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MINUTES
Grand Forks Civil Service Commission
March 13, 2008

Vice Chairperson Burlog called the Grand Forks Civil Service Commission to order at approximately 3:33PM in City Hall, Council Chambers. Commissioners, Bredemeier, Burlog, MacGregor, and Nies were present.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
It was moved by Commissioner Bredemeier and seconded by Commissioner Nies to approve the February 14, 2008 regular meeting minutes.
All approved, motion carried.

CHANGES/ADDITIONS
1.  Reassignment Register – Planner
2.  Eligibility Register – Planner
3.  Reemployment Register – No candidates (Delete)
It was recommended by the HR Director to place the changes after the Reassignment Registers.
ELIGIBILITY REGISTER

Firefighter
Discussion was held about the candidate pool.  The recommendation was for a cutoff at 68.666% placing all the candidates on the Register.  It was moved by Commissioner MacGregor and seconded by Commissioner Bredemeier to establish the Eligibility Register for Firefighter as follows:
Howard Range
Aaron Braathen
Erik Quirk
Chad Jacobson
Brandon Wehner
Douglas Cuomo
Scot Smart
Ryan Kearns
Martin Schneider
Matt Berg
Michael Coxe
John Schlafmann
Lance Kitzan
Steven Swanson
Nathan Gunter
Scott Otto

All approved, motion carried.
Deputy Chief Flermoen thanked the HR department for participating in the interview process.
Police Officer (Test cutoff)
Discussion was held.  It was moved by Commissioner MacGregor and seconded by Commissioner Nies to establish the cutoff for the Police Officer interviews at 67.2%.
All approved, motion carried.
Public Health Nurse
Discussion was held. The recommendation was for a cutoff at 84.0% placing five candidates on the Register.  It was moved by Commissioner Bredemeier and seconded by Commissioner MacGregor to establish the Eligibility Register for Public Health Nurse as follows:
Kailee Dvorak
Joni Tweeten
Justin Holweger
Rachel McGauvran
Margaret Jeffrey
All approved, motion carried.

REASSIGNMENT REGISTERS

Equipment Operator, Sr. - Streets
Discussion was held.  It was moved by Commissioner MacGregor and seconded by Commissioner Nies to establish the Reassignment Register for Equipment Operator, Sr. – Streets at 81.0% as follows:
Walter Nowling
Bruce Hecht
Christian Shawstad
All approved, motion carried.
Firefighter, Sr.
Discussion was held.  It was noted by Commissioner Bredemeier, who assisted with the interviews, that both the candidates were top notch.  It was moved by Commissioner Bredemeier and seconded by Commissioner MacGregor to establish the Reassignment Register for Firefighter, Sr. at 57.796% as follows:
Delray Huot
Brandon Boespflug
All approved, motion carried.
Deputy Chief Flermoen thanked the HR department and the commission for their assistance with the interview process.  Deputy Chief said the Fire department would be back in a couple of months for another register to finish filling open Senior positions when they have additional eligible candidates.
Reassignment Register
Planner
It was recommended by the HR Director, after discussion with the Planning & Zoning Department Head Mr. Gengler, that the commission may establish a minimum score and because of the low score the register should not be established.  Discussion was held.  It was moved by Commissioner Nies and seconded by Commissioner MacGregor not to establish the Reassignment Register for Planner.
All approved, motion carried.

Mr. Gengler thanked the HR Department for their assistance in the process.
Eligibility Register
Planner
Discussion was held.  It was moved by Commissioner MacGregor and seconded by Commissioner Bredemeier to establish the Eligibility Register for Planner at 66.95% as follows:
Roxanne Achman
Duane Kaul Jr.
Mark Engel
All approved, motion carried.
QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION – 2008 SALARY PLAN
HR Director Hovland opened the discussion by commenting that HR is open for suggestions.  Commissioner Bredemeier asked how the information is being explained to the staff.  Mr. Hovland explained that HR has had classes with the evaluators taking them through the steps when changes were made in the program based on suggestions of employees, and department heads.  Department Heads are actively involved in the process.  Commissioner Bredemeier stated she noticed a lot of misunderstanding on how the program should work when reading through the comments and a couple of things bothered her.  She mentioned having the scores changed after reviewing with the employee was wrong.  Director Hovland explained about SMART goal training and some of the occurrences that brought about the comments based on supervisors who circumvent the system. Director Hovland stated he reads every evaluation and is in contact with the evaluator and Department Head to comment on the justification for the score either lowering or raising the score.  Director Hovland explained the evaluation process flow through the review with the employee being the final step in the process.  Commissioner MacGregor asked about supervisors who don’t give valid scores on evaluations.  Director Hovland stated that this year the evaluators are rated on their supervisory skills including evaluations.  Director Hovland asked for any comments from Department Heads that were in the audience.  Public Health Director Mr. Shields commented that Mr. Hovland had done a very good job describing the situations and went on to explain some of the issues he had dealt with in his department. He also said he likes the ability to review the evaluations justifications before the evaluations are given to the employee.  Mr. Shields stated the scoring system is very compressed and that there clearly isn’t enough money in the system to pay someone for performance when the majority of the money is used to bring someone up from the bottom of the scale.  Mr. Hovland stated that the Council, after reading his Salary Plan report, agreed that we need to put some more money into performance.  Mr. Hovland made the comment about combining Citywide with job specific functions and how Safety was kept constant.  Because of the employees hard work in Safety, it resulted in premium savings from Workers Comp to fund future retirements under NDPERS pension plan, which the City will be switching to later this year.  Each employee will have the option of switching to the new plan or remaining with their current plan.
ADJOURNMENT
It was moved by Commissioner Bredemeier and seconded by Commissioner Burlog to adjourn the February 14, 2008 regular meeting. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:07PM.

 
Respectfully submitted,


Daryl Hovland Human Resources Director