05-26-2020 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, May 11, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 10 of 22 Rief said with Paychex outsourcing, the City capitalized on some savings related to multiple brokerages and combination of streamlining for different softwares the City had and will no longer need. The City captured $24,500 of the $31,000 expense. The City also captured $14,000 in this situation, so there is a positive net gain on the cash side and a positive net gain on the total number of hours of work being able to be provided to the City. Johnson said it would be helpful to see the numbers, noting he has requested that any time a position is presented to the Council, he would like information such as the background of the position, what it was doing, what has been eliminated because of outsourcing, and where the deficiencies that the City currently has exist. He said a few hours before the meeting there was an email sent out, he was not able to go through it, and asked Rief to discuss it. Rief said this has been vetted through the Organizational Committee a number of different times. What he sent out was related directly to the impacts this unfilled position has had on the Finance Department over the last 4 months, and the duties that were not being completed versus the duties that were being completed by the Accountant and Finance Director. The primary challenge the Finance Department faces is that they can only handle the operations mode; and the City is struggling to get to budget, long-term finance, etc., to keep the City going. The biggest challenge the Accountant has is, she is stuck being the Utility Billing Clerk. She is being paid as an Accountant and cannot get her daily duties done. The City is 41 days into this quarter and cannot yet present the Council with a first quarter financial report. That will now be pushed to the end of the month. Ung and Olson have been working extra hours, but high-level accounting duties are not being completed. The position handles the lower-end duties but they are essential, such as payroll and creating/collecting utility bills. The longer-term things such as audits and account reconciliations get delayed. The Auditors have given them a deadline that if the City does not get them information this week, the audit will be late. He said today was the first day they were even able to address the audit. Typically, the documents for the audit are done mid-March. They are putting in extra hours, but they can only put in so many hours without burnout. Printup stated it is important to note that had this process been approved 1-2 years ago, it would have looked very different. He said that Seals touched on it earlier; by keeping the pressure on and not just saying, “We’ll approve it and replace the position because that is what we have always done,” he believes customer service and the support gaps are being improved. He reiterated that when he and Seals are putting pressure on, it is not to be jerks or eliminate positions, it is to make something that they see and hear about in the community better. They restructured things, and he thinks it will be a better position rather than saying, “Okay, we will just go with the half-time status that it used to be,” etc. They will keep exploring options and also push Staff to explore them. He said the committee was focused specifically on reorganizing to try to make things better for residents. He appreciates the comment about looking at where the capturing of dollars are. He suggested using the money saved by not replacing the position right away for a fall clean-up for residents, because it is something residents can see, feel, and utilize. The Council knows how successful the spring clean-up is, so a fall clean-up could be added. Seals said when Edwards met with Printup and herself, it made sense. She has been frustrated because the person that got beat up the most is Maggie Ung, because comments were made like, “Maggie is doing all of this extra work. Maggie is under water. We don’t want to lose Maggie.” When you are the department head or CEO of the City, your job is to take on the weight and lift the pressure off of your teams. She did not hear that as much as she would have liked to. Although it sucks, that is the job. She is sorry for Maggie Ung if her superiors did not support her in this time, because it never should have happened. “All