Author: John Kaufmann

During the gestation of the charter, the Commission wrestled with what the role of the mayor should be.  Given that they had eliminated all the administrative duties that the mayor under the current charter has, they still wanted the new mayor to play some sort of leadership role beyond running the council meetings and appearing at public events representing the city.

If you were obsessive like me and listened to the charter meetings you would have heard members of the charter commission articulate a vision of the mayor as kind of a community organizer.  This mayor would work in the community to mobilize resources for unspecified projects.  The problem was that they could not find language to put in the charter that articulated this concept.  Instead they incorporated the following items under the mayor’s list of duties (section 2.04):

“Represent the City in Intergovernmental relationships”

“Perform other duties as may be specified by the City Council.”

Consistent with the lack of clarity surrounding this new type mayor, the Commission never specified whether this person would be part time or full time.  They raised the salary to $40,000.00 but the rationale for choosing this number, which has been discussed at length in other posts, had no discernible logic.

Some members of the charter commission saw the position as part time, others offered that some mayors will spend more time on the job than others.  It seemed particularly odd that the position includes health benefits.  The commission was quite proud that they had eliminated health benefits for the other members of the council.  They never explained why a position that appeared to be part time would receive these benefits.  Health benefits can cost the city upwards of $25,000.00.  The position seems to suffer from the neither fish nor fowl syndrome.  The position still seems to pay too little to get someone full time with the skill set that they envision.  On the other hand, given that the job includes no administrative duties and the fact that the median salary for mayors statewide in municipalities that have city mangers is $12,000.00 the pay seems too generous.

An Indifference To the Potential Dangers When Clarity Is Lacking

The central management problem with this design of the mayor’s position is that it is simply impossible to draw a clear line between the internal administrative operations of the city and organizing community resources for projects.

As just a practical example, let’s say that this new mayor decides that the city needs another recreation field.  He/she starts meeting with community groups to get input on where this new field should be placed.  In order to pursue this project the mayor will need support from various city departments.  He/she will probably need help from the planning department, from the city engineer, from the administrator for parks and recreation, from the department of public works, and from the city attorney.  In fact, assistance may be necessary even to arrange for meeting rooms and for some kind of administrative assistance to contact people for meetings.  Now according to  section 2.08 of the charter the mayor may only deal with city employees through the city manager. So what this mayor will need most of all is the active support and assistance of the city manager. But what if the city manager has set other priorities for the city and  finds that he/she simply cannot provide the resources the mayor requires for his/her project in a timely manner or at all.  Any sober person with management experience can see the potential for conflict here. If this seems abstract or unnecessarily pessimistic, one has only to do a Google search to learn otherwise.  Here is a link to what happened in Portland, Maine.

Link to Portland Story

My friend, Lew Benton, observed recently that the problem with the proposed charter is that no one is really in charge.  I know this is the criticism often put forward by the Charter Commission regarding our current commission form but Lew appropriately saw a similar problem with the city manager/mayor design proposed by the Charter Review Commission.

This is perhaps why the strong mayor/council form of government is so much more popular in New York than the city manager form.  Only sixteen municipalities in New York State have city managers and a number of cities that tried city managers switched to strong mayors.  With a strong mayor you have greater clarity regarding who is responsible for the management of the city. There is the added advantage that his person is elected and therefore directly responsible to the voters.

The fact is that there is no perfect design.  The strong mayor form has its own problems.  The frustration for me is that the Charter Commission refuses to acknowledge and try to address problems with the government they have designed in their charter.  They simply dismiss any concerns that are raised assuring us that everything will be perfect under their new system.  Problems like those in Portland Maine are ignored.  The need for clarity about distinguishing the roles of the city manager and the proposed mayor in writing their charter are simply not discussed.

Will It Actually Work?  Why Worry?

The last duty of the mayor listed in the proposed charter reads: the mayor shall “perform other duties as may be specified by the City Council” (section )2.04 The inclusion of this provision makes one wonder if any charter members have been observing the city council for the last five decades.  It’s not a stretch at all  to imagine a council asking a mayor to do something and the mayor telling the council, “I don’t have time to do that” or “that would be wrong and I will not do it”?  With respect to the members of the charter review commission, this  represents a serious lack of understanding about government in general and our government in particular.  How do the members of the charter commission expect this to be enforced?  If  readers of this blog think this provision should have been included in the charter, I invite them to explain how they think it will be enforced.

According to the door hanger being distributed by “Its Time”, the public relations arm of the Charter Commission, if the city adopts the proposed charter there will be “No more backroom deals.”  I like this, all our problems will be solved.

Who would not vote for this?

Charter Commission member Jeff Altamari bitterly attacked John Franck in an October 13 Reader’s View  in the Saratogian regarding criticism of the Charter Commission’s analysis of what the proposed change in government will cost.  He wrote:

“Then the shouting started.  At its September 18 City Council meeting (he has the date wrong, it was on the 19^th) …Frank using profanity in the public forum, ridiculed the Commission’s work, accompanied by Madigan and Scirocco.”  Mr. Altamari goes on to urge people to view the video of the meeting.  He further states that “It’s disgraceful Franck angrily claimed the Commission’s findings ‘misrepresented the facts.’” 

