September 23, 2026 – Personnel Board – Video & Transcript
September 23, 2026 - Personnel Board
Um, we have a quorum. So I'll call the meeting to order in the room. We have Dave Williams and Maryanne Peabody. And on Zoom, we have Jill Zukerman.
Sorry. And we also have Kate, um, Ryan, who is our Personnel Director for the Town of Wayland. And we have Robbie, who is being our Zoom manager. Thank you, Robbie. Um, so it's 4.02. Uh, announcements and public comment. I do have an announcement.
And that is that Maryanne Castagno re-up and, uh, applied for the Personnel Board and the Select Board reappointed her. And, um, she's unable to attend today, but she'll be here at our next, at our next meeting. Um, let me read the agenda for the public. And I am going to be taking minutes. Um, Maryanne Peabody.
Um, so the, the agenda items are announcements and public comment, discussion, and possible vote to approve the annual report for 2026, to include a combined, uh, report from the Personnel Board and the Human Resources Department, potentially. Uh, the next item is to discuss, uh, and a possible vote to create a Personnel Board, either working group or to discuss a new process to review and, and propose, uh,
revisions to the personnel policies with the employee and the, and the employee handbook, because those are things we really need to, um, crank up and make sure that we can get done this year. Um, and, uh, the next item is discussion on the adoption of a possible work from home
damaskin, um, personnel policy on the nonunion, uh, public節目, uh,Mic, information on the Nonunion, Inc.
um, and then, uh, insuje zusammen, chemical work from some emotional work and, and then, uh, um, and, uh, rights to ursum, Par Europol, who is an e-for, um, job. Um, in charge of any of the public health and management
recruitment efforts and open positions. I think if people know about them, that's very helpful
too. And then human resources, quarterly newsletter, wellness programming, and professional development.
And then we will discuss and approve open session meeting minutes from 5-20-26. And which ones did
you do, Dave, that we reviewed last time? It was the one July. I think it was July. So we've seen
those, but we just have to make sure that we have the revisions in. And then we would set our next
meeting date and adjourn. So the first item of business is the announcements, which I did make.
And then public comment. Ravi, is there any comment from the public? There's none. Thank you.
And then the discussion and possible vote to approve the annual report for the personnel board for 2026
to include a combined report from the personnel board and the human resources department.
I see Paul Morenberg has arrived. Paul, we just started. We just went through the agenda
and you arrived at 405. So you're here for the first item. I will restate because you weren't here at the
time. The announcement is Mary Ellen Castagno re-upped for the personnel board and the select
board have reappointed her. She's unable to come tonight, but she will be here at our next meeting.
And then so the annual report is something we do every year. And it's just sort of a from July 1st, 2025 to July 1st, 2026 is the time covered. And we owe the town an annual report. And it's due on September 30th. It comes to us during the summer. I put one together. It's always pretty cut and dry and boring. And Kate suggested that we might want to consider doing a joint report with the personnel department and have a joint report. And when I read what she had, and she drafted one that didn't include our report, but she drafted one. And I, my feeling was that I think it incorporates more information for the townspeople. So I thought it was a really good idea, but I wanted to get everybody's input and then also have a look at what needs to go into it. And then combine them. I sent Kate a copy of the one I drafted. Ours is always pretty cut and dry. So I don't know if you've got a chance to see that. Did you get a copy? Yeah. Okay. Um, did you get a copy of mine as well? I get the one that you sent. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't have a copy of the, uh, of anything from, um, from the, uh, from the HR. Oh, it's in the packet. Oh, it is. Yeah. It was a packet sent to my email, my personal email. No, the Wayland email this time. Yeah. I cannot access that Wayland email reliably. I mean, I, I would like everything to be sent to my personal email too. Okay. Kate, do you want to bring it up just so that, you know, Paul can get a sense of what it is? And did you get one? I didn't get it either. You didn't get it. It was, did you get it? Paul, I just, I just sent it to your personal email. So you have it. Okay. Thank you. You didn't get the packet either? No, I got the, um, I got the one that you had sent. Jill, did you get a packet? I did in my Wayland email. Yeah, I did too. I sent mine because I can never be sure that people are getting it. So I, I sent it via the Wayland email and then I send a copy on the personal email. Do you mind forwarding it to my personal that's on there as well? I would love to. You are Dave Williams. Yeah, that's it. Got it. Thank you. Yep. Just sent.
So mine is the boring one pager and it's draft 2026 annual report, which you've gotten. And then Kate's is the one in the packet. Kate, can you put that online so people can. I can't. Oh, it's on Robbie's computer. Okay. I can send the packet. Robbie. Well, Jill, you just sent it, right? Do you, uh, the packet? Yes. I just emailed. I didn't get it yet, but. Okay. Would you put something up on the screen for me? Cause I don't have, have that. Yep. Hold on. Yeah. If I send something, can I send something to you? Yeah. Or can you put it up, Jill? I'm sorry. Cause it's fine. Yeah. No. From the packet, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can everybody see that? Yes. Yep. Say when. I'll give you a few minutes to read through it. And I asked Kate to include, um, another town, uh, department that does a joint report and she sent, she submitted the one from the conservation commission. So that's also in the packet. So you can see how it's done and how it's merged together. We would just have to make sure we merge it together. Only, only 998 applications. That's it. Yeah. That's not a lot. Actually. Yeah. Well, for two people. Yeah. There's only two staff members and, and we only had 39 job applications that we actually, I should probably update that. Cause it doesn't include our seasonal operations. So we don't generally do the recruitment for our recreation, the recreation department does their own recruitment. So it's actually bigger than that. Um, but yeah, we had, we had a good year. We, we haven't been able to go out and do as much recruitment, which is good. Do we want to move on to the next page? Are we ready? Yeah. Kate, I thought that the motor vehicle licensing was done in 2026. That's that policy was done this year. Oh, you're right. Right. I should take that out. It's your next year. Next year's report. It's done in the fiscal. It's the fiscal year, not calendar. And I thought that was done July to July. We do. We do. I think we did do it in July. Didn't we? Do we do it in June? It's I can take it out June 30th. We can just check it. Yeah. I'll check that. And I can take it out. Yeah. I just have a question. We, you know, on, in, in the report that I pulled together, I said, um, held step to union grievance hearings presented to the town by the unions for their collective bargaining agreements with the town. Do we need to put a number, mostly other stuff and numbers. I don't know if we want to put numbers there or not. I didn't add them. I mean, this seems fine to me. I don't, you know, I don't know if, uh, it, I mean, if we're, if we're supposed to do our own report, it's not quite what, um, they might expect, but if it's, if there's precedent for it, um, seems, you know, it seems like a useful report. What happens with the reports? Where do they go? In the, in the town warrants, right? No, they go into the annual report. They're all compiled into the annual report. Okay. I mean, my question would be, does the finance director and the finance committee submit one or two reports? We should probably mirror that. I think it's a mix. I think, um, you know, for example, the PW and the board of public works, they actually submit separate reports. Yeah. Um, our conservation commission and conservation department, uh, combined theirs into one. So I thought it might be, you know, a little easier to do one report rather than two, because it's, you know, similar work, but it, I think it can be done anyway. Either way, there's no, there's no strict requirement that it has to be one way or the other. Can they be, can they be submitted together? Yes, they can. With the, the, and the department report and the board report. Is that what you're suggesting might be, um, a way to do it, Paul, when you asked? I'm sorry. Say again. Um, when, when you, uh, you asked about the, the report and whether it should be submitted as our own, would it be that we could just put them, submit them together, like the department, the human resources, uh, and personnel board. And then we just have separate parts parts of it. Like Kate has the human resource department report and we put ours right, right behind it. I mean, this for, yeah, I mean the form, you know, it's, it's sort of clear, but the, you know, the, the report is 90% or 80% Kate and 20% us. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't have a problem with that, but it's just not sort of what we've done to, you know, in the past. So, I mean, it could be, it could be Kate's report with an attachment of our report. I mean, that, I mean, were you planning, were you planning to add goals or, or did you, you think that was, uh, that's, you'd have to add that to your, your report, right? Right. And there is a part at the bottom, Paul, that says personal board goals. No, no, I'm saying, I don't think, um, I don't think Mary Ann's has it, does it? Right. I mean, we're, what we're doing is we're supporting. We're supporting, we're supporting the HR department. And then we are responsible for certain things. Um, and that's working with the HR department to get them done. Right. And, um, so I would, I would think that since in our, in our, um, in what was past a town meeting, we have the responsibility for a report. It says that, um, so, I mean, what I would suggest, I guess, based on your question is to have the human, call it the human resources and personnel board report, have the human, human resources department, uh, report either first or second, whichever. But since we're supporting and we want the personnel policies done. I mean, that's, that's a goal, but we can't do that without Kate. So, uh, that's not our goal. Our goal might be to keep, keep it up, you know, in the, just like we do with the, um, the staffing survey. We kept bringing it up every year. We need to do a staffing survey. We were, when the fire department was doing their study, we kept bringing it up. Is it, you know, where is it, um, to kind of get, to make sure that people were aware it was being done. And then we asked for, um, for, uh, a time to discuss the report. So I think that that's, you know, I think that's reasonable for us to do in our role. And so I would say we just submit it together, but we do have separate ones. I don't think I can have a goal unless it's to be, you know, nudging somebody or keep supporting the HR department. That's, I mean, we don't have a goal of our own except to keep reminding people that it's time to do X, Y, and Z. Right. What do you think? Yeah. That sounds about, that sounds correct. Yeah. It's like to bring up issues or if we hear issues or if townspeople raise some concerns, it's our role to kind of bring them up. And, and, and if something needs to be, uh, looked at or something new in the law changes and we, um, and then we say, well, we don't have a policy for this. There's a new law. We need a new policy. The department still has to do it with input from us, but it's, we don't get it done. So it's more advisory now. So I think that our goals are to make sure we know what's going on and to keep advising and to keep, uh, making sure that we're on track. So I'm looking at the most recent annual report. It's on the town website. Um, and, and it looks like there's a mix of, um, boards having a separate one. Like for example, the recreation commission does a separate report from the recreation department. So there are two separate reports that they're next to each other. So we could do it that way. Um, there's also a mix of some that combine. Um, it looks like there's only one other that I can see that combines. Um, so it's, it seems like it's more common to have two separate, but. I'm comfortable with whatever the boards would like to do. Are we doing this to make it more readable for the public? Or is that kind of the goal ultimately in combining if that's what we do? Yeah. That's easier and more accessible for them. Yeah. And I think traditionally it's just been a report of the board and there hasn't been an HR report to my knowledge in the past. And I thought it would be helpful to provide some of these statistics on what we do. Um, and the support that we provide. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. And I don't even know, do people know that they can find those reports? I mean, we, we submit one, but I don't know if people know to read them. We don't print. I think we print a small number. I mean, there are huge reports. Yeah. They're on the website and they're electronic now. So there are. Yes. I think that it's an, I don't know, will you announce it? No, I, I think my thought would be to, to submit them together, but as separate reports unless, unless you guys, I mean, I, I do like the fact that there, I think it gives more information to the public. And I, I think that's important. I agree. Yeah. I'm fine with that. All right. So I would need a vote on our part of the report and, and a vote that we submit, that we submit them together. I think that would be a good vote to have. And then I need a report on my, I need a vote on my report. So. Okay. Okay. So. Are we moving or does anybody have anything to say about Mary Ann's report? I think it looks good. Yeah. Same fine. Okay. Great. And we would still leave it as is and not add the numbers of grievances that we heard. I would not put the number of grievances. Okay. I was looking at Kate, which has so much objective data. I was like, Oh, maybe we need to put more objective data, but that's fine. Great. So can I have a motion? I move to submit the personnel board annual report as is in conjunction, but not combined with Kate's lovely report. Second. Okay. So I need to do a roll call vote because we are on zoom and in the room. So Jill. Yes. Paul. Yes. David. Yes. And Mary Ann. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. So I, I will do, I submitted mine just so that they had it by the 30th, but I will, and I told them we would vote on it tonight. So I'll just let them know and you'll let them know how we'll do it. And I don't, it doesn't, I don't know if they, you know, the department goes first or the board goes first. It doesn't matter, but that they're submitted together. I think that's a good idea. And I think it provides much more information for the town. I think. Good job. That's a report. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of things that you're going to tell us that we didn't even know. You know, it's a really useful exercise for me because it helped me really keep in perspective what we did. And we did a lot. We actually did a lot. We actually did a lot this year. So I, I'm actually kind of proud of you. But it's nice that I'm able to communicate that to the, the town. And I find that when I look back, I mean, last year's personnel policies that we worked with are in last year's report. Now there's a different group of policies from this year's report. So it's a way to even figure out when, when they were last reviewed, which we had some trouble with when you came, there was no documentation on the files, even though we had changed some of them. So that's good. That's good. Okay. Thank you. So I'm just showing, I'm just showing this because Paul and Dave did not get the opportunity to look. So I just wanted them to have a quick glance at the personnel policies. Yep. So the next is a discussion and possible vote to create either a personnel working board group, which we talked about before, or to discuss a new process to review and propose revisions to personnel policies and the employee handbook. So it's one of Kate's goals for this year. And I was trying to figure out a way that we really can get some closure on them. And we talked about a small group working with her and then bringing it to the larger board. The other thing I thought about that might work is if Kate gives us the policy she's worked on, it's not going to be probably, we need to get feedback to her. So it's not going to be for the, like, if she sends them to us in September, we won't be dealing with them at October's meeting, but we'll be dealing with them in November's meeting because we then would get what she's been working on. We could submit any changes that we think, and then she can put them in and then bring for discussion, say in November, what people brought back to her and the changes that she did make. And then if people had brought up a point before that they felt wasn't included and was still important to include, we would have a discussion about it. And that might move things along. I just, what I'm bothered by is we work on them. We talk about them. They come back. We talk about them again. They have to come back again, but we sometimes have trouble getting closure on them. So I'd like to hear from you all what you think would be a way to make it more efficient and more helpful to Kate. I mean, I think that if you give them to us and we each individually give feedback to Kate, my concern is that it would then, it could get confusing to kind of merge different comments without having a conversation. I don't want to make, and in that way it would make more work for Kate instead of just her giving it to us. We all talk about it together and then it gets given back the next meeting. Okay. That's my, my thought. I don't know if I'm incorrect, but. And that's the way we've been doing it, but I would think that we need to commit to working. If the wording is tough for us, just slogging it out and getting, getting to a conclusion by the end of our meeting with how we think the wording should best go. Or, and that's where we, we say, Oh, well, we'll have to see it again. But that way, if we really work on the word wording in the meeting, then that can help. That can help Kate come to closure on it quicker. Paul, what are your thoughts? You're on mute. I think. Yeah. I think the current process is fine. I mean, it could be streamlined a bit. I think we do put things over more often than we need to. But yeah, I, I, I agree with Jill and I wouldn't want to have us, you know, split up our feedback because then we're not having a discussion and you know, we should come together as a, as a board. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. I, the only thing I would say is that when we discuss it, we can try to be very like kind of compact and streamlined with our thoughts and feedback to make the process go a little quicker. Mm hmm. Um, but again, I, I, I don't see another process because we can't discuss it with each other, except in an open session. Mm hmm. Right. And it's fair to put all the onus on. Of course, my obvious choice would be Paul because he's the employment lawyer, but it's not fair to him to say, okay, you meet with Kate on all these. Um, all these policies and then bring them to us. So, um, would it be helpful, uh, for you? And when you come to have the discussion, if you receive the policies from me and my proposed, you know, changes, you know, three weeks, four weeks, a month, you know, a month ahead of time, and then you come back the next month and you discuss it. I, how would, would that be helpful? Oh, like the same idea I'm getting. If you send it to us in our September packet. Yeah. We don't really deal with it until November. Or no October. October. Yeah. Yeah. Or something like that. I mean, I can give it to you earlier so that you have more time to review. Right. Right. Because there's a policy tonight that we have two members that didn't get their packet. So, yeah. So I guess I don't have much history on the process that you've gone through before, but I guess for me, just looking at it, like having a personal forward working group inside of a smaller group, I think it's just a challenge. I think we're a larger group than having a smaller group, but I think it would make sense. Yeah. But I think having it in advance and then us committing to saying we'll take time before the meeting to make sure that we're prepared to get here, then I think it'd be more efficient. Right. At least from, from my standpoint, I think that's a commitment we should make. And that's how we've done it in the past is we slog it out at the meeting. We read it. We discuss it. We come to some kind of a conclusion as to basic wording. And then if Kate needs to wordsmith it a little bit, fine. But if there's some legal wording that Paul thinks is particularly important, then, then we really make sure we're clear on that before we give it to her again. And Dave, just so you're aware as personnel board members, we cannot speak to each other about personnel board issues, except for in an open session, because it violates the open meeting laws. So Paul could talk directly to Kate about something, but you, Paul and Kate couldn't have a discussion about something without it being in an, in an open session. Actually, it's as long as you don't have a quorum. Yeah. Two people could meet and have a conversation, but then they couldn't. Yeah. Discuss it. Yeah. Like I could meet with, I could meet with everybody individually and then give that information to Kate. That's possible too. Or we could do it in the meeting. And it's probably just as efficient to do it in the meeting. Right. And it means a commitment on all of our parts and making sure we have sufficient time to review them. It's a pretty dumb law. If you can just do all your business through a series of one-on-one conversations, but I'm sorry to editorialize, but I think the spirit of the law is that the discussions should be in a public forum or that's where the, there's a report or minutes that are taken. Yeah. Yeah. So I can commit to having, you know, policy drafts to you. How, how early would you like them? I mean, I think the meeting before is great. Then we would discuss it the following meeting. Then we can, you know, vote on it, the meeting after. Okay. Okay. That gives us enough time. It's, it's the, when it's like we get our packet on a Friday and our meeting is the next week, it's compressed and maybe not enough time, but if, if we can do it where we have it in advance, that will work. I think really better. And we can move through the ones that need to be redone. Um, and, and Kate did send a schedule of some that, uh, haven't been done for a while. Some are, you know, sort of administrative kinds of things. And some are really substantive and we really need to pay attention to them. Um, which brings us to the next agenda item. If we want to move to it as a discussion on the adoption of a possible work from home policy. Uh, I think the issue is that some people work from home, even though this is a public facing, uh, service organization that has to be available to the public. There are some people who get to work from home and many others who can't, but if people are doing it, we need to have a policy. Uh, and, and Kate and, uh, Michael, Michael and I talked a little bit about it and Kate and Michael have talked about it. So why don't I turn it over to you, Kate, and you can tell us a bit about what you're thinking is. Um, so it's a first draft of, uh, a remote work policy for the town. I based this on, I actually did a lot of research. I, I reviewed maybe 10 to 12 policies from other municipalities. Um, some large, you know, cities like Cambridge down to smaller municipalities like, um, Maynard, one of our, our neighbors. Um, and then I, I really compiled the pieces that I thought from those policies that made sense for Wayland. I tried to be as comprehensive as I could. Um, and, and so this is the result of, of that work. Um, I, I included a couple of example policies in your packet, um, from North, I think it's Northboro and. Needham. Needham. Thank you. Uh, no, no, Wellesley. I'm sorry. It was Wellesley and, um, Needham. Yeah. Uh, and I, I can provide many more if you want. I was trying to narrow down the field. And then there was also some best practices from the MMA, the mass, the Massachusetts Municipal Association or MMA. Um, so this is again, first draft. I've sent this out to our department heads for their feedback as a first one. Um, it's also an option to just not to choose, not to have a remote work policy. There are some municipalities who've chosen not to do that, um, for a variety of reasons. But I, I think that there's enough, there are enough employees in our town that I think this is a good idea to have a written policy. Because right now it's very informal. Um, some departments allow and some don't. So. And, and, and we have to keep in mind too, that some employees can't work from home because, you know, it's the same thing in healthcare, which is where I'm from originally. Uh, there are some people that have to be there, um, all the time. And so is it fair, uh, if someone can work at home and also has, you know, some work done at their house at the same time they're working at home. Whereas another employee in another part of the organization would have to take time off to do that. So, uh, it's a fairness issue. And one option I thought of is that it can be that the norm is not to work from home. So, except for some exceptions and the exceptions being for those people who are in departments where other people can take over if they're not there. And they're writing a report to be able to finish that report at home. I don't know what you guys think about that and the whole issue, because we are a, we are a public institution. We're here for the citizens and some people can work from home and some can, but the fact is we have some people that are doing it. So, um, I think we're better off with a policy than not having a policy, but Paul, I welcome your thoughts on that as well. So, yeah, I haven't, you know, I mean, I think a policy is a good idea. I haven't, um, uh, whoever was scrolling, uh, was, uh, scrolling a little faster than I could read. Oh, sorry. No, that's okay. Uh, I got the gist of it. I mean, I think it looks like from what I've seen, it looks okay. I have a couple of concerns. I don't think you can say that you can have full-time remote work. And I mean, you, it can, that that's obviously not the norm, but I think there could be situations, particularly reasonable, reasonable accommodations where you might need to offer full-time remote work. So if somebody has like a, uh, an anxiety disorder, for example, or some kind of acute mental health issue, and they just are advised by, uh, you know, or, or maybe not even a mental health issue, but there's some kind of need to be, uh, not, uh, in a, um, uh, not working, uh, at the town, there could be situations where to accommodate them, their mental health or physical, uh, uh, condition, you need to offer full-time remote work. By the same token. Yeah. Wouldn't that be then a reasonable accommodation and not something covered under a remote work policy? Well, you could argue, you could say that, but I think to say that remote work cannot, I mean, to say that we can't have full-time remote work. I mean, you, you could, you, you could, you'd have to, you'd have to carve that out. Say this does not, you know, this, you would say this policy is not intended to limit, uh, uh, reasonable accommodations, which, which are not considered, but they are remote work. So, I mean, I think I might just put in some qualifying language that, uh, you know, full-time remote work, you know, you know, will be considered, you know, where appropriate as a reasonable accommodation or may be considered. The other thing is the same, same concern as to the probationary period. I mean, you you can't say because of reasonable accommodations, you can't say that someone is in per se ineligible for remote work if they need a reasonable accommodation and they're during the probationary period. It may be, it may be atypical, but you can't exclude it. And then there's, I've read the, there's more to the policy I haven't seen, but most of it looked very good.
