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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015_0825_Minutes Open_APPROVEDCOUNTY OF KAUAI Minutes of Meeting OPEN SESSION Approved as circulated 9/22/15 Board/Committee: CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION Meeting Date August 25, 2015 Location Mo'ikeha Building, Liquor Control Commission, Meeting Room 3 Start of Meeting: 3:05 p.m. End of Meeting: 3:34 p.m. Present Chair Roy Morita; Vice Chair John Low. Members: Elizabeth Hahn; Jeffrey Iida; Richard Jose Also: Deputy Attorney Nick Courson; Boards & Commissions Office Staff: Support Clerk Barbara Davis; Administrator Jay Furfaro; Director of HR Janine Rapozo Excused Members: Nancy Golden; Karen Matsumoto Absent y S3 „ -, 1 tt: t )t j tt Y t I SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Call To Chair Morita called the meeting to order at 3:05 Order/Roll Call p.m. with 5 members present. Approval of Open Session Minutes of June 23, 2015 Ms. Hahn moved to approve the minutes as Minutes circulated. Mr. Jose seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Business CSC 2015 -06 Discussion on adopting Guidelines for Implementing Civil Service Commission Procedures for the Selection, Evaluation and Dismissal of the Director of Human Resources and possible decision - making to schedule a Public Hearing on adding such Rule Changes as Subchapter 7 (On-going Attorney Courson said he would like to review this with the Administrator, Mr. Furfaro, before he presents suggestions to the Commission for decision making. Ms. Rapozo said the guidelines do not need to go to public hearing; it was something the Planning Commission did so when it came time to implement that rule if they needed to hire or fire the director they would have a guideline on the steps to follow. The Rules would need to be approved to go to public hearing. Staff said the decision has not been made as to whether the guidelines should be rolled into the Rules as a stepping stone for the future or just remain as a guideline. Ms. Rapozo explained the process and reasoning the Planning Department used in keeping the guidelines separate from their Civil Service Commission Open Session August 25, 2015 Page 2 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Rules. Mr. Low recalled the Civil Service Commission had discussed the options before and they also did not want to tie the guidelines to the Rules. Director's CSC 2015 -13 July 2015 Director's Report Reports a. Report 15 -01 from the Office of the County Auditor on the Audit of County Hiring Practices, January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2013 b. Report 15 -02 from the Office of the County Auditor on the Audit of Count�Pa r�ystem, January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2013 Ms. Rapozo explained that July was the start of the new fiscal year, and with that came a lot of changes such as new contracts for Units 2, 3, and 4. There were also pay increases, which meant a lot of transactions that had to be put into the system. Also, attached to the July report was the audit that PKF Pacific did on the hiring practices and the payroll system. Subsequent to HR going before the County Council, a briefing was done by the consultants to the Council in which Council carne back with a bunch of questions for HR. The way the audit was done for both the hiring practices and the payroll was a snapshot in time in that they would look at a particular pay period, and whether something was or was not done. Some of the processes are delayed and the correction may be done in a subsequent pay period, but the auditors did not look further to make sure something was corrected. They said their scope was just to look at that snapshot in tune. Our department went through each of the findings, and basically all of the errors were corrected at some point in time, which was covered in our response to the County Council. Ms. Rapozo offered to get copies of the response to the Commission at a later point in time. CSC 2015 -14 August 2015 Director's Report a. April -June 2015 Quarterly Report to the County Council Ms. Rapozo said the County Council quarterly report may be changing for the Civil Service Commission Open Session August 25, 2015 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION vacancies listed. The County Attorney's Office has advised that some of the infonnation Council has been asking for may not be something that should be released, so there is an amendment to the budget ordinance to change that report to be in compliance with ensuring that the confidentiality of employees are protected in those reports. A proposed change in the proviso to the budget ordinance is that the report will be submitted twice a year to Council rather than quarterly. During budget review that report is very important to the Council so they know what positions are vacant, and what possibly they do not need to fill. Ms. Hahn complimented Ms. Rapozo on her thoroughness and agreed going to a report twice a year makes so much sense with all the other work they have to do. As a Commissioner, Ms. Hahn stated she was not so much interested in what happened in the past because those issues were rectified or addressed in some way. She did emphasize she is more interested in how they are going forward with the new HR, and dealing with the many, many challenges they have now. Mr. Low added that he was disappointed that the auditor's report, whether they chose the snapshot approach or a longer approach, they were aware (the department) had gone through a transition, but there was no mention of that in the report. That was unfair to the department and resulted in negative press unnecessarily. Ms. Rapozo said when the auditor's office informed the Administration that they were looking at these two audits the Administration did communicate back to the auditor's office that it might not be the most opportune time to do this because they were in transition. If you audit the times before the transition, it will be meaningless because steps have already been taken to correct those areas, but they still proceeded with the audit. Ms. Rapozo pointed out to the Council that the audit was not until 2013 and they audited payroll; payroll was still at the Finance Department then. Mr. Low stated that Ms. Rapozo was very professional with her response. Chair Morita said it was frustrating to watch it on TV, and agreed that Ms. Rapozo had done Civil Service Commission Open Session August 25, 2015 Page 4 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION a good job. Mr. Furfaro agreed that Ms. Rapozo had done an excellent job, and pointed out that the concerns raised were within the scope of this Commission with regard to the audit with the fact of the matter being that PKF identified things, but they did not attempt to make any trail to see if the correction was done. This Commission could send a message to either expand the scope of future audits to actually follow a trail, or be more specific about what the auditors are looking at so it is more transparent that the problems are being identified. Ms. Hahn asked who determines when and where there will be an audit and who pays for it. Mr. Furfaro stated the County has an audit department. It is the role of the audit department and the head auditor each year at budget time to submit a plan to the Council that is supported by the audit department's operating budget. They may list four to six audits that they plan to schedule; some may be contracted out specifically like a payroll audit. The general audit is done every other year by law and gives the County their cash position, but fuel, permitting for parks, and so forth that scope is left to the auditor to make a presentation at budget time to the Council, and is supported by the audit department's line by line budget. Any new audits after that is submitted must go back to the Council to propose a new audit, or if Council proposes a new audit, in order to finance the contract for that audit. Ms. Hahn wondered if one of the considerations as to why the audit did not go any further than the snapshot was because the scope of the audit was determined by the budget. Mr. Furfaro pointed out that the audit department would lay that out, but the Commission could send in comments that ask for more specifics about an audit trail. Ms. Hahn said if the Commission wants to take an action, and she appreciates Mr. Low's comment regarding there being no mention about the transition, but Civil Service Commission Open Session August 25, 2015 Page 5 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION if this is our in -house audit people it would not be out of this Commission's purview to make a suggestion that shows the Commission paid attention to this and noted there was no mention of the transition. Mr. Iida agreed and said he thought it was a waste of time and money because HR was in transition. Chair Morita said if you look at it, the audit started in 2009; in 2010 and 2011 HR and the transition were in its infancy stage, so the timing was bad. Ms. Rapozo said currently there is no auditor and she is not aware of any planned audits. Mr. Furfaro said as mentioned earlier, the County is only required to do an audit every other year. Ms. Hahn felt it was best not to get involved at this point, but to note in the minutes that the Commission had observed those certain things, and for the future when we know something like this is coming up we can say what we would prefer to see going forward. Ms. Rapozo did speak to the auditors and was very disappointed after they did their field work as normally you get an exit (interview) with them to go over everything; we did not have an exit interview. The auditors just submitted their report and gave us one week to comment. Ms. Rapozo called the auditors saying they gave findings with no details, so it was disappointing. Mr. Low said he would rather wait to see how Council comments on the response from Ms. Rapozo, and if HR is thrown under the bus then the Commission might need to correct some of the information that we know is misleading to which the Commission agreed. Comments were made that for an audit to go back 6 years seemed more like a witch hunt rather than to have something that is constructive. Mr. Low moved to receive the Director's reports. Mr. lida seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Executive Mr. Iida moved to go into Executive Session at Session 3:30 p.m. Mr. Jose seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Attorney Courson read the Hawai'i Revised Statutes as detailed on the agenda to take the Civil Service Commission Open Session August 25, 2015 Page 6 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Commission into Executive Session for ES -014 and ES -010. Return to Open Ratify Commission actions taken in Executive Session for items: Ms. Halm moved to ratify actions taken in ES -014 and ES -010 Session Executive Session for items ES -014 and ES -010. Mr. Iida seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Announcements Next Meeting: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 — 2:00 p.m. Adjournment Mr. Jose moved to adjourn the meeting at 3:34 p.m. Mr. Iida seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Submitted by: Barbara Davis, Staff Support Clerk () Approved as circulated. () Approved with amendments. See minutes of Reviewed and Approved by: meeting. Roy Morita, Chair