Saturday, June 19, 2010, at the Town Board and Manager’s Office, CVIC Hall Annex, 1604 Esmeralda Avenue, Suite 201, Minden, Nevada, beginning at 7:00 a.m. Board members present: Ross Chichester, Bob Hadfield, John Stephans and Steve Thaler. Staff present: George Keele, Trish Koepnick, Bruce Scott and Roger Van Alyne. 1. Meeting was called to order by Chairman Hadfield. He said that the position of town manager had recently been created by a Town Board that had been in place for a quarter of the hundred years Minden had existed. When the manager was hired the board members each had different ideas about how the job would evolve; it is time to look at the position and clarify the manager’s role in a vision planning session. 2. Pledge of allegiance was led by Chairman Hadfield. 3. Chichester/Stephans moved for approval of the agenda as published. Motion carried unanimously. 4. Public comment: a. Bill Souligny said that one of his jobs before retirement was to develop work performance standards and evaluation criteria for classified and unclassified staff. Over the years he came up with a format that had key elements as follows: essential functions, responsibility, confidentiality and a strong organization chart. Based on this a good job description can be developed which leads into a performance evaluation standard. This includes procedures and traits, with the objective to maintain employee job satisfaction and let the employee know if he/she is doing a good job. Duties need to be defined, not just personality traits; it is an opportunity for employees to discuss his goals and ambitions in regard to the job. Mr. Hadfield noted we use the county evaluation system but it might not meet our specific criteria for manager.. 5. Discussion and possible action on the duties, roles, responsibilities, work performance standards, and authority levels for the recently created Town Manager position. A document was put together by the manager as a starting point for discussion and essentially asks for affirmation on what the Board wants him to be doing. Roger said that he would like to establish the relationship; he sees two groups of players (Town Board) and appointed official (Manager) and subsequently the professional staff. He believes that there are 4 major focus areas: mission, policy, administration and management. Mr. Stephans said that some areas were too broad, the Board should be involved and that the manager needs approval and recommendation by the Board to establish practices and procedures, and implement policy. Mr. Chichester said the manager does not establish policies and procedures; he would implement policies approved by the board. The mManager plays major role but the Board does not just ratify the budget. They formulate the budget based on what needs to get done that year and the long term plan. A major role of Town Board members is to have a working knowledge of the budget, where it comes from and how it is being spent. Mr. Stephans agreed and said that the Board had a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens. ---PAGE BREAK--- Minden Town Board Special Workshop June 19, 2010 Page 2 of 4 Mr. Hadfield believes in looking to the future based on the Board’s vision of where they want the town to be. Right now we know the size of the town, but what about the future? Key is what you want Minden to look like in ten years; this leads to goals and active engagement by the Board with the manager to get there. Mr. Chichester works on county capital improvement plan; very few have funding sources. Projects with no funding need to be separated out from those we intend to do, and then we should prepare to fund them realistically. Mr. Hadfield said we need to say what we are going to do, then have a plan to get it done. The role of public and the Board is crucial. Mr. Scott said this is what makes Minden special; the Board has always done what they plan for which establishes credibility. Mr. Thaler said this is about communication and not giving any one person too much power. The Board has to sell what they do to the community. The key is that the manager must communicate to the Board and then become the salesman in the community. The Board needs to be involved in budget because this humanizes the budget; we also need to establish budget earlier. Mr. Hadfield said that this town is different than the normal model; lots of elected officials disengage, but not in Minden. Charlie Condron believes it is critical for the Board to stay involved in policy. This is why it is in such good shape because the Board has maintained that role of involvement. Officials need the information; in some places the manager just gives the Board what he thinks they can handle. Mr. Van Alyne said that what he is hearing is this Board will remain more involved in administration and management. Mr. Chichester said that it is not like the county or state; the Board communicates all the time with residents, so you are part of administration and management. People feel they can call and talk, much more than at the county level. It seems Minden is a little more cohesive than Gardnerville because there are not so many HOAs in Minden. Mr. Thaler said that the most important role is the communicator; he wants to know before the community knows. Some things he should be able to do but others he should not be able to do. On the reverse side, what does the manager want from chair and vice chair? Mr. Keele told the Board that they hired Roger not to take their place but to become an expert in what they have believed. There is a danger with manager in charge of everything. You hired him not to decide but to communicate, and to guide future boards to not be passive. Roger asked for specific guidance in what the Board wants him to be doing in certain areas to help him understand his role. Mr. Hadfield said there are a lot of key positions in this town that may be soon retiring, and it is critical to look at training. Greg evaluates the work force. What needs to be done? Timing is critical. Over the years he has made a lot of assumptions about training and one of the difficulties of chairman to chairman is follow up. We need to develop the workforce and the needs are going to change. Mr. Thaler said we need to prioritize the force, and put together a 5-10 year human resource plan. Being the water purveyor will create a lot of personnel issues down the road. Mr. Chichester said that we need to sit down with each employee and see where they want to go, and start providing the training to bring them up to the needed level. Bill Souligny said one way is to teach employees to plan for a career