ALC-Personnel

if you notice a. Senator Wallace is not here today he is having some ice surgery done and said he couldn't be here so if you think about him or wish him good luck on that and I hope he gets is as all straight that he is C. locker like I did when I had my surgery. We've got several items on the agenda date of normal business lack of the first one Hey is Arkansas state university I'm last only to take all that explain it in if anybody's got any questions were like your but not. Mr chairman I to be is a request from issue Beebe this for one position from higher at Central growth full physician classification requested as a specialist coordinator grade C. one twelve physician as it sounds I will responsible for special event coordination across campus will also be responsible for the campus which for campus ID production and oversight of student workers a higher ed has recommended the position and the classification. Any questions for anyone on the committee. Seeing none is there a motion that we approve this. Motion and a second. Both the second any discussion those in favor say aye. Posebno motion carried well what side of a Pacific time. Mr chairman items C. as a request from a issue Jonesborough bioscience institute this is for five positions from the higher at Central growth pull these positions will all be research grad assistance with a line at a Max of forty seven thousand dollars how are they intend only pay roughly twenty thousand dollars for each of the positions they're requesting the positions to help maintain the level of research being conducted at the university because they are currently no available for the positions for them to use I read has recommended the positions in the classification. The motion to approve. I have a motion and a second. Osis second any discussion. Okay seventy six okay seventy eight that's me okay all right I don't see any so those in favor say aye. Oceano motion carried. Mr chairman item D. is request from national park community college for one accountant to position of this from also from higher it's it's growth cooled positions graded a C. one one seven I'll provide support within the accounts payable office at the institution by monitoring budgets revenues and expenditures in providing financial reports hi read has recommended the position and the classification. motion on this. Of and second discussion. Seeing none those in favor say aye. Posebno motion carried. Mr chairman item he is a miscellaneous federal grant request from the department health utilize grant money from the CDC appears or your reserve review the appropriation and OPM has recommended the requested classifications of epidemiology supervisor and epidemiologist positions will be used for surveillance data collection on COVID nineteen during pregnancy. Any questions from the committee. motion. Motion the second. Any discussion those in favor say aye. Opposed no motion carried. Mr chairman committee on F. this is a request for the department of agriculture of course what pole position there are questions to surrender to positions in return for a position with the classifications I must agree GSO seven position will be used to help cross train the laboratory services section the agency expects the swap to cost about fifty seven hundred dollars OPM has recommended the requested position. Any questions. Motion. And second. Any questions or discussion those in favor say aye. Does no motion carried. Mr chairman item G. his request for a special entry rate for exception well qualified candidates from the insurance department at the department of commerce the department's requesting salary of one hundred twelve thousand nine hundred dollars for internal applicant to take the position of the insurance chief financial and market conduct examiner this requested sellers the maximum of the great thirteen OPM has recommended the requested salary based on the applicant's experience in education this will provide the internal applicant with a roughly an eight and a half percent raise expected cost of the request is about nine thousand dollars. Of any questions on this. The notice or motion. Motion the second any discussion those in favor say aye. Posebno motion carried. Mr chairman item H. is requesting the securities department at the department of commerce four one oh PM swat pole position departments requesting to surrender one admin specialist three and yes for for one fiscal division manager GS twelve the agency expects costs the swap will position to be around eighty six thousand dollars position will be used to educate investors around the state and the basics financial planning market structure and how to identify fraud opium is recommended the requested position swap in the two classifications. I don't see any questions is there a motion motion to approve and second. Any discussion those in favor say aye. Posebno motion carried. Mr chairman item I this is approval item of the a motion for approval this request for special feature rate for exception while qualified candidate at the department of public safety's crime lab this to fill an associate medical examiner position the agency is requesting approval to pay two hundred sixty thousand dollars which is over the maximum salary of the grade but in line with the other medical assistant medical examiner positions at the crime lab opium is recommended the requested salary for the applicant based on our education board certification and experience and again this is this item will require approval to a motion to approve actions. Motion the second. to second all in favor say aye. Pose no. Motion carried. Mr chairman item J. this is actually three different requests rolled into one the Department public safety is requesting to surrender ten positions at State Police and return for eight new ones they're requesting to surrender five positions at emergency management in return for for new ones and then there are questions to new growth pole positions at State Police in total it will be awash in state police with no overall increase the number of positions and rough cost of about eighty six thousand dollars well Emergency Management swap will create about five thousand dollars in savings based on the extra position being eliminated opium is recommended the request. Any questions. Your motion. Motion and second. Any discussion. Those in favor say aye. Pose no. Motion carried. Mr chairman item K. is requesting the department of correction your question to surrender to positions in return for one program administrator for parole and probation services and GS eleven the position actually be used to oversee maintenance construction projects are for community correction the cost of the new position will be about fifty six thousand dollars opium is recommended the requested swapped positions. Of any discussion motion. Motion the second any discussion now. Those in favor say aye. Posebno motion very. I'm L. this is a request from the Revenue Division if any there are questions to surrender to positions in return for managing