So do we want to review it independently and then bring this back in our next meeting? Yeah. I mean, unless, is there, um, Kate, is there any urgency to getting this approved? Like, like. No, there's no urgency. Um, this is, like I said, it's the first draft. I was assuming I would get comment. It would come back with more feedback. Um, we also, if, if this were to move forward, we would need to discuss it with our, you know, the applicable, applicable union. So any unions that may be impacted, primarily ask me and maybe library. Um, so it's, it's not urgent. I thought it was, uh, interesting in the policy that the town then is responsible for hazards or incidents that include, that occur at the employee's alternative workplace. And I, I mean, I thought, gee, we need to, I was thinking in my mind, you exclude that, but here it says employees working remotely remain covered by workers' compensation insurance for injuries arising out of and in the course of their own. Employment that occur at their approved alternative workplace during their approved remote work hours. Well, you can't, you can't, you can't exclude that. It'd be the same thing of some, it would be the same thing of somebody as part of their, if somebody at, uh, uh, DPW as part of their work duties has to, uh, do a, um, inspection of, uh, you know, uh, you know, near someone's home and they trip and fall, they're offsite, but they're doing their job. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I see your point. I mean, cause obviously you can't control, you know, uh, hazards or unsafe conditions in the home as you could in, uh, at the town, but that's just kind of the way that, uh, I think, uh, most comp policies, I think all comp policies cover approved remote work. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. But Kate, you may, you might, we may want to, you know, just double check that with our, uh, make sure our comp policy dovetails with that. I'm, I'm fairly sure it would allow that. I would agree. I think that is the practice that if you're working, you're covered under workers comp, no matter where you're working. I mean, our workers comp policy had that you're in, uh, I saw that you had something that like, you're in a distraction free. We also had like hazard free. So if somebody did something remarkably dumb, working up on a ladder on the roof or something that perhaps there'd be some, um, leeway, but, um, but that is a distraction free environment.
Yeah. But we had distraction free and safe. The roof is not safe, but, um, but yes, even, even then I'm sure that it would have been covered under workers comp, but we. So then there's also a liability insurance portion that the person's has to maintain reasonable and adequate homeowners, renters. And it says, or other liability. And I was thinking of an umbrella policy, which is the slip, trip and fall in your home kind of policy that people have. Can we, can we, uh, are there, can we say that employees are responsible for that based on what you just said, Paul? I mean, I'm not sure. I'd have to, I'd have to check that on that. Um, I don't think you could obligate someone to have renters insurance. I just, I'm pretty sure you could not. And, and, uh, uh, or, um, I mean, I think anyone who's a homeowner who has a mortgage would have to have homeowners insurance. Uh, but if you, if you own your home outright, you, you know, you probably would, but you don't have to. Um, I mean, I don't, I'd have, I'll research that. I, I, that's an interesting question. I don't think you can, I don't think the town could tell people what kind of insurance they have to have privately. Yeah. Uh, I'll be honest. I wasn't sure about that. I, I put it in because I was concerned about the town, um, having to cover damage to a home when someone was working in it that had nothing to do with the work they were doing. Right. So they had a flood or they had a tree fall and I don't know, maybe that's something that needs to be addressed in a different way, but, um, yeah. We could take a look at that. We're going to, we're going to review this now and deal with it at our next meeting and we'll discuss it in more detail. We need to know, you know, where the town manager is on the policy and thinking, you know, what, what, um, what he wants to look at as far as working from home. Um, because I think it does, it, it impacts some of the union bargaining, I think, or some of what you'll get back unions is, is that something that other people have that I can't have? And that's one of the issues that comes up in healthcare all the time. Yeah. And Kate, the, the policy, uh, I, I, I, I, I saw it read briefly. I think, does it say the department head and town manager and, uh, HR director, or does it say, is it, is it both of both have to approve? Yeah, it's the department head and town manager. Um, I was thinking of adding like, or designee. So it could be, um, you know, turned over to HR or the assistant town manager or something like that. Um, but especially for a more permanent type of situation, I do think the town manager should be involved or at least be, you know, understand what's going on. Yeah. I mean, you absolutely have to be need to be involved. I mean, there definitely have been, there definitely have been cases where like certain, you could have situations where a particular department manager just doesn't like, uh, remote work. And if you have, you know, someone, you know, in one department getting remote work and someone in a very similar function in a different, oh, I don't think I am. We can't hear you. I can hear him. I can hear him. Oh, yeah. Uh, so can you hear me now? Buddy actually. Oh. Hold on. I think we may have an issue with our IT. Okay. I can hear you. We're back. I can hear you now. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying you could have inconsistent situations where one departmental manager just doesn't like remote leave and you want to be as consistent as you can be. So if, if, if, if someone in two different like clerical or administrative roles, if they, if they're, if both of them want your remote leave and it's remote work and it's reasonable, you should try to be consistent more or less. Okay. So we will go through it in more detail. Next meeting. Thank you. Okay. Um, now I've lost my agenda. Always do this. Um, discussion and possible vote to recommend changes to the non-union sick leave policy. Now we've seen this one before. Um, and can you bring that up? Um, also not already see it. I already shared it. Oh, good. Okay. Great. Thank you, Jill. Yeah. So I could speak to this. Yes, please do. So there's really just one primary chain or one major change and send the sick leave payout portion, which is near the end of the policy. Everything. Uh, I think the board reviewed this recently, um, maybe six or seven months ago. Like, no, I think it was about a year ago. Um, and I think at the time, uh, the board discussed, uh, having sort of this grandfather clause where we, um, change the language for the payout so that it's consistent with our other bargaining units. Um, and this language, which is 15 years of service to the town, not to exceed 7,500, um, that's consistent with our other bargaining units. Um, but if you look at the language as it's written, which is the top section, it says less than 20 years of service, uh, which means that, you know, someone with, you know, a year of service could potentially be paid out. I mean, I don't think they would have accumulated that much sick time at that point, but I just, um, that was part of what we were looking to, uh, make more, more streamlined and more in line with our other, other, uh, party needs. And so anyone with less than 15 years service to the town wouldn't qualify. They would get, what would they get? Do they get none? There's no payout. No payout for sick leave days. Okay. Does anyone have any thing they want to discuss about this policy? I can't remember our last discussion, but we, we do, uh, I assume we are all aware that this is an additional benefit you're offering. You don't have to pay out sick leave, but I know we want to, I think we want to offer it as an, as an inducement for good attendance. Is that right? Um, yeah, I, I agree. Um, we don't see this in the private sector really at all. Uh, and I think a lot of, uh, public sector, um, organizations are moving away from any kind of pay out. Um, I, you know, I think we wanted to take a more conservative approach because our, it's still in all of our bargaining units. Uh, all of our, um, collective bargaining agreements have a payout like this, and so we wanted to be fair to our, our non-union employees. Um, yeah. Um, so that there's some, some parity there, but I, I agree. I, I think, you know, moving away from these in the long term is probably the better process. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, and are we currently, are we currently paying sick leave to non-union employees when they leave? Yes, we are. Yeah. Okay. And then you're also, I just wanted to point out, and I think you, this, this, we, we are exceeding the, uh, the statutory max, which we're allowed to do, but, uh, you're, I think you're doing up to 13 days. Is that right? Or? Yeah, that's correct. So that's, so that's like, uh, uh, almost three times what, what's required under the law, but that's, that's fine as long as, you know, we know we're providing a more generous, uh, benefit. Yeah. Yeah. It's 13 days, uh, pretty much for everyone with the exception of our fire, uh, union, which is, operates in a different way, but everyone, all of our town employees accrue 13 days. So, um, is there any discussion on the wording? Do I have a motion for this personnel policy? Yeah. It looks good. Can you scroll up again? Uh, Jill, the first page. Okay. Uh, sorry. Go back down. Second page. Okay. Stop. I would take the S off because it's non-union employees who retire or die. Right. So we, yeah, I see that. Yeah. And we're requiring, um, we're, we're requiring less, um, the, you're only requiring documentation of, uh, of a, or certification of an illness of five days or more, which is, uh, more than what most private sector policies say. Usually I think it's three days or more. Um, is that, is that, uh, intentional or is that because the union, union, uh, CBA say that or. Yeah. That's because that's what, um, asked me says. So it's parity with our, our, our collective bargaining agreements. I, I agree. I was surprised there was five days cause it's usually three. Um, but yeah. I mean, to me, this is an example of where you, I don't know that you have to match it. If there's a operational reason to want it one documentation earlier. I mean, I don't, I, I, this is, this is part of a larger discussion, but I don't think we have to be equal in, in union and non-union compensation and benefits, but. I mean, Paul, I would say to that though, that in terms of like an administrative standpoint, it's easier to administrate it properly. Yes. Equitably. If things match up instead of. True. One here, one there, one there. Right. No, that makes sense. Yeah. And then I'm sorry, can you go back all the way up to the first page real quick? Sure. Okay. Stop. What's the required amount. Well, it's a, well, it's, it's not, it it's, it's, it's a cruel. It's an hour per 30, uh, hours and it maxes out at, uh, uh, 40, like one, like, like five days, but you can exceed that if you want to. Um, okay. I'm a little confused by the, this accrual thing, the first paragraph versus the third paragraph. So you have a total of 13 days, but then the 125 hours per fiscal year, that's more like 15 days, isn't it? That's 15.6, uh, or at eight hours. This is you accrue a total of 13 days per fiscal year, but it's capped at 125 hours. So if on your second year you accrue up to five hours, then you stop. Okay. All right. Yep. All right. That makes sense. Yeah. Sorry, Kate. You probably knew that. No, no, that you, you got it. Thank you. Can you say that again, Jill, just so I have it for the minutes. Yeah, sure. It's that you can accrue 13 days per fiscal year. But then once you've accrued up to 125 hours, you stop accruing additional sick time. So if like your second year, you've accrued how many days is 125 hours. Let's say you accrue 23 days, your second year, then you stop accruing. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Until you then take sick time and your bank lowers, and then you can accrue back up to 125 hours. It's really when you have employees for a long term with such very generous vacation, uh, sick time policies, especially ones that pay out like this, you often put in a cap so that you can't keep accruing. Mm hmm. Forever. If you work a seven and a half hour day at 16 point six, six, six, six days. See, it looks okay to me. Anybody else, or? No, I think this looks great. Good. Yep. Okay, so can I have a motion, please? I move to approve the sick leave policy as amended. Second. Thank you, Paul. Um, so roll call vote, Jill? Yes. Paul? Yes. Dave? Yes. And Marianne? Yes. Okay. Thank you. That one, please. Okay, so let's move to the human resources directory report. And thank you for including all that stuff, Kate. It's good to know. Oh, sure. Yeah, we've been, we've been busy. Um, so I, I really just wanted to give a quick update on where we are with recruitment efforts. I, um, printed out, this is our job page. We've actually shifted how we, uh, we don't have a true applicant tracking system yet, but we're, we're moving in that direction. So this is one step in that direction where you, uh, where you see this job opportunities page and they can click and then send us an email to, um, apply right from our website, which we weren't doing before. Um, so as you can see, we have a handful of positions where our recruitment has been fairly steady. Our turnover rate is fairly low right now, which is great. Um, I, I've added a couple new positions to this page since I've printed it for you, but, uh, one in IT and then our, um, HR, uh, benefits coordinator for, for us for part nine, which is really excited about. Hopefully we can get someone in here soon. Um, and then I also wanted to provide you with a copy of a new job description. Um, this is our community health nurse. Um, and this is the template, um, and tools that we received from MGT who did our class and comp studies. So this is what our new job descriptions will look like moving forward. Basically they did the job analysis questionnaire and the factor analysis. And based on that, um, they gave us this tool for creating new job descriptions. So that's what these are. And I think they're, they're much cleaner. They're, um, more concise. Um, so I wanted to give you an example of that. Um, and then I think for the other update I had, um, oh yeah. Um, oh yeah. And then just to, to talk a little bit about what we're doing, um, in HR, uh, we are, we've created this. I can't say we, cause I, I did not create this, our HR newsletter, which we're sending out quarterly to our employees. We've got a lot of great feedback on it. Um, this is primarily our, uh, Jaylen Braddick, who's our communications manager and HR, our HR generalist. So put this together every quarter, um, and just to highlight some of our employees. Our, you know, um, anniversaries and some, some fun stuff that we're doing to try and build some, um, community engagement and, um, with our employees. Um, can I ask you about the, uh, community health nurse job description? Sure. So now we have a template that all the job descriptions would be consistent. Yes. Okay. Okay, good. That was part of what you got from the study. And one of, one of our goals in HR is to actually go through all of our job descriptions. I mean, I don't know if I'll make it through in one year, but that's the goal is to rework all of these descriptions so that they're all consistent with this new format, doing the factor analysis based on what MGT provided and then making sure that they're consistent. Um, and are there changes? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to say congratulations on five years. Uh, I wanted to ask about the, uh, the job description itself. Are there changes to the position? That was one of the ones they flagged. Are there any things that are different from how it was before? Not really substantive. These are more, uh, wording changes, streamlining. Um, you know, what I found in a lot of our, our older job descriptions, there's a lot of redundancy. So it'll say, you know, it does a particular task and then says it in another way. It does that same task. So like it's cleaning up a lot of that language and making it a little more like a modern version of a, of a good job description. And they're consistent throughout. Yeah. And we still had a lot of mimeograph machines and we pulled out. Correct. Typewriters. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Were they always this long too, or was there more added? They were longer. Oh, they were longer. Yeah. We, we would regularly have five and six page job descriptions. I agree. Some of these are even, are a little long for my, I, I figured two pages and probably good, but we could maybe even streamline more. And I'd be happy for if you wanted to start reviewing job descriptions again and provide some feedback, I would be happy for that too. Yeah. Sure. And was, was education always combined with experience or it's, it's interesting how we're combined to be. Yeah. And experience as opposed to education then experience. No. And our, our old job descriptions, it was separate. It was education and then the experience, but MGT actually recommended combining them because it's a minimum qualification. It helps condense it. But I also just wanted to highlight our wellness program. This is new for us this past year. Um, again, I'm not taking credit for it. My, our staff, our HR staff is just fabulous. They created this from scratch. Um, we did a walking challenge in August. We did, um, like a popsicle, uh, event. We did all sorts of, we, we just did a bunch of fun events for employees to try and help build morale and, and engagement, um, which I'm really happy about. And I think we've gotten, like I said, we've gotten a lot of good feedback. I think we haven't had a newsletter in probably 20 years. Yeah. There used to be one. And that was a great newsletter. Yeah. I thought it was really good. Yeah. This goes back to Karen. That's how long ago. I don't even know how long ago that was. It was over 20 years for sure. I like the employee spotlight part. Yeah. Yeah. That's it for me. Unless you have any questions for any questions. Anybody have. Where'd you get the mojito recipe? Yeah. I don't know. I think Jalen came up with that. Um, yeah. Thank you. That was good. Yeah. It's good to see the, um, the newsletter and the wellness, um, programming. It's good. So moving to our next agenda item, approval, session approval, open session meeting minutes from five 20, which are in the packet. Um, so I know that Dave and, um, Paul didn't get those. Dave, you have them now. Yes. Okay. Yes. Paul, did you get them? The packet I sent you? Did you, did you send it to the same email? Cause I did not. No, they were in the packet. That would be pretty funny if I did that, isn't it? I, I had, uh, I got them in, in time to be put in the packet. I thought, I thought I did pretty well. I sent it to your Gmail. Uh, that's a different one. Hold on. It's the one that says draft, draft, draft. Okay. I got it now. Yep. Yep. You have too many emails. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see any changes for the, um, the minutes. What did you say, Jill? I'm sorry. I, I don't have any changes for the minutes. They look great. Okay. I just need to send you the one that's the, cause I slipped on. I just need to send you that for July. Cause we went through everything. It was just, I had to split the two. So when I get home, I can shoot that. Okay. Right. Cause they're ready to be, they're ready to be posted. Yeah. I have the July 29 ones. Okay. So you will have those for our next meeting. Yeah. I'll have them by the next meeting. All right. So may I have a motion on the May 20th? Paul, do you need a little more time to look at that? Yeah. I'm almost done. One second. Okay. Yeah, it looks good. Can I have a motion? A motion to approve the, uh, May 20th, 2026 open, uh, meeting minutes. And I have a second. Thank you. Thank you. Dave seconds. Okay. Uh, roll call mode. Paul. Yes. Dave. Yeah. Jill. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Um, I had one question. Um, uh, the sexual harassment policy. Did it, it's good to come back. Cause that's what you said in the minutes. And we, oh, we brought it back. Right. We did. Yeah, we did. We did. You brought it back. We voted on it. We did. We voted on it. Right. So, um, and Jill, you have the next meeting minutes in June and the next meeting date. Now, last year, we valiantly tried to have one set. We picked them, we picked a, a, a day and a monthly meeting and we never kept to it. So anybody want to think about that now, or do we just want to set it as at each meetings? I think each meeting, honestly, um, we're traveling a lot the next couple months. So it would be hard for me to make a regular. Okay. What do you think, um, will we have enough things that we will have to work on for October? Uh, yeah, I mean, we can start by going over the, uh, the remote work policy. So that's a big one. Um, and then I can, I, I have a few others that I've been working on that I can probably send. Um, I won't have it a month ahead, but I can probably get it to you a few, few, like three weeks ahead. Okay. That would, that would work for people if we had it a few weeks ahead and, um, maybe gave a heads up. So, but the one question I have is what, and this is another, you know, what can we do so that people get it in the, in their emails and what, what can we do about the town emails that people aren't receiving? Yeah, that was, I, I apologize for that. I usually do send it to your town and then I CC it to your, uh, your personal. So you get it. Uh, and I, I just want to say that was just me spacing and I forgot. I apologize that you didn't get it. So I will make sure to send it to both next time. I don't know why you aren't able to access your town. I don't know when it's, it's, I don't know why I think Paul, it sounds like we're having similar issues. No, I mean, I can, yeah, I can access my town email. I just, I, um, um, I'm not, I'm, I'm in Boston now. So I don't, it's, it's set up for my computer at home. All right. Okay. So usually it's, usually it's not a problem for me. Okay. Okay. I'll track it down. But if you do CC personal and just. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that moving forward. I was doing it and I just didn't for whatever reason this time. So I apologize. I wondered if it was a problem about the town. Um, I apologize. The month of October, I have a lot of travel and family obligations. Only two days. I could do a personnel board meeting or October 19th or 20th, but I am happy to give Kate my meeting minutes. If there's a date that works better for everybody else. I'm okay. Those dates, but let's see what other people. I, I, I cannot do the 19th. I could do the 20th. You said the 20th. 20th. It's a Tuesday. Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait, wait. I could do the night. It would be four o'clock again. Yeah. I just have, I just have another, um, I could do the 19th. I have something at six. That, uh. So the 20th. On the 20th. You wouldn't have a. I have no conflict, but I could do the 19th if we wrap up by 530. Do that. Yeah. What do you want to do the 20th? Just because then. It works for me. It works for me too. It works for me too. It works for me too. How about you too? Is the 20th okay? Yeah. Why don't we choose the 20th policy and then there's no. Just. Oh, okay. Sounds good. Uh, four o'clock on October 20th. And we will get feedback to Kate on the remote, uh, work policy. And, um, and then the ones that you have been working on, if you send those to us, that would be great. And then we could probably handle all of those things. Okay. Wait, are we giving her individual feedback or are we just reporting back to the next meeting? Oh, we're reporting back at the next meeting. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Um, so there being no further business. Uh, if I can have a motion to adjourn at 5 15 PM. Motion to adjourn. I will move. I will move that. Okay. Paul. Second. Second. Okay. And roll call vote. Jill. Yes. Paul. Yes. Okay. Dave. Yeah. One. Yes. Yes.
And then so the annual report is something we do every year. And it's just sort of a from July 1st, 2025 to July 1st, 2026 is the time covered. And we owe the town an annual report. And it's due on September 30th. It comes to us during the summer. I put one together. It's always pretty cut and dry and boring. And Kate suggested that we might want to consider doing a joint report with the personnel department and have a joint report. And when I read what she had, and she drafted one that didn't include our report, but she drafted one. And I, my feeling was that I think it incorporates more information for the townspeople. So I thought it was a really good idea, but I wanted to get everybody's input and then also have a look at what needs to go into it. And then combine them. I sent Kate a copy of the one I drafted. Ours is always pretty cut and dry. So I don't know if you've got a chance to see that. Did you get a copy? Yeah. Okay. Um, did you get a copy of mine as well? I get the one that you sent. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't have a copy of the, uh, of anything from, um, from the, uh, from the HR. Oh, it's in the packet. Oh, it is. Yeah. It was a packet sent to my email, my personal email. No, the Wayland email this time. Yeah. I cannot access that Wayland email reliably. I mean, I, I would like everything to be sent to my personal email too. Okay. Kate, do you want to bring it up just so that, you know, Paul can get a sense of what it is? And did you get one? I didn't get it either. You didn't get it. It was, did you get it? Paul, I just, I just sent it to your personal email. So you have it. Okay. Thank you. You didn't get the packet either? No, I got the, um, I got the one that you had sent. Jill, did you get a packet? I did in my Wayland email. Yeah, I did too. I sent mine because I can never be sure that people are getting it. So I, I sent it via the Wayland email and then I send a copy on the personal email. Do you mind forwarding it to my personal that's on there as well? I would love to. You are Dave Williams. Yeah, that's it. Got it. Thank you. Yep. Just sent.
So mine is the boring one pager and it's draft 2026 annual report, which you've gotten. And then Kate's is the one in the packet. Kate, can you put that online so people can. I can't. Oh, it's on Robbie's computer. Okay. I can send the packet. Robbie. Well, Jill, you just sent it, right? Do you, uh, the packet? Yes. I just emailed. I didn't get it yet, but. Okay. Would you put something up on the screen for me? Cause I don't have, have that. Yep. Hold on. Yeah. If I send something, can I send something to you? Yeah. Or can you put it up, Jill? I'm sorry. Cause it's fine. Yeah. No. From the packet, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can everybody see that? Yes. Yep. Say when. I'll give you a few minutes to read through it. And I asked Kate to include, um, another town, uh, department that does a joint report and she sent, she submitted the one from the conservation commission. So that's also in the packet. So you can see how it's done and how it's merged together. We would just have to make sure we merge it together. Only, only 998 applications. That's it. Yeah. That's not a lot. Actually. Yeah. Well, for two people. Yeah. There's only two staff members and, and we only had 39 job applications that we actually, I should probably update that. Cause it doesn't include our seasonal operations. So we don't generally do the recruitment for our recreation, the recreation department does their own recruitment. So it's actually bigger than that. Um, but yeah, we had, we had a good year. We, we haven't been able to go out and do as much recruitment, which is good. Do we want to move on to the next page? Are we ready? Yeah. Kate, I thought that the motor vehicle licensing was done in 2026. That's that policy was done this year. Oh, you're right. Right. I should take that out. It's your next year. Next year's report. It's done in the fiscal. It's the fiscal year, not calendar. And I thought that was done July to July. We do. We do. I think we did do it in July. Didn't we? Do we do it in June? It's I can take it out June 30th. We can just check it. Yeah. I'll check that. And I can take it out. Yeah. I just have a question. We, you know, on, in, in the report that I pulled together, I said, um, held step to union grievance hearings presented to the town by the unions for their collective bargaining agreements with the town. Do we need to put a number, mostly other stuff and numbers. I don't know if we want to put numbers there or not. I didn't add them. I mean, this seems fine to me. I don't, you know, I don't know if, uh, it, I mean, if we're, if we're supposed to do our own report, it's not quite what, um, they might expect, but if it's, if there's precedent for it, um, seems, you know, it seems like a useful report. What happens with the reports? Where do they go? In the, in the town warrants, right? No, they go into the annual report. They're all compiled into the annual report. Okay. I mean, my question would be, does the finance director and the finance committee submit one or two reports? We should probably mirror that. I think it's a mix. I think, um, you know, for example, the PW and the board of public works, they actually submit separate reports. Yeah. Um, our conservation commission and conservation department, uh, combined theirs into one. So I thought it might be, you know, a little easier to do one report rather than two, because it's, you know, similar work, but it, I think it can be done anyway. Either way, there's no, there's no strict requirement that it has to be one way or the other. Can they be, can they be submitted together? Yes, they can. With the, the, and the department report and the board report. Is that what you're suggesting might be, um, a way to do it, Paul, when you asked? I'm sorry. Say again. Um, when, when you, uh, you asked about the, the report and whether it should be submitted as our own, would it be that we could just put them, submit them together, like the department, the human resources, uh, and personnel board. And then we just have separate parts parts of it. Like Kate has the human resource department report and we put ours right, right behind it. I mean, this for, yeah, I mean the form, you know, it's, it's sort of clear, but the, you know, the, the report is 90% or 80% Kate and 20% us. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't have a problem with that, but it's just not sort of what we've done to, you know, in the past. So, I mean, it could be, it could be Kate's report with an attachment of our report. I mean, that, I mean, were you planning, were you planning to add goals or, or did you, you think that was, uh, that's, you'd have to add that to your, your report, right? Right. And there is a part at the bottom, Paul, that says personal board goals. No, no, I'm saying, I don't think, um, I don't think Mary Ann's has it, does it? Right. I mean, we're, what we're doing is we're supporting. We're supporting, we're supporting the HR department. And then we are responsible for certain things. Um, and that's working with the HR department to get them done. Right. And, um, so I would, I would think that since in our, in our, um, in what was past a town meeting, we have the responsibility for a report. It says that, um, so, I mean, what I would suggest, I guess, based on your question is to have the human, call it the human resources and personnel board report, have the human, human resources department, uh, report either first or second, whichever. But since we're supporting and we want the personnel policies done. I mean, that's, that's a goal, but we can't do that without Kate. So, uh, that's not our goal. Our goal might be to keep, keep it up, you know, in the, just like we do with the, um, the staffing survey. We kept bringing it up every year. We need to do a staffing survey. We were, when the fire department was doing their study, we kept bringing it up. Is it, you know, where is it, um, to kind of get, to make sure that people were aware it was being done. And then we asked for, um, for, uh, a time to discuss the report. So I think that that's, you know, I think that's reasonable for us to do in our role. And so I would say we just submit it together, but we do have separate ones. I don't think I can have a goal unless it's to be, you know, nudging somebody or keep supporting the HR department. That's, I mean, we don't have a goal of our own except to keep reminding people that it's time to do X, Y, and Z. Right. What do you think? Yeah. That sounds about, that sounds correct. Yeah. It's like to bring up issues or if we hear issues or if townspeople raise some concerns, it's our role to kind of bring them up. And, and, and if something needs to be, uh, looked at or something new in the law changes and we, um, and then we say, well, we don't have a policy for this. There's a new law. We need a new policy. The department still has to do it with input from us, but it's, we don't get it done. So it's more advisory now. So I think that our goals are to make sure we know what's going on and to keep advising and to keep, uh, making sure that we're on track. So I'm looking at the most recent annual report. It's on the town website. Um, and, and it looks like there's a mix of, um, boards having a separate one. Like for example, the recreation commission does a separate report from the recreation department. So there are two separate reports that they're next to each other. So we could do it that way. Um, there's also a mix of some that combine. Um, it looks like there's only one other that I can see that combines. Um, so it's, it seems like it's more common to have two separate, but. I'm comfortable with whatever the boards would like to do. Are we doing this to make it more readable for the public? Or is that kind of the goal ultimately in combining if that's what we do? Yeah. That's easier and more accessible for them. Yeah. And I think traditionally it's just been a report of the board and there hasn't been an HR report to my knowledge in the past. And I thought it would be helpful to provide some of these statistics on what we do. Um, and the support that we provide. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. And I don't even know, do people know that they can find those reports? I mean, we, we submit one, but I don't know if people know to read them. We don't print. I think we print a small number. I mean, there are huge reports. Yeah. They're on the website and they're electronic now. So there are. Yes. I think that it's an, I don't know, will you announce it? No, I, I think my thought would be to, to submit them together, but as separate reports unless, unless you guys, I mean, I, I do like the fact that there, I think it gives more information to the public. And I, I think that's important. I agree. Yeah. I'm fine with that. All right. So I would need a vote on our part of the report and, and a vote that we submit, that we submit them together. I think that would be a good vote to have. And then I need a report on my, I need a vote on my report. So. Okay. Okay. So. Are we moving or does anybody have anything to say about Mary Ann's report? I think it looks good. Yeah. Same fine. Okay. Great. And we would still leave it as is and not add the numbers of grievances that we heard. I would not put the number of grievances. Okay. I was looking at Kate, which has so much objective data. I was like, Oh, maybe we need to put more objective data, but that's fine. Great. So can I have a motion? I move to submit the personnel board annual report as is in conjunction, but not combined with Kate's lovely report. Second. Okay. So I need to do a roll call vote because we are on zoom and in the room. So Jill. Yes. Paul. Yes. David. Yes. And Mary Ann. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. So I, I will do, I submitted mine just so that they had it by the 30th, but I will, and I told them we would vote on it tonight. So I'll just let them know and you'll let them know how we'll do it. And I don't, it doesn't, I don't know if they, you know, the department goes first or the board goes first. It doesn't matter, but that they're submitted together. I think that's a good idea. And I think it provides much more information for the town. I think. Good job. That's a report. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of things that you're going to tell us that we didn't even know. You know, it's a really useful exercise for me because it helped me really keep in perspective what we did. And we did a lot. We actually did a lot. We actually did a lot this year. So I, I'm actually kind of proud of you. But it's nice that I'm able to communicate that to the, the town. And I find that when I look back, I mean, last year's personnel policies that we worked with are in last year's report. Now there's a different group of policies from this year's report. So it's a way to even figure out when, when they were last reviewed, which we had some trouble with when you came, there was no documentation on the files, even though we had changed some of them. So that's good. That's good. Okay. Thank you. So I'm just showing, I'm just showing this because Paul and Dave did not get the opportunity to look. So I just wanted them to have a quick glance at the personnel policies. Yep. So the next is a discussion and possible vote to create either a personnel working board group, which we talked about before, or to discuss a new process to review and propose revisions to personnel policies and the employee handbook. So it's one of Kate's goals for this year. And I was trying to figure out a way that we really can get some closure on them. And we talked about a small group working with her and then bringing it to the larger board. The other thing I thought about that might work is if Kate gives us the policy she's worked on, it's not going to be probably, we need to get feedback to her. So it's not going to be for the, like, if she sends them to us in September, we won't be dealing with them at October's meeting, but we'll be dealing with them in November's meeting because we then would get what she's been working on. We could submit any changes that we think, and then she can put them in and then bring for discussion, say in November, what people brought back to her and the changes that she did make. And then if people had brought up a point before that they felt wasn't included and was still important to include, we would have a discussion about it. And that might move things along. I just, what I'm bothered by is we work on them. We talk about them. They come back. We talk about them again. They have to come back again, but we sometimes have trouble getting closure on them. So I'd like to hear from you all what you think would be a way to make it more efficient and more helpful to Kate. I mean, I think that if you give them to us and we each individually give feedback to Kate, my concern is that it would then, it could get confusing to kind of merge different comments without having a conversation. I don't want to make, and in that way it would make more work for Kate instead of just her giving it to us. We all talk about it together and then it gets given back the next meeting. Okay. That's my, my thought. I don't know if I'm incorrect, but. And that's the way we've been doing it, but I would think that we need to commit to working. If the wording is tough for us, just slogging it out and getting, getting to a conclusion by the end of our meeting with how we think the wording should best go. Or, and that's where we, we say, Oh, well, we'll have to see it again. But that way, if we really work on the word wording in the meeting, then that can help. That can help Kate come to closure on it quicker. Paul, what are your thoughts? You're on mute. I think. Yeah. I think the current process is fine. I mean, it could be streamlined a bit. I think we do put things over more often than we need to. But yeah, I, I, I agree with Jill and I wouldn't want to have us, you know, split up our feedback because then we're not having a discussion and you know, we should come together as a, as a board. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. I, the only thing I would say is that when we discuss it, we can try to be very like kind of compact and streamlined with our thoughts and feedback to make the process go a little quicker. Mm hmm. Um, but again, I, I, I don't see another process because we can't discuss it with each other, except in an open session. Mm hmm. Right. And it's fair to put all the onus on. Of course, my obvious choice would be Paul because he's the employment lawyer, but it's not fair to him to say, okay, you meet with Kate on all these. Um, all these policies and then bring them to us. So, um, would it be helpful, uh, for you? And when you come to have the discussion, if you receive the policies from me and my proposed, you know, changes, you know, three weeks, four weeks, a month, you know, a month ahead of time, and then you come back the next month and you discuss it. I, how would, would that be helpful? Oh, like the same idea I'm getting. If you send it to us in our September packet. Yeah. We don't really deal with it until November. Or no October. October. