Employee Advisory Committee (EAC)

Approved 08/07/2025 Employee Advisory Committee June 5, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. MEETING MINUTES West Training Room 212 SW 9th St Lawton, OK 73501 The meeting was called to order by Chairperson, Kaitlin Golden at 2:01 pm 1. Roll Call Members Present: Kobe Humble – EAC # 1 Tanya Organ – EAC # 2 Cristny Halye – EAC #3 Michell Rosario – EAC # 4 Kristen Fitzpatrick – EAC # 6 Ashlynn Foy – EAC # 7 Adam Benoit – EAC # 8 Kaitlin Golden – At Large # 1 Ashton Wall – At Large # 2 Members Absent: Peter Mortensen – At Large # 3 *Excused ** Not Excused Vacancies: EAC # 5 Others Present: Craig Akard, Human Resources Ashley Nauni, Human Resources Rosie Torries, Human Resources Approved 08/07/2025 2. Consider approval of the minutes of the Employee Advisory Committee (EAC) Regular meeting of May 1, 2025. Motion made by Ashlyn with a second by Kristen to approve regular meeting of May 1, 2025 AYES: Humble, Organ, Rosario, Fitzpatrick, Foy, Benoit, Golden, Wall No’s: None ABSTAIN: Hayle Motion passed 8-0-1. 3. OLD BUSINESS: Chairperson Golden, we don’t have any old business this month 4. NEW BUSINESS: A. Consider and discuss a vote for employee nominated for Spotlight Award – Take action as needed. Chairperson Golden, we do not have any new nominations. So, Tracey Fife came back because of how we bring back the last 6 months worth of nominations. Does anyone have questions or comments? Kristen, I’ve known Tracey for many years. He goes above and beyond with CDL training. He is a good guy and a lot of people look up to him. He is very deserving of this award. Motion made by Michelle with a second by Kristen to give Tracey Fife the employee spotlight nomination. AYES: Humble, Organ, Halye, Rosario, Fitzpatrick, Foy, Benoit, Golden, Wall NO’s: None ABSTAIN: Motion passed 9-0-0 B. Discuss the employee appreciation event – take action as needed. Approved 08/07/2025 Chairperson Golden, we have to cancel the June employee appreciation event. I have spoken to the subcommittee. The deadlines for purchase orders, requisitions, and paying deadlines shifted unexpectedly, even for finance. We just didn’t have enough put together to get the requisitions in by the deadline so we decided to cannel for the summer. We did toss around the idea of moving it to the fall, permanently. If it’s in the fall, we don’t have to be concerned about the deadlines, graduations, and everything else going on in June. A lot less to compete with. We can revisit after July 1 and discuss if we want to keep the same circus theme or come up with something different. If it works out really well in the fall we can keep it that way. Does anyone have questions, thoughts? C. Discuss bi-annual recommendations – take action as needed. Chairperson Golden, no official list drafted yet. It is due in July so right now is the time to bring it up or email me before our July meeting so I can get it in the memo and bring you all a copy of what I intend to give the City Manager. I will keep the same stuff as last time, COLA, longevity, and spotlight. I believe the idea we have for longevity is decent so I don’t intend to make any changes. D. Discuss adding alternatives – take action as needed. Chairperson Golden, Cristny brought up the question of whether this committee would be a good committee to have alternates. Maybe have an alternate voted in or appointed at the time. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Craig does that sound like something that is not against any policies that you’re aware of? Craig, what do you mean by having someone appointed at that time? Cristny, so what I brought up originally was, I was going on vacation and I was going to miss one of the meetings and I sent Ashley Glaze-Lyle in my place. However, Ashley is not a representative for my group therefore she can come, be here, and listen, but she cannot vote or help us make a quorum if we are short. So my idea was what if we can designate somebody at least a week in advance if we know we are not going to be here, or a day or 72 hours where we can designate a person who can represent our groups should that be necessary. I wanted to preemptively set that up because I heard that before I came onto the EAC, there were issues sometimes that a quorum wasn’t being made. Approved 08/07/2025 Craig, the closest thing I could think of would be the Health and Wellness Committee where each member has an alternate. It can’t be a situation where you know you are going to be gone 72 hours in advance and you say I am going to send this person as my alternate. You have to have one designated alternate. You can set it up where each person has an alternate or you can designate, let’s say, four alternates in general and they can cover anyone. You can designate them alternate 1, 2, 3, and 4 or rotate them each meeting. You will have to have a way to designate each alternate for each meeting and not have all four show up expecting to be able to vote. Kaitlin, kind of like a roster? Craig, yes. But, you will need to figure out how you want to do it because it will require a code change to allow an alternate to sit in your place. You will have to figure out how you want to do it. Do you want to designate an alternate for each person? You wouldn’t wan to hold elections for the alternates, just elections for the people who sit on the committee. Kaitlin, I like the idea of having a couple or a few because I cannot imagine trying to bring 22 people into such a small space. Craig, the alternates don’t have to show up if they know their member will be here. They can if they wan to, but it isn’t required. Kaitlin, if anyone has thoughts or comes up with something different, shoot me an email because I am going to try to draft up the recommendation letter. Does anyone currently have anything besides the COLA, longevity, or alternates that they would like to see on the recommendation letter to the City Manager? Craig, regarding your longevity, Fire Department has a proposal in their contract to have their longevity reinstated. Their proposal is to start their longevity the same way the Police Department starts theirs. Which would be at the end of 10 years. At the start of your 11th year, you would collect longevity in the amount of $100 for each year you have been employed. Which would be $1,000 at the end of 10 years. You will have a better shot if you go about it the same way Fire and Police do. Kaitlin, because then it is consistent across all 3 employee groups? Craig, I won’t say it won’t ever happen at 4. I am just saying you will probably have a better shot if it is closer to those other employee groups. Approved 08/07/2025 Kaitlin, if we match it to the other employee groups for now, we can always request changes in the future. We can always come back and revisit at a later time. Because, their contracts are every 3 years? 5 years? Craig, this will be their 3 year. The last one was 6 and that was too long. Kaitlin, and Police is also 3? Craig, their current one is. It ends at the end of this upcoming fiscal year, 2026. Kaitlin, in 3-5 years it can start shifting again with those employee groups too. So we can revisit it. I will update the longevity portion to match what Police and Fire are doing to hopefully improve our chances of consideration on that. E. Discuss the possibility of life insurance for part-time employees – take action as needed. Chairman Golden, do part-time people get life insurance? Craig, I will find out and I will send it to you. Kaitlin, let’s table it for July. Can I get a motion? Motion made by Ashlynn with a second by Cristny to table the discussion until our July 3 meeting. AYES: Humble, Organ, Halye, Rosario, Fitzpatrick, Foy, Benoit, Golden, Wall NO’s: None ABSTAIN: Motion passed 9-0-0 F. Discuss EAC Group – take action as needed. Chairman Golden, this is Craig’s turn. Craig, I am going to pass around a couple of different versions. The reason for this is because we have had a lot of changes. One department is no longer a department, Community Services, it is now a division of Parks and Rec. However, Parks and Rec. is no longer Parks and Rec., it is now Community Enrichment. Neighborhood Services is now Safe and Clean Neighborhood Services. We’ve got a lot of name changes and departments/divisions that have moved from one to another. So, technically they’re under a different group now. So, what I’ve done is made two different Approved 08/07/2025 versions with name changes. EAC group number 4 under version 1 is quite large. What I did between the two versions is I took Arts and Humanities and McMahon Auditorium out of group 4 because they are no longer under Parks & Rec., they’re under City Manager. So I moved them up to group 1, which would be the City Managers office. Kaitlin, that makes sense if that’s is how they’re organized now. Craig, the problem being is that will adjust the dynamics on EAC. Kaitlin, is Michell group 4? Michell, yes and I am Arts and Humanities. Craig, please look at this. I’m not expecting any action on this today. We can bring it back next month. Decide as a group how you’d like to do that. I also got rid of groups 9 and 10. They were the old groups before we had the two other At Large people. As you see, group 5 is staying the same and that is the group we have no representation for right now. Group 7, Streets and Stormwater Maintenance, they recently combined those two. There is still the same amount, but no longer 2 divisions. If you can think of a way to change it around, maybe group 5, if there is interest from other people, maybe from one of the other groups? Kristen, I was going to suggest that I absorb group 7. Equipment Maintenance will not have anybody who is able to be on the EAC. Kaitlin, Same with Solid Waste because they run routes Kristen, I am okay with absorbing group 7 if you guys are? I am there with them and speak to them regularly. Kaitlin, the only issue I can foresee is if we take a group out, that will give us an even number and we need an odd number. Craig, if she absorbs group 5, do you want to split up one of the other groups? All of group 4 is CE. It will be hard to split them up because you may have two representatives on the EAC from the same department. You can split up group 1 and 2. Kaitlin, there have been a lot of changes. Cristny, what would it take to move Peter to the open position and Michell to the At Large? Peter is our At Large but his group, group 5, has an opening. Approved 08/07/2025 Craig, because every position is elected. We would have to put it to the City. If nobody fills 5 and peter wants to go to 5, he can. Kaitlin, he will need to go to the Clerk’s office. Because, the position is open but if he volunteers then we can vote him in during a meeting. Craig, let me check on that and see. Because, we get into a situation where you’re moving him here and moving Michell out of a group she was elected for. Michell, my term is up this year. Kaitlin, yes, even groups are on odd years and odds are on even years. Michell, so my term is up this year in October. So, after that it would be okay to shift things around. My term will be over anyway. Cristny, so do we delay? Kaitlin, well, it might take that much time anyway. If we review it for a month, vote on it, it has to go to council, and then a month or it to take effect. So we’re looking at about that long anyway. Craig, correct. It probably wouldn’t go to Council until the last meeting in July or the first in August. Any ordinance change doesn’t go into effect until 30 days after approval. We just need to get this done. I wouldn’t suggest any more At Large positions, I would keep the groups. Kaitlin, I agree Craig, if we change the code on the other deal, we can do it at the same time. I can submit this to the Council, on an agenda item, but it is up to the Manager. I just would suggest to bring everything to the Council at the same time instead of bringing one item to them and then two weeks later bringing another item to them. Kaitlin, does anybody have any other thoughts or questions? Do we need to table this or bring it back? Craig, we can bring it back under old business Approved 08/07/2025 5. COMMENT/CONCERN: Chairperson, I don’t have anything. ADJOURNMENT: Motion to adjourn by Ashton second by Cristny. Adjournment 2:11 pm Next meeting schedule for July 3, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. in the Banquet Room.