attorney to GS thirteen top of the increasing complex litigations the agency expects the cost of the position be roughly thirteen thousand dollars after the elimination of the other two positions OPM is recommended the request. motion on this. Motion to approve. A second any discussion. Those in favor say aye. Those no. Motion carried. Mister chairman I'm M. is this what pole request from the Management Services Division DF nine requesting to surrender three positions in return for three new positions for their information services in annual comprehensive financial reporting sections to help and this is to help recruit and retain qualified applicants requested swap would cost roughly two hundred thousand dollars opium is recommended at the requested a swap of positions. motion to approve. Motion the second. Any discussion. All those in favor say aye. Pose no. Motion carried. Mr chairman I am in this request from the Department of Parks heritage tourism for one growth pole position the agency has requested a administration manager at a GS thirteen to function as the director of the new office of outdoor recreation that was set up by the governor's executive order twenty one thirteen the agency expects that the cost to fill the position including benefits will be about a hundred and seven thousand dollars opium is recommended the requested position. Is there a motion to approve. Motion the second any discussion. All in favor say aye. Posebno motion carried. Its chairman item is requesting the public service commission for two new positions from the opium growth along with two new classifications to go with these positions the requesting a PSE Director of pipeline safety and a PST Director of telecommunications income consumer services both great GS fourteens cost of these two positions will be about two hundred and thirty one thousand dollars according to opium and opium is recommended by the positions in the classifications. The motion on this. Motion to approve second any questions or discussion. All in favor say aye. Pose no. Motion carried. Mr chairman items P. through S. these are all reports that require no action on answering questions if there are any one thing I want to point out is that item S. is the. Anyway equal employment opportunity report we have one copy of the report this report over six hundred pages so we just print one copy it's back on the desk but if you want to download reports on the web for this meeting under the documents section as you can look at that one if you want to you can look at the one that's back here Mr Mr that's items P. through S. the reports. Okay anybody have any questions on this. These are just for information purposes only and if you want to pull that report and read it more power to you. Okay in ninety Mr chairman I didn't see this is a discussion item only requires no action but this was This wasn't a request made at last month's A. L. C. the item in question was the salary grid proposed reviewed in June for classifications created a GS one two GS five these your in your packet under identity and What you see is the item as it was reviewed in June plus the last two pages show R. as information provided by. DPSS also personal management of who has implemented the salary grid who has since and how they have implemented now in this data is probably I guess maybe a few weeks old at this point but I'll take any questions and miss Parker was here to answer any questions if there are any. Okay up maybe a little bit more on this of back in the spring we had a request from DHS to Allow them to go GS and if I'm wrong what. You let me know of from GS away from just want to GSTN up to a to take them to the maximum after a meeting and discussion they we decided to go from GS one GS five. And therein lies the problem and I'm sure that some of you members have talked to people about that. And I'm. Of the the ensuing of problems that we've had with this of any time to talk about money and you talk about people you're gonna have differences of opinions and everybody has their own opinion about what we should have done so now is the time for people to Come up and tell us what we should have done and how we could have done it better but I would encourage you to have a solution to the problem before you come up and we have a representative Karilyn Brown. Yes. Yes Mister chair okay you're recognized for your question or comment thank you what a fortuitous time to be at the meeting I had a constituent get in touch with me about this and they were quite upset because they had been with their department for over six years and they felt that people who were at a lower. I'm not gonna say this correctly I'm sure at a lower pay scale or lower GS writing. Would be making as much or more than them. Now and at anyhow I said I would look into it thank you. Okay thank you I assure you that you're not the only one is that that phone call in fact I had a phone call this week from a GS six person who is supervising a GS five and they made more money than than the one that was the GSX or supervised them and the lady and think that was fair either. So that's where we are. Do it do we have a response to that concern miss Clark you're recognized to. Tell tell so yarn nobody knows okay I am K. barn hill the TSS A DM Director what what has happened and I know exactly about the cases you both are describing what happened is we put in the grip of grades one through five due to the fact of all the local businesses recruiting them away with their fifteen dollars an hour at Burger King and such a great six starts generally were we we require a college degree so we haven't seen so much of that turnover but we did agree at the point of implementation or brought it to you we weren't gonna go do everything something for all six is and even in some cases that was but we would be happy to look at those on an individual basis and we've been getting a lot of those requests to look at to see what needs to be done at that particular point. So trying to avoid the situations you so I should inform them to get in touch with you yeah I are whatever their who their department H. R. or chief of staff this is who I would recommend going to first okay but then we can also respond necessary thank you. One of one other thing that the I'm I don't point out instead of doing this just for one agency we did this for all fifteen different departments and six seven have decided to do this and then have not is that right K. well we've been or haven't done it yet anyway yes we've been collecting data always. Trying to gather more not I think if we had more responses we've had a lot more people talking about implementing it there was only one department that said they were not as far as I know that but what is happened some of these departments are implementing it not in the way that we proposed button something similar for several reasons one is to help avoid a great six being paid less than the grade five as a mom because of the money in the budget money because we said this would have to come out of their budgets and we didn't really provide additional funds we wish we could but we and at that time we could not so some of agencies are struggling with the financial aspects as much as the implementation process. So what. we've got a can of worms here and we're going to do our best to. go fishing or something with it any other. Okay. Senator Rapert you're recognized yes Sir thank you Mr chairman what a situation Jones world lady called and she's a supervisor she was five grade and she's training all these folks that have been there two and three years and she can get of of of hi res at all and these other folks are now making just about what she was making and they told her that now that she would could receive overtime pay but you would think that you would be receiving that anyone. Yes generally if she was and that correct I don't know what department is act and make some guesses but I'd have to know a little bit more details but I think you've got some departments that may have implemented this plan to specific groups of employees because that's where they're turning over and that the man was so maybe some other employees in that department did not receive. What. Okay any other questions from a. House or Senate members. I wanted something a bit unusual here and I'm not be sorry for want to get through but I will ask anybody in the audience that has a problem that they would like to bring before this committee I would go in in case you do of raise your hand you be recognized and you have at the front desk by yourself but I would encourage you to have a not just a problem well like where where the problem but what we would like is maybe to have you have a solution that you would want to advise us on this so I by parents who wants to. Now's your chance. Okay. Have a seat state your name and your position and you're recognized. Good afternoon. Well I my name is Nicholas full of Arkansas state employees association and I really would like to commend you all on implementing new pay increases for GSO one two GS all five but the reason the problem I see is that is no parity within agencies so what are will ASCA will like this is C. done is that pay increases be implemented to all agree it's so it's just not one agency doing one thing and other agencies on other things so I think that will be best for everyone okay all right thank you how do you have a proposal how to pay for that. Unfortunately Mr I do not look forward to working with you all to be able to see if we can come up with some type of solution to be able to pay for that okay thank you Mr to any members have any. Weston's Mr poo hi thank you very much you're excused. Are we broken ice anybody else. All right so I'm going to assume from this that everybody is happy with that and we're going to go forward and it's not gonna be more problems right. All right thank you all for coming today and the and we really do care about our employees and we want everybody to be treated fairly and we want everybody to the you get the get the salary that that their job is worth and so if you got any complaints and I would just kind of teased about it by satisfy up call me up I'll be glad to talk to your email me or whatever and we'll talk as long as you want to is there any other business to come before this committee okay senator Hammer. Actually Hammer you care Mr okay okay Senator Hammer. K. salaries part of it but having sat through several meetings as we can in the past. What do you do. To do an assessment of the employees to determine if maybe it's not as much about the money as much as it is the structure of the environment that they're working in the culture the management and and other things that may impact their desire to stay set aside the money. Senator Hammer OPM really does not do that that type of assessment with the various departments but hopefully their HR chief of staff are looking into those issues And my that's what I've seen a lot of the employees complain exactly about what we've been talking about today you know somebody's making more at this place and I'm making less it's usually compensation dominated when I hear from them lawyers but it is also something a culture you know sometimes I have a complaint we have the grievance process to try to work C. three some of those we try to do organization Alice's phone quested kinda look at the way things are. That way the department has organized will probably need to update that some some at some particular points but we leave most of the specific employee questions to get their own HR director or their chief staff or secretary of. Mr can get one more quick one absolutely thank you. Exit surveys of employees that are leaving are they conducted and what can we do to get our hands on those exit surveys and what the employees have shared with management on the way out. Okay exit surveys Arkansas do happen that some departments but not all departments okay a what they do have is in the asus system we can code the reason for departure maybe it's retirement maybe it's a voluntary termination maybe it's more money or maybe it's involuntary termination I can get those type of statistics for you if you need that so I do have some agencies that don't do exit interviews at all. Well I don't know what all they're not I'm not aware of. So. Okay I'll I'll follow up offline thank you Mr. We got time for you to go ahead and ask if you want to. Okay in the in this state employees that have talked to me. Hey is an issue no doubt late just finding labor period is an issue. But also some of the employees of talk to me it's as much about management issues or structures within the agency and the inability to have a voice in the process and and this is I'll be honest this is a little bit of a pet peeve of mine because several sessions ago you know I a past we passed a law about doing a three sixty evaluation among the employees I was given the promise that that would be done in an agency. In order to do that I know that there's this other thing that that you all are doing I came or what is called that started out there and EPA you know what environmental group out there. But if the if the employees have no structural way. To present thought processes without the fear of retribution we control the money we wanted to problem and it's not going to go away because we've given pay increases before the problem continues to exist so I don't directives to you personally. But I want to lay some of the responsibility on the agencies that if there's not a systematic way for employees to be able to voice their opinions and disagreements about management or management processes. Then that is that is contributing to the problem outside of the money issue so lot agencies or sit in the room today and I thank you that's not included in discussions going forward then then you all have ownership of a part of the problem. Would you agree or disagree. Thank you Mr. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions comments whatever hearing none the meeting is adjourned thank you all for coming.