and better employees will rise to the top. Mr. Stephans said that on a day to day operation he would like the manager to have hands on style. He would like to see the manager have a focus on accounts receivable, a report on where we are in the budget performance, be an ambassador to the Town and focus on the development of staff. He would like a format set out for review before the board meeting in order to make decisions. ---PAGE BREAK--- Minden Town Board Special Workshop June 19, 2010 Page 3 of 4 Mr. Thaler said that one of the main jobs of manager is to have a good handle on the budget. Mr. Hadfield said that one of the challenges with the office staff is career development because it is too small to grow but we can enhance it. There is also the challenge of the relationship between manager and the office staff. We have always valued the office staff being friendly but this can put them in a difficult position. The work force is small and the manager is going to need to have an extra sensitivity to the position of the office staff because they can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Mr. Condron said that in the area of work force the hiring process is crucial to get the best employee, and how to evaluate the current employees. Mr. Hadfield said that we have now asked the board members to come in weekly and sign claims after Roger has reviewed them. At the meeting a summary of claims for the previous month will be presented. Roger has asked if he should speak at meetings on behalf of the town or if some one else should speak. If at all possible a Board member should go with him. In this new position, there needs to be a familiarity with style because someone can make an assumption that his style is questionable, and if people take things wrong that will be his best defense. It also gives the Board a chance to be in public arena. Roger said he felt that the manager is responsible to make sure processes take place. Mr. Hadfield said that although the manager is an engineer, he is not functioning as an engineer, but he is using these talents for administrative reasons. The setting of the agenda should entail board members requesting an item through the manager, who will talk over with the chairman, who then approves the agenda. Mr. Stephans says that it is critical that everything is blessed by chair, and if not the chairman it should be the vice-chairman. He would also like to receive agenda and packet sooner if possible. Mr. Chichester said that the procedure would apply to public requests also, and he would appreciate to have as few last minute handouts at the board meeting as possible. Mr. Hadfield said that the organizational profile is not an organizational chart. This profile becomes the basis for what the town is about, tells us who we are in a number of ways, and will be the basis for new board members in the fall. Mr. Chichester would like to have several workshops in November and December to get historical basis for new board members. Mr. Condron would like to see the three exiting members to remain unofficial consultants. Mr. Chichester said that providing support to local business is too broad and needs definition. Mr. Hadfield said that in this economy, more businesses are shutting doors, landscaping is dying. More businesses will ask if they can get town involved. Minden may get stuck with a hodgepodge of issues; an example is the weeds at Gateway. He sees a major role for Roger to work on grants, with RCI as support. Mr. Thaler wants the perception that the Town of Minden will work with people; part of economic development is getting businesses into the Town. Mr. Hadfield said that Mr. Scott has ended up in the role as liasson with the county. He sees Roger in this role in the future. Mr. Thaler said that the role of communicator in the relationship with the county is a vital role of the manager. He thinks the Town can blend very well with the county because we need each other and things can get lost in who sets the priorities. It is easier to get along with the county, we do not have to agree with them it is just a process. Mr. Chichester said that we recently learned that the waterline to East Valley and Buckeye to tank will need to be in the road way not the right of way according to the Douglas County ordinance. This adds about $300,000.00 to the cost to repave the street. At this point in time it would behoove us to ask for reason in this. He would like to invite county commissioners to coffee to discuss this right of way and make some sense out of the request. ---PAGE BREAK--- Minden Town Board Special Workshop June 19, 2010 Page 4 of 4 Mr. Scott said that the consolidation for the county water systems was turned down by the commission on Thursday and we need to be very watchful because this is an aggravation of their financial problem. Mr. Stephans said he felt that personal development for staff as well as manager especially as water wholesalers. Board expects Roger to develop this and establish within the budget. We need to be sure that we do not fall into a trap of not setting the money aside for capital replacement each year for the future. Mr. Chichester said that at the sheriff’s office money is set aside money for whatever training is mandatory. When training is not mandatory but considered helpful, the tuition is paid and employee is asked to pay the per diem. Mr. Van Alyne said that based on the input, his original list has been validated with adjustment. What might be helpful is to use this for a springboard to prepare for his first evaluation. Mr. Keele suggested input from Minden businesses for Roger’s evaluation. Mr. Scott gave a few observations. It is almost more critical how things are done rather than what is done. Over the years, RCI got outside the typical engineer role, but there were some things they could not do but Roger can. We can get economic development within our realm. Also, we are seeing with the transition of the Town board how important the continuity and long term relationship is. The key to staff is working environment; make people happy by making them feel good about coming to work, and giving them the tools to do their job. Mr. Thaler said that now is the time to tweak Roger’s job description, we can add and delete all we want. Bill Souligny said they did an excellent job in covering role responsibility and authority level. He found the history very useful. The next step is creating the performance standards with the changes. Intangibles are part of the traits that he talked about and he agrees they are they are absolutely critical. 6. Adjournment. Meeting was adjourned at 9:25 a.m.