I can understand why Mr. Altamari is stung by this criticism but rather than simply state that Franck’s allegations are false, it would have been more convincing and meaningful if he had addressed Franck’s points and  refuted them.

Given the regrettable record of inaccuracies and over statements regularly made by the Charter group, I decided to check out Mr. Altamari’s description of this meeting and watch the video.  Now I can understand and have sympathy for Mr. Altamari reacting viscerally to some very sharp and pointed criticism of his financial analysis of the charter proposal, but I have reviewed the video and to begin with there is no shouting.  I myself did not hear any profanity but I spoke with John Franck and he admits to using the word “bullshit” at one point. While Commissioner Franck is clearly disturbed by what he characterizes as numbers that simply lack logical credibility, neither he nor any of the other Council members, in my opinion, lose their composure.

I am terribly disappointed in Mr. Altamari. Although I have often disagreed with him, I had heretofore seen him as prudent and responsible.  This attack on Commissioner Franck seems  recklessly exaggerated on Mr. Altamri’s part and  out of character.  It cheaply plays to the prejudices of many regarding politicians.  I, like Mr. Altamari urge the readers of this blog to take the time to watch the video and decide for themselves.  

Video of September 19

In his letter Mr.Altamari also makes the kind of absolute statements that have been unfortunately  too commonly used by Charter supporters.   “There is no accountability”  he writes referring to the current city government. This is the kind of sound bite that so troubles me.  City council members are acutely aware that they must run for office every two years.   Would he not  consider that  accountability?  I would urge the readers to review his letter.  He goes on to claim that “Timely, long-term planning is nearly impossible.”  This shrill overstatement ignores  the city’s capital budget which does exactly that and has produced the bike trail, addressed the swamp that used to plague Congress Park, replaces aging fire trucks, etc.  Mr. Altamari does not do nuance.

In his explanation of how he arrived at some of the numbers in his financial impact statement Mr. Altamari writes that “over 20 cities with city managers were examined.” (He later refers to 31) He notes that “thirteen of these were studied in-depth [emphasis added]: five in New York, three in New Jersey, two in Massachusetts, and one in Vermont.” 

So I went to the Charter Commission’s website and under the tab titled “research” I could not find his study.  As this is one of the bases for their financial plan, it is more than odd that it has so far not been available to the public.  I have written to Robert Turner, the chairperson of the Charter Review Commission asking for a copy  of the study.  When I receive it I will share it with the readers of this blog. 

I would note that while looking at how city manager governments are structured in other communities  can be useful, the applicability of these examples is clearly limited.  This is particularly  true in the case of municipalities in other states  where differing mandates and responsibilities for services can have a significant impact on cities’ staffing and budgeting.

The bulk  of the savings Mr. Altamari is claiming in his financial analysis comes from the elimination of four part time commissioners and five full time deputies. It simply begs credibility that a man of Mr. Altamari’s experience would recommend the elimination of all of these employees based on looking at other cities rather than carefully analyzing what essential functions these people may perform in Saratoga Springs and how many hours these activities entail before assuming that a proposed city manager and maybe an assistant could absorb these duties.  There is also the suggestion that existing staff such as the city’s director of finance or the fire chief or the chief of police would take on some of the duties.  Unfortunately, neither Mr. Altamari nor the Commission saw the need to actually ask any of these people if they had the time to absorb these extra responsibilities.

The Commission also assumes there will be savings from two positions a year eliminated through attrition.  Even Commissioner Mathiesen who is a strong advocate for charter change characterized that as unrealistic.

It is quite frustrating to me that Mr. Altamari is fully aware of these criticisms but has chosen not to address them.  Whatever one thinks of Mr. Franck’s comportment it does  not  absolve Mr. Altamari from answering the very legitimate concerns expressed at the Council meeting on the 19th. 

At the next City Council meeting on October 3^rd  John Franck did a power point presentation on why he contends that the Charter Commission’s financial analysis badly misrepresent the true costs of implementing the proposed charter.   It is no rant.  He meticulously and methodically lays out the errors in the document.  His presentation goes well beyond the issue of the eliminated positions. 

Persons truly interested in assessing whether the financial document is accurate and valid would do well to take the time to watch the video.  I  have included the power point visuals here.   

Power Point Presentation:

And the video of the presentation:

I also urge Mr. Altamari to thoughtfully respond to Commissioner Franck’s critique in the manner it deserves.  I would be happy to post unedited his point by point answers or post a video of his response if he would prefer that medium.  Since this is such an important issue in deciding whether or not to support the charter, I can think of no reason why a person like Mr. Altamari who is committed to educating the public would not take the time to address the issues. 

Finally, SUCCESS has approached both John Franck and Jeff Altamari about participating in a debate which seems to me the best way to serve the public and address the issues.  Commissioner Franck has accepted and SUCCESS is awaiting Mr. Altamari’s response.  Hopefully he will be willing to attend.

Remigia Foy is an old friend with a legacy of service for this city.  She has asked me to post on my site a letter she has written .

A brief bio:

Ms. Foy served three terms as Commissioner of Finance.  She was a Fulbright Scholar twice .  She was the assistant vice principal of Mechanicville High School.

During her tenure as Commissioner of Finance she was a full-time Social Studies teacher. She also taught a course at St. Rose.

10/12/17

For some months your readership has been treated to a series of news articles and letters to the editor advocating for a new system of Government in Saratoga Springs known as City Manager/Mayor by the Charter Review Commission. This new system is predicated on the following notions;

1 The Commission System does not work because it is old and outdated having been instituted in 1915,

2 Council members act as both the legislative and administrative heads of Departments. This is also called the five-headed monster, The five silos or the five fiefdoms and doesn’t work.

3 The professional Manager will eliminate dysfunction of Elected Officials managing Administrative Departments in conflict with one another.

4 The proposed Charter will bring competition to local elections.

Let’s remember that 11 of the 15 members of this Committee were appointed by Mayor Yepsen who is in favor of Charter change.

They didn’t analyze the present Charter and make some changes. They already had the idea for a new Charter based on  Pat Kane’s 2012 Charter proposal which was soundly defeated by1750 votes

They claim that this bogus system, under the aegis of “Professional Leader”, will eliminate political bickering, the dysfunction of administrative/ legislative heads of departments, reduce the cost of Government and bring competition to local  elections.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Commissioners are in a better position to prepare budgets for the departments they head. They are both responsible and accountable and answer to the taxpayers every two years.

Furthermore, the elimination of the independently elected assessor will mean that the person who decides the value of a property will not be elected by the people.

Under our present system, we enjoy the second lowest property tax rate in the State. There has been plenty of competition for elected offices in our city. When there is no competition could it be that the people are satisfied?

Our system has succeeded through two World Wars, two recessions 1929 and 2008 and the times in between. No one knows what a faceless unelected bureaucrat will cost and how he will run all the departments that’s why I am voting NO and urge Saratogians to do the same.

Remigia Foy.95 oak st saratoga springs NY 518 584 2528…Former Commissioner of Finance 3 terms and chair of Success.

One of the key arguments put forward by the Charter Commission for changing the form of government is a “survey” that purports to show an overwhelming desire by city employees to change the form of government.   Given my past experience with the declarations of the Commission I secured a copy of the raw data of the survey to take a look at it for myself.  What I found was yet again, the extraordinary misuse of data by the Commission in their literature and presentations.

Surveying is a serious business.  To the lay person it’s about just asking people some questions.  A century of academic study has shown that to produce valid data, the authors must be disinterested and objective.  The crafting of questions, the method by which people are selected, and the vehicle by which the targets of the survey are contacted require a vigorous and time consuming process.  The reality is that a poorly designed survey provides unreliable results.  A survey to be a source of real decision making must address things like how representative are the respondents of the population under consideration?   In the case of this “survey”, the respondents were self selected  meaning the respondents had to take the initiative to respond, they were not randomly selected. There is no way of knowing therefore to what extent those who chose to respond might be representative of city employees as a  whole. Might those who responded, for instance, be those who are particularly unhappy with their jobs or have something else in common. The chair of the charter commission, Bob Turner, admitted that he had no idea who actually got the surveys.  In fact, he admitted at a meeting I attended that he did not know how many people were actually surveyed.

We do know that of 398 city employees 75 responded to the survey according to the Commission’s website.

Of the 75 employees, 70 responded to the following statement (#15): I believe city hall would operate better with a full time professional city manager.

The 70 respondents produced the following results:

Strongly Agree                                  17

Agree                                                  13

Somewhat Agree                              18

Neither Agree Nor Disagree            12

Somewhat Disagree                         10

Interestingly, unlike the other questions in the survey, for this question they changed the possible responses.  In the other survey questions they had:

Strongly agree

Somewhat agree

Neither agree or disagree

Strongly disagree

Why they chose to change the responses to this question is a mystery to me.  It may have just been sloppiness.  By the way, the label at the bottom of the chart for those opposed was mislabeled (see chart)

So if you total the first three responses which indicate some kind of support for a city manager you come up with 48.  In order to create the greatest contrast, they factored out the people who had no position.  This left the 10 who did not think city hall would operate better with a city manager.

Now since these raw numbers were still embarrassingly small, they chose to use percentages Instead.  This very much ginned up the impression for the public of their significance.  Remember that these are only the percentages of the 70 who responded to this particular question in the survey and not of city employees.

The result is a chart that shows 65.3% pro city manager and 15.3% negative.

So from a small, unscientific sampling—kaboom: the Commission declares the employees of Saratoga Springs overwhelmingly support charter change.

Now I don’t know what the numbers are in city hall regarding feelings toward the two forms of government but neither do the members of the Charter Commission based on this kind of “research.”  What I do know is that  this should be considered a “questionnaire” rather than a survey.  It violates pretty much all the standards of what any serious social scientist would characterize as a survey and it’s results are anecdotal at best and cannot be legitimately used to draw any larger conclusions about what city employees think.

