PERSONNEL - COMMITTEE

Tuesday, January 17, 2023 - 10:00 AM

Stephanie DeZalia, Chairperson

Joe Pete Wilson, Vice-Chairperson

Chairperson DeZalia called this Personnel Meeting to order at 10:00 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Robin DeLoria, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Charlie Harrington, Roy Holzer, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, James Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Matt Stanley, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Shaun Gillilland was excused. Noel Merrihew were absent.

Department Heads present: Jim Dougan, Judy Garrison, Jennifer Mascarenas, Matt Watts and Michael Mascarenas.

News media – Alana Penny, Sun News.

DEZALIA: Good morning, we will get this Personnel committee meeting in order. We will start today with Jenn in Personnel.

J. MASCARENAS: Good morning. I have my monthly report and I do have the updated vacancy list, I believe this month we are still at 76 vacant positions. The ones that we do manage to fill in other departments we end up losing a couple more like always it balances out.

DEZALIA: Did anybody have anything for Jenn.

MONTY: This is actually for everyone in the room. I had a conversation with Jenn last week pertaining to the United Way and we are in the process and middle of our 2023 campaign for United Way. United Way does a tremendous amount of work in the tri-county area and they have done a lot the last couple of years in Essex County so I am going to come and speak to the department heads next month on that, the campaign is underway. Jenn has all the paperwork in her office but I am going to challenge the Board of Supervisors like I do every year to make a donation to the United Way. I, myself do it from here, I do it from the town, I do it from my family but that’s my personal preference, my personal choice but if we all gave $20 a week out of our paycheck that would be a phenomenal amount. I’m not saying we have to do that but just make a donation because United Way is serving our constituents, they serve them anywhere from St. Armand to Ti, they’ve served them in Jay, they’ve served them in Lewis and they are there when needed and if they can’t do it financially they will find someone to do. Tom, they have helped you down there a couple times in Moriah and so I really encourage you to support the United Way and I challenge each and every one of you to make that donation. Thank you. And Jenn has the paperwork and if she doesn’t, I do.

DEZALIA: Thank you.

STANLEY: I can actually second what Jim is saying. We had our flood last February, United Way lead the long-term recovery, and without them bringing other organizations in, we would have people homeless in the Town of Jay.

MONTY: And that is something I want to mention, thank you Matt. It is not only financial they have contacts out there and bring together a lot of different organizations and non-for profits to help during those times. Thank you.

DEZALIA: Thank you.

WINEMILLER: If we had done a payroll deduction previously do we need to do it every year?

J. MASCARENAS: Yes, you need to do it every year.

WINEMILLER: All right, okay.

DEZALIA: Anything further?

DOTY: Jenn, I have a question about an application you received for motor vehicle licensed clerk, is that to fill down here because you know, naturally, I’m interested in our office in Lake Placid but my impression is you need two people to run that office?

J. MASCARENAS: Well, any application that we get for Motor Vehicle Licensed Clerk will go to Chelsea in the County Clerk’s office or Charlotte McGinn to review and they hire based out of the Elizabethtown office and then they transfer employees I’m assuming to Lake Placid and to Ti.

MASCARENAS: Yeah. I met with them last week. Right now, they are trying to fill spots here in hopes that maybe they can open those offices in the spring. They have a lot of new people working there right now. If you go over there, you will see in the window, it says I am a new employee, I am in training, please be patient those kinds of things so, right now they are trying to stabilize this office. We’re doing a little bit better of a job and I think once they get those people fully trained, operational positions filled, we can talk about maybe opening up those other offices. I know the Ti one was very profitable.

DOTY: Is there a typical length of time to train a person? Two months?

MASCARENAS: Not that I am aware of. Those would be better questions for Chelsea but I did meet with them last week on their staffing issues and those very things just to see where they were headed and thought maybe by spring they would be ready to ramp up and talk about opening one or both of those satellite offices.

DOTY: Very good. Thank you.

McNALLY: I just have a comment. I’m going to bring this to retention and recruitment but this came in my head over the weekend. I work part-time for Target and the trucking industry has had a terrible, terrible problem with retention and recruitment for the last ten years and there’s thousands of drivers across the country and what trucking companies have done in the last year is and I don’t know this is feasible legally or what the cost would be but a lot of the companies now are going to a weekly paycheck and the reason is like the county employees and a lot of truckers in the area, a lot of these people live paycheck to paycheck and if the cost is too expensive that may be a good recruitment tool. A lot of people rely on their paycheck and waiting two weeks is a hardship and it’s just something I want to put out there, I don’t know Dan is there a legality about weekly pay? Or if we could come up possibly before that meeting with a cost on that?

MASCARENAS: I think for us what we would really have to consider is what’s the administrative burden? Right? Everywhere you look here in the county is we have people here wearing multiple hats doing multiple jobs so I can tell you, in the Treasurer’s department people, they are not just running payroll they are also doing your journal entries, they are keeping your projects straight, that kind of thing. In Jenn’s office, there’s one girl that spends a few days doing payroll stuff and then they are turning around and doing other work for HR insurance all t hose types of things. So I think we really have to look at what the administrative burden is, what would we have to hire additional individuals to be able to pull this off and what that cost would be.

McNALLY: Maybe just to be another tool, to make the county a better place to work. I’ll bring that up through the committee. Thank you.

SCOZZAFAVA: I think that would be monumental, you just went to Munis, I mean, I am just thinking of the – I don’t know of any municipalities that pay weekly? If there is one here, let me know. I’m not aware of any.

MASCARENAS: We can certainly check. We can run a survey out there and see if any of them are doing that.

SCOZZAFAVA: It would be great but –

McNALLY: I know that now if you go to a job advertisement for trucking jobs the first thing is, paid weekly and I know what the county employees get paid and I know what inflation is. I know the cost of living, to buy a house, I mean, this would be very welcoming to the employees I’m sure so if it’s doable and the cost is not prohibited, I think we should look into it.

SCOZZAFAVA: It certainly isn’t helping Mountain Lakes. I think they pay weekly.

McNALLY: You know, if the cost isn’t too much it’s a benefit to the employees. You know a lot of people struggle waiting two weeks for a paycheck is a hardship.

DEZALIA: Okay, anything else further for Jenn? Okay, thank you Jenn. Next up is Clerk of the Board and we’ll start by saying, Happy Birthday Judy.

GARRISON: Thank you. I submitted a monthly report and I do not have anything in addition to that unless anyone has any questions for me?

DEZALIA: Anything for Judy? No, thank you. Next, up we’ll have Dan.

MANNING: I don’t have anything but I would ask that we move into executive session for a few items, legal advice relative to the jail lease, the Golden Ring property in the North Elba, the Westport Hotel and in addition to those, a personnel matter relative to the hiring and employment history of a particular individual.

DEZALIA: Moved by Ken and seconded by Matt. All in favor. We will move into executive session.

THE COMMITTEE MOVED INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION AT 10:10 A.M. TO RECEIVE LEGAL ADVICE RELATIVE TO THE JAIL LEASE, THE GOLDEN RING PROPERTY IN NORTH ELBA, THE WESTPORT HOTEL AND TO DISCUSS A PERSONNEL MATTER RELATIVE TO HIRING AND EMPLOYMENT HISTORY OF A PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL.

THE COMMITTEE MOVED BACK INTO OPEN SESSION AT 11:00 A.M.

DEZALIA: All right, we will move back into session. Moved by Mr. Monty, seconded by Mr. Stanley and we’ll give it to Dan now.

MANNING: Thank you. No decisions were made in executive session; it was just subject to my legal advice on a few matters but I did have a couple of things that I did want to bring up. The first is I’d like to ask for a resolution reclassifying the current position of DSS Attorney from DSS offices to my office and reclassifying that as an Assistant County Attorney position at the rate of $82,000.00, for Claudia Russell who now will be doing exclusively child support and family hearing work that I might assign her. This resolution is necessary because Claudia, at her private practice has represented numerous individuals and if these cases are still current that would be a conflict if she were in the Office of the DSS Counsel so will now be under my office. The law provides that I can assign her family court work under the County Law so that resolution again, $82,000.00, reclassifying the position from the DSS Attorney’s position to a County Attorney position and a budget transfer, this is already in the DSS line so a budget transfer for this money in it and all benefits and costs associated with that salary.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE RECLASSIFICATION OF DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES ATTORNEY TO AN ASSISTANT COUNTY ATTORNEY AT THE RATE OF $82,000.00 A YEAR FOR CLAUDIA RUSSELL AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING ANY BUDGET TRANSFERS FOR ALL BENEFITS AND COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SALARY. DeLoria, Barber

DEZALIA: Is there any further discussion on that resolution? All in favor.

MANNING: Next, as you know we’re involved in a piece of property located in the Town of North Elba, which was previously owned by Golden Ring International. In order to get some clarity on what’s going on it’s going to be necessary that we commission a survey of the property. We are sort of under some time constraints in respect to getting this survey. Robert Marvin is a local surveyor has already surveyed this property and knows it well and because of the exigencies of the circumstances that we’re under, I would recommend that we commission Mr. Marvin to prepare a survey, metes and bounds and set all corners with respect to our property we took in foreclosure in the amount of $3500.00. So I would ask for a motion, a second and a vote.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ROBERT MARVIN, SURVEYOR TO SURVEY A PIECE OF PROPERTY TOOK IN FORECLOSURE, LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF NORTH ELBA IN THE AMOUNT OF $3500.00. Stanley, Hughes

DEZALIA: Any further discussion on that survey? All in favor.

MANNING: That’s all I had.

DEZALIA: Anything else to come before the Personnel Committee?

MONTY: I’ve got the applications for the United Way here. I did also want to add, there’s 36 partner agencies in this brochure. Your money can go directly to those partner agencies without any admin taken out. If you give it to the United Way, our current admin is approximately 14% of it for your knowledge. Thank you.

DEZALIA: Thank you Jim. All right, we’ll call this adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this Personnel Committee it was adjourned at 11:05 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors