Meeting Minutes - August 2008

The Representative Meeting August 12, 2008 began at 10:40 am with 22 Reps and Alternates in attendance.

City Manager Charlie Meyer spoke to the TSA representatives on current issues and answered questions.

Some items on the agenda for the annual Council Summit scheduled for the weekend of the 16th.

• A primer on the open meetings law
  
• Jim Svara, Professor with the School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University and Director of the Center for Urban Innovation has been invited to speak about a council code of ethics. Dr. Svara recently published "The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations." (Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2007.)
• A review of the past year and objectives for the coming year

A Department Managers retreat will be held two weeks after the Council summit.

The city budget continues to be impacted by legislators efforts to deal with the state deficit. Mr. Meyer foresees claims of $2.7 million on a $1.3 million dollar contingency in the budget. He will make recommendations to council at the September 11 meeting.

There was discussion on the continuation of service awards.

Questions on the status and future of downtown projects, parking and the hiring freze were asked. A decision on the Price and Apache parking lot has been deferred as planned capacity may exceed earlier estimates. The hiring freeze may need to be extended to enterprise fund departments in the future but not currently.


TSA President Kerby Rapp announced his resignation. A new position he has with the police department will not allow him to continue as president. He thanked everyone who worked with him on moving the the organization forward culminating in the signing of the MOU between the City of Tempe and the Tempe Supervisors Association. Kerby was thanked for his invaluable contribution in establishing this organization.

Department Representation. The board recommends a ratio of 1 rep for every 10 supervisors per department will determine the number of department representatives. There will be half as many alternates as representatives.

A motion was made by Wendy Sprinborn-Pittman to accept the recommendation of the board; the motion carried.

Wendy then made a motion that board members would not be included in the number of representatives per department. Discussion followed. A department could be proportionally over-represented if multiple board members were from a department. Alternates could take the board members position as representative. However, board members continue as representatives while serving on the board. The motion did not carry.

Representatives will report changes in representative and alternate composition to the secretary after which a memo will be sent to department heads.

Meeting attendance will be reviewed and those representatives not attending will be asked if they are still interested.

HR clarified the 7.5% supervisor pay differential adjustments will be effective July 1.

There were no volunteers for the membership committee. There was open discussion on getting members to sign up and how best to recruit.

• Have payroll form in hand when speaking to members about enrolling.
• Brief use of email with department approval.
• Discuss at staff meetings.
• Flyer and use of bulletin boards to promote benefits of joining.
• One on One approach seems to work well.

Volunteers to work on flyer template are Wendy Sprinborn-Pittman, Sylvia Cardenas and Tom Hartman. They will present a draft at the next board meeting.

Representatives must be active members.

Bulletin boards are to be provided by departments (per MOU agreement) in all non-work areas. Progress report from representatives at next meeting.

TSA/SEIU joint training on MOU provisions. HR is moving forward on this.

Community Service - Lucy Morales. The Tempe Community Council is the agency active in the Holiday Toy Drive. An announcement hand out will be distributed with more information. Collection begins in late October. A motion was made that TSA participate in the Holiday Toy Drive. After a second the motion carried.

OPEB Committee - Julie Hietter. The committee has selected a financial target of $9 million to be applied to the unfunded liability of $18 million. They are now developing recommendations on how to reduce the liability.

Diversity Steering Committee - Amy Douglass. The committe is in the process of finalizing an action plan for the upcoming year covering training, accountability, etc. It will be posted on the Diversity web site.

Open Discussion.

HR director starts work on September 15 and will not be available to speak at the September meeting.

With Kerby leaving should we reconsider board elections? Julie Hietter becomes interim president. The board will meet on filling the vacancy and proceed according to the proceedures outlined in the bylaws.

Maja Switzer then made a motion to adjorn.