Robert Turner, who chairs the Charter Review Commission is a professor of political science.  He was instrumental in creating this “questionnaire” and in reporting its results.  For a person who is a social scientist he has both the knowledge and the responsibility to accurately portray what the data produced by this questionnaire represented.  If he were not going to characterize it as what it was, a questionnaire, he had the responsibility to include some disclaimer explaining to the public the limited character of the data.    Instead, he and the Charter Commission have recklessly presented these results as evidence of widespread discontent in city hall and support for a change of government on the part of city employees.  I finish with a quote from a letter to the editor Mr. Turner published in the Saratogian on September 10^th.

“These results explain why 63.3 percent of City Hall employees said they believed city hall would operate better with a city manager.”  No, Mr. Turner, they indicate that 48 out of 398 city employees ,roughly 12%, have indicated some level of support for a city manager form.

The conflict over charter change has at times descended to some very bad places.  It is too easy, if humanly understandable, to slide into personal animosity or to view the issue of charter change as some kind of competition rather than a question of public policy.  I must admit, I have not been immune to all of this.  In the end, such reactions not only undermine thoughtful analysis but are downright unhealthy for one’s peace of mind.

Readers may disagree with me, but I think it is possible to characterize someone’s actions as for instance unethical without going into Manichean mode where one sees the person as “bad.”  None of us is without sin and we are capable of failures in judgment which doesn’t make us “evil.”

What I have found is that many of the people I chat with have taken on a tribal mentality.  Anything the other side says is not even listened to.

In the course of moderating this blog I have rejected a number of comments that were simply ad homonym.  I have no problem publishing criticisms, even sharp ones, as long as the tone is reasonably civil and the author offers documentation for their assertions.

I have long been concerned over the problem of motivating people to run for office.  The problem is not unique to Saratoga Springs.  It seems increasingly difficult to get people to run for elected office on all levels of government.  I expect that the increasingly abusive nature of public discourse is contributing to the problem.  It seems citizens feel entirely within their rights to express their displeasure with the decisions of elected officials with open rudeness and contempt.  Who among us wants to be the subject of such abuse?  There is the related issue that elected officials are held in low regard.  The very word politician is something of an epithet.  Nowhere was the contempt for politics more evident than at the Charter Commission’s meetings.  Many members of the Commission repeatedly asserted that they were going to take the politics out of government as though that were a good thing let alone possible.  To some of us, the conflict that they refer to as politics is rooted in the fact that many decisions made by our government have winners and losers.   Unfortunately, in an age of campaign consultants, the conflict over public policy has often taken on such ugly excesses as to leave the public alienated from their own democracy.

For me the most compelling question is how do we get good people to run for office?

Having To Run A Department Is A Significant Impedimant For Some People Thinking of Running Locally

The Charter Review Commission has identified a real problem with the commission form of government which is that it adds a significant disincentive for people considering running for office.   The idea of becoming the executive for one of the city’s departments is downright intimidating to some people.  Commissioner Chris Mathiesen, who I believe has done a superb job heading Public Safety, has described to me the grueling time required by the position and the stress that comes with running an institution that the citizens of this city rely on.

I, in fact, was prepared to support a change in government that would make it easier for people to run.  The health of our democracy requires finding citizens prepared to take on the burden of elected office. 

The question for me then became how can we make it easier for more people to run for office and to structure any new model in a way that is as responsive to the citizens as possible.

While going to a council that has only legislative duties is a step in the right direction, in the real world I believe this will  have only a modest impact on the candidate pool.  According to the proposed charter the new legislators will run “at large.”  In other words, they will have to run citywide.  To me, this represents a very large hurdle to get over.  The traditional way to run is to knock on doors in order to make personal contact with voters and to do mailings and use other media.  Knocking on doors is, to say the least, hugely time consuming and increasingly difficult to do in Saratoga Springs. The proliferation of apartments and condos and large estates make large numbers of voters impossible to meet .  Raising money to do mailings is also a problem.  Many people who would make good legislators find it understandably hard to ask others for money.  I know that personally, I find it more than awkward.  It also raises the importance of money in general.  People may recall that the Chamber of Commerce helped set up a PAC which offered money to the candidates that the Chamber and its allies felt would represent their interests.  In the last campaign at least one of the candidates for Mayor raised over $100,000.00 for the campaign.  So while ending the administrative responsibilities for elected officials would be an improvement, the Charter Review Commission’s approach still leaves the power of money in our elections very much a continuing problem.

With that in mind, I urged the Charter Commission to have candidates represent districts within the city.  Unfortunately, this raised that nasty word, “ward.”  Between Tammany Hall and Mayor Daley of Chicago, the word seems to generate a visceral reaction among many people, the members of the Charter Commission among them. 

In the course of writing this blog I have met many fine people from all across this city who have been involved in local conflicts regarding development issues in their neighborhoods.  I have observed that in the best tradition of democracy, leaders have arisen for whom their neighbors developed trust and respect.   It seemed pretty clear to me that it would be far easier to get these people to consider running for office if the voters they had to reach out to lived in their area as neighbors.

This would greatly reduce both the cost in media and the time required to reach out to the people they needed to vote for them.

Consider the related factor.  The dependence of money to buy media for a citywide race goes in the opposite direction.  It allows the people with deep pockets and private agendas greater influence.

There is also the added advantage of a candidate being connected to their constituents.  People are far more likely to know the person representing them on the city council and feel more comfortable approaching them with their concerns.

With respect to the Charter Commission, while I think eliminating the responsibility to run a department will eliminate a significant barrier, I do not share their promotion of the idea that this will bring out the numbers of people to run that they expect.

They Cannot Restrain Themselves

One of my key problems with the Charter Commission is that in their zeal to pass the charter, rather than thoughtfully craft their arguments, they go into selling mode.  The legitimate issue of the barrier of being a Commissioner is simply not enough for them. 

So they claim that changing the form of government will bring more women into government.  To begin with, this city already has a strong record of electing women to office.  During my time in this city we have had three women mayors.  We have a woman who is the Commissioner of Finance and Remigia Foy served in that office for several terms. We have also had many women run for office but who did not win including female candidates for Public Safety and Accounts.

I also find it at least modestly sexist to think that women will not run or cannot be elected as Commissioners of Public Safety or Public Works.  Sarah Berger ran in a primary against Chris Mathiesen to be Public Safety Commissioner in the last election.  In addition, Eileen Finneran has run the department as the fulltime Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety in two administrations.  

I would concede that given the preponderance of male contractors, there is an argument that could be made about the difficulty of finding women to run for Public Works.  I still think that there are women out there quite capable of running that department.

This is the kind of campaign that spin doctors promote.  Repeat enough that there will be more women involved under the new charter to give it that air of being progressive and attract the women’s vote.

Ironically, over 85% of the city managers in the country are men. 

Below are links to three articles from professional publications including one from the ICMA (International City Managers Association) about the difficulty women experience in the world of city managers. 

http://patimes.org/times-changing-women-city-management/

 https://icma.org/articles/women-leading-government-1

 http://www.naspaa.org/JPAEMessenger/Article/VOL18-4/02_BeatyDavis.pdf

I try as best I can on this blog to use language that is as restrained as possible but I have run into a situation where that standard is severely challenged.  I am sorry but the only way to describe the Charter Commission’s representation of the city’s payroll system is that it is egregiously inaccurate.  As they repeatedly point to the city’s payroll system to try to prove that the city is badly run  it bears special scrutiny.  I have repeatedly listened to representatives of the Charter Commission describe the city’s payroll system in a way that conjures up men with green visors and garters on their arms, slaving away at ledgers with pens and inkwells under globed lamps.  I guess I am setting myself up for the same criticism of hyperbole that I accuse others of but if you have sat through the meetings that I have you would be familiar with the insistent drumbeat of this particular attack.    Over and over again they describe the city system as utterly antiquated, relying on 19^th century manual procedures rather than computers.

This is shamelessly inaccurate.  As just one example, the city has a biometric method for Department of Public Works employees to both sign in and out of work that seamlessly is linked to the payroll and benefits software.  It uses a finger print  reading devise to make it easy to both check in and out of work.  This is not some future hope.  This is the way recording at DPW is done.

At the police department, the final training for sergeants, who are responsible for supervising the entry of data for the new automated system responsible for overseeing the process, was to occur on September 24 and go live on October 1.  As far as I know, this has happened.  The police record system for time and payroll is entirely automated.

The fire department has its own software system.  There are plans underway to provide a bridge between the fire department’s system and the city’s main payroll software.  Likewise the main city hall employees system is under development now with a launch time by the end of the year.  There is no question that these projects are not complete but it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that they are well underway.

Jeff Altamari has been one of the most outspoken members of the Charter Commission on this issue.  Now Mr. Altamari may criticize the city for not moving faster.  Hey, things can always be done faster although as one who has dealt with deployments of software I can tell you this is always a long, slow process.  What he cannot ethically do but repeatedly does is paint a picture of a primitive recording system hopelessly mired in a past age.  He also cannot honestly simply assert that the departments have not been cooperating in computerizing the reporting system.  To listen to Mr. Altamari one would assume that nothing has been done to automate the city payroll process and the only way to start to do this would be to bring on board a city manager.

Given his extensive background in accounting, Mr. Altamari should know that these things take time.  The city is not some large corporation (Mr. Altamari career was in the corporate energy field) with deep pockets.  Employees are busy doing their regular work.  It is challenging for them to take the time to assist in the design of a software project of this magnitude but they are doing it.

The mid managers from all departments cooperate by meeting weekly working on this project. They have worked well together and they have achieved a great deal.  I would like to challenge Jeff Altamari to give a credible source to support his claim that the city was ever hobbled by a lack of cooperation between the departments (this theme of isolated silos is another well beaten path of the Commission).  I would like to hear him acknowledge the achievements that the city has accomplished.  He has made some very serious accusations and it is time that he provides some documentation for his claims or withdraws them 

Commissioner Mathiesen is one of the staunchest advocates for charter change but he supported Commissioner Madigan at the September 19 meeting when she documented the city’s progress toward automation.

Jeff Altamari has a record of success in the corporate world.  There is no question that he has a keen intellect.  He would better serve this community if his analysis of the city’s system showed some nuance in recognizing what it has achieved.  Selling  the public is not the same as educating them. 

Below is Commissioner Michele Madigan’s presentation to the council from September 19^th.

From the September 19 Council Meeting Re Madigan

4. Discussion: Time & Attendance Update

The City Staff, across the various departments, have been working diligently on finalizing the implementation of the NOVATIME Time and Attendance System. The Time and Attendance project began in June of 2013, and with the assistance of our City Labor Attorney, the City engaged in a technical spec review of every department, meetings with New York State government approved vendors, and finally a thorough RFP process, which led to the award of bid in December of 2015. Since that time the Finance Office has been managing the project to ensure proper implementation, security, and to improve overall efficiencies. NOVATIME is integrated with the City’s payroll software, MUNIS, allowing a data file to be seamlessly transferred from one system to another, eliminating most manual entry.

On January 1, 2017, DPW Laborers went live on the system, which allows them to use biometric finger terminals whereby each employee scans their finger at the start and end of their shift. These DPW employees also use these terminals to request time off, with Supervisors approving any requests, as well as weekly timesheets, all within the system itself. The terminals and necessary computers were installed in cooperation with the IT staff and City DPW Electricians. The DPW staff was very supportive of the change and they continue to work well with it. NOVATIME replaces the aged time clock system previously used by DPW. This process, in which an employee’s card was inserted into a machine and time stamped, was not integrated with MUNIS, the machines were no longer replaceable, and the process had no security measures to ensure the identity of the employee.

The City Police and Fire Departments required additional time and attendance modules, which in turn required the Finance Department to set public hearings to amend the capital budget for these modules. The Police Department is expected to go live with NOVATIME on October 1, 2017. This effort has primarily been lead by Assistant Chief John Catone, who has been inputting schedules and shift information into the Scheduler Module. The Police Department will use NOVATIME not only to track hours worked but also to schedule employees and maintain accruals. The officers will be clocked in and out daily at roll call by the Sergeants. The Police department will also be able to request time off through the system and Supervisors can use the system to approve requests for leave and approve the timesheets. The Sergeants will receive additional training the week of September 24th, just in time for the go live date on October 1st. Schedules, time worked, and use of accruals are currently tracked manually by the police department supervisors, and this information is manually entered into MUNIS by the DPS Office Manager. The new process is expected to reduce the chance of human error, and streamline the process for all parties involved.

City Hall employees will be final group brought onto NOVATIME. These employees will use their desktop computers to clock in and out and request time off, with supervisors making any and all necessary decisions through the system itself. In addition, the Finance Office and Public Safety are working with NOVATIME to develop a file transfer for the Fire Department. Currently, the Fire Department has a separate computer system, ERS, that they use to track payroll data, as well as much other necessary departmental information. A program is currently in the works to seamlessly move the data from ERS to MUNIS, which would improve the current, more manual process.

The implementation of the Time and Attendance System will continue to improve efficiencies and accountability, and also provide for a better audit trail. I am very pleased with the progress we have made to date. I especially want to thank Christine Gillmett-Brown who has been the primary manager on this project, along with Florence Wheeler (Payroll Administrator), Kevin Kling (IT Manager), Kathy Moran (DPW Office Manager), and Danielle Willard (DPS Office Manager), for their commitment to this project and their efforts to ensure the system is efficient and effective.

I have tried my best to provide updates on the Time and Attendance roll-out regularly to both the City Council and the Public, including public hearings because of the ongoing nature of this Capital Budget project. The timing of this update was fortuitous, as lately City Hall, and Finance in particular, have been criticized recently by the Charter Review Commission for what they have deemed an “antiquated” payroll systems. Just last week in a Reader’s View by Jeff Altamari, a member of the Charter Review Commission, I was directly challenged with the following statement: “Commissioners are not incentivized to implement new technology that could lead to efficiency and cost savings. No comprehensive time & attendance system supporting payroll? Why not? It’s 2017.”

Mr. Altamari went on to state that “Timely technology and infrastructure upgrades, as we commonly see in business and government, result in future savings and efficiency. Commissioners cannot engage in meaningful long-term upgrade planning, requiring cross-functional cooperation and multi-year ownership of the planning process.” To borrow a phrase Mr. Altamari used later in his piece when referencing Commissioners across City Hall, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” Had you, or any other member of the Charter Review Commission, bother to interview the City IT Director, or the City Payroll Administrator, or spend more than 5 minutes with the Director of Finance, you would have learned about the upgraded Time and Attendance System, as well as the multi-year process it went through with involvement of every Department across City Hall.

I would ask that this blatant misrepresentation by the Charter Review Commission of our city processes and systems stop. It’s both petty and unfair to the hard work done by employees across City Hall, and I have heard it referenced time and time again. Make whatever case you have on the facts, not on fabrications or untruths.

(Note per CGB: The City approved in the 2012 Capital budget money to purchase a Time and Attendance system. Ken Ivins did nothing with it. Commissioner Madigan came in and started a lengthy RFP process to ensure the right system was purchased. )

The Charter Commission Financial Impact Statement: Self Imposed Ignorance

The Charter Commission’s analysis of the financial impact of the proposed charter claims it will save $403,000.00.

 What Do The Current Deputies And Commissioners Contribute To The Effective Administration Of The City?

Pretty much all of these savings are the result of eliminating the tier of management held by the five deputies and four commissioners.

Jeff Altamari, a Commission member and author of the document, asserts that the deputies and the commissioners contribute virtually nothing to the operation of the city.  This seems a rather harsh characterization to me but if you observe his defense on LookTV this is in fact his position.  He asks us to look at other cities of similar size that have city managers and  have what he describes as “flat” administrative structures. 

Like so much of what the Charter Commission does, these assertions are delivered with a disturbing confidence.  It is difficult to assess the validity of his comparisons.  We do not know what kind of administrative support exists under the department heads of these other cities.  Do these other cities’ department heads have deputies?  What are the types and quality of services delivered in these cities? Who knows?  I don’t know, maybe they are more efficient but it’s hard to  tell from the information he gives us. Since New York State only has 16 cities with a city manager form, Mr. Altamari goes to states like New Jersey to do some of his comparisons.  With respect to Mr. Altamari, I think the comparison is based on very limited data, at least as he presents it. It would seem that he might at least be more qualified in asserting how accurate and reliable these comparisons are.  This is unfortunately emblematic of the way the charter is being promoted.

What Do Those Deputies Do All Day?

I would dearly love to have the opportunity to debate Mr. Altamari.  The fundamental flaw in his financial analysis is that he, and the other members of the Charter Commission, chose not to do what to me is fundamental.  After all the people they talked to, they chose not to interview the deputies.  Now I do not know how much of what the deputies do is redundant.  It is possible that they simply are another layer of bureaucracy where the department staff is burdened with sending them reports on what they are doing and recommendations for actions and the deputies simply approve this stuff.  It must be conceded that they could be an utterly wasteful layer of bureaucracy as the Charter Commission members assert.  Humility requires me to concede this could be the case.  It may, however turn out, that what the deputies do is in fact very important.  They may handle all kinds of Federal and State reporting requirements for instance.  They may absorb day to day functions of their departments which otherwise might fall to staff whose responsibilities would not allow them to effectively absorb that work.  I don’t know and neither does Mr. Altamari.

Sometimes Mr. Altamari and his fellow charter review members assume that the City Manger will absorb all the work of the four commissioners and five deputies but other times they assume that whatever duties the deputies and the commissioners have  can be absorbed by the existing staff, namely department directors and personnel such as the police and fire chief. 

The thing is, not only didn’t they interview the deputies to find out what work they do but they never asked these other employees if they could absorb  extra work.

I know that in the case of the Finance Department, the budget for the city is done by the deputy. The work load of the Director of Finance could not possibly allow her the time to take on doing the city’s budget as well.   According to the Director of Finance, her interview with the Commission was very brief and no one ever asked her if she could take on the additional work now done by the Deputy Commissioner of Finance.

Bob Turner, the chair of the Commission, has routinely denigrated the deputies as being basically political operatives rewarded for heading up the campaigns of their respective Commissioners.  Again, this is emblematic of the way they are selling the charter.  His defense of not interviewing the deputies is that it would be unfair to ask them what they think of the commission form of government. That could be unfair but what would not be unfair would be to rigorously interview them on what they actually do with their time.    I find it absolutely stunning that this was not done.  I have yet to hear from Mr. Altamari as to why he chose not to talk to the deputies before deciding their positions were so expendable.  I do not think it is uncharitable to speculate that interviewing the deputies might have put the anticipated savings he was able to project in jeopardy.

 What Exactly Do Those Commissioners Do?

I would also draw the reader’s attention to the fact that for purposes of selling their charter the Charter Commission members emphasize that the workload of the Commissioners is enormous and is one of the disincentives to get people to run for office.  I am in complete agreement with the charter people in terms of both the workload of the city commissioners and on the fact that this can be a problem in terms of attracting people to run.  They cannot have it both ways, however, and then claim that the removal of the Commissioners will not create the need for more staff to do the work they have been doing.

Commissioner John Franck who is a CPA calculated all the hours that the deputies and the commissioners work and then compared that number with the hours of one city manager.  Not surprising the numbers made the idea of the city manager absorbing those hours ludicrous.  Now as I have stated, I do not know how many of those hours are actually essential to the city’s operation.  What I do know is that without knowing those numbers Mr. Altamari could not possibly do a proper analysis.

The Short And Happy Life Of A Deputy

Finally, I would observe that the Charter Commission has a point that when a new commissioner is elected, most of the time (not all the time) the new Commissioner hires a new deputy.  This does require the new deputy to learn a new position.  A city manager form of government could address this weakness.  How large a problem is this, though?  I would concede that unlike the charter commission I do not know.  It is curious to note, though, that in their zeal to sell the charter they state that the transition to a new government will be “seamless” and do not anticipate any similar period of adjustment for a city manager who will be walking not into a job that others have done before and could help him/her learn. This city manager will be tasked with setting up a whole new government which will include evaluating the work done by the deputies and commissioners and figuring out who will do it now and how much the new positions will cost the city. Given that these new positions will be civil service we can safely assume the salaries will be quite a bit higher than what the current deputies receive.

The charter commission also ignored the fact that deputies work long hours beyond their regular day.  They are not civil service so the rules of overtime do not apply to them.

 Is It At Least Possible That Our Great Bond Rating Is Related To The Work Of Our Deputy Commissioners

 This city has a great bond rating.  It allows us to borrow money at very low rates.  The charter commission might acknowledge that it means that as far as Wall Street is concerned, that this city is so well run that someone interested in lending money which relies on a rosy view of the future of the city, can feel relatively safe.  It is possible, that the extra tier represented by the deputies and the work of the commissioners is not a liability but actually results in a better managed institution. This is something Mr. Altamari should have considered before doing his financial analysis.

I left out this link in the previous post (https://www.facebook.com/pg/SaratogaGreenbeltTrail/posts/?ref=page_internal).  As  a reminder the link is to the Greenbelt Trail facebook page.  The page has a notice that that due to abuses, their site is no longer accepting public posts. 

In a related matter, the Greenbelt Trail posted a comment on Pat Kane’s website taking exception to his posts on websites which apparently included the Greenbelt Trail’s.  The posted comment was meant to convey to Mr. Kane that his allegations (apparently posted on the Greenbelt’s website) that Commissioner Madigan was obstructing their work was a mischaracterization(see below).  Interestingly, but not surprisingly, Mr. Kane deleted this comment from his website page.

So since Pat Kane, is vice chair of the Charter Review Commission, I sent the email below to Bob Turner to be distributed to tonight’s (September 28^th) meeting.  I thought it was time for them to take responsibility and address their Vice Chair’s behavior.  During the public comment period, Mr. Turner was asked whether he had gotten my email (I am away).  Mr. Turner denied having received it.  Readers, you will pardon my skepticism but Mr. Turner is a new media kind of guy.  While it is possible he did not receive it, it seems highly unlikely.  So here is the letter:

Bob:

I am sending this to you as chair of the Charter Review Commission.  I ask that you provide copies to the members of the commission for tonight’s meeting.  Hopefully you can email it to them, otherwise please hand it out at the meeting.

JK

There is little doubt that the conflict over the proposed charter has been spirited–make that heated– at times.  There is little doubt that both the proponents and opponents have often been angered by what they perceive as exaggeration or distortion.  As many of the members of the commission know, I have been highly critical of the way data has been used, of claims that have been made based on secret sources, and of events like the Skidmore survey.  Still, I have never indulged in questioning the motivation of anyone nor in name calling.

In the last several days, your vice chairman, Pat Kane, has made a serious, personal attack on Commissioner Madigan and then disseminated his comment on numerous websites.  The attack includes the following text:

“The back and forth of the vehicles would have created a natural trail and saved the city significant money of having to create a trail from new.  However, Michele Madigan did not permit it because the trail was seen as ‘the mayor’s project.’”

“This form of government breeds this type of behavior and waste.”

This kind of personal attack goes way beyond the scrum that has been the debate on the efficacy of your proposed charter.  Without the pretense of any kind of supporting information, Mr. Kane asserts that Commissioner Madigan is attempting to sabotage the city’s bike trail in order to hurt Mayor Yepsen.

This is a particularly disturbing attack given that the chair of the Greenbelt Trail Committee took exception to Mr. Kane’s assertion and posted a comment on Mr. Kane’s Facebook page.  Worse, Mr. Kane having received this, Mr. Kane removed it from his page.

When Mr. Kane agreed to be vice chair of your organization, he accepted that when he spoke on issues related to the charter, people would see him as representing your commission.  I use “representing” in two ways.

1. Representing as in speaking on behalf of the commission as its vice chair.
2. Representing the commission in that as a person he represented the kind of leadership selected by you its members.

I would note that it is also interesting that he presumes that people see the bike trail as the Mayor’s personal achievement.  In fact not only has the entire City Council actively worked on the trail, many volunteers have put in extensive time on its behalf.

Mr. Kane owes Ms. Madigan an apology.  His crude attack reflected the lowest kind of politics.  In the event that he chooses not to apologize, the question that arises is how will the Commission handle this?  Is this really what the Commission considers to be an acceptable tactic?

I would hope that the commission would use tonight’s meeting to make clear to the public that the members of the Commission disassociate themselves from this unbecoming behavior; that as the debate winds up, the Commission is committed to a level of civility that rises above these kinds of tactics.  Silence by the Commission on this matter can only be read that the commission sees this behavior as an effective tool in your pursuit of passing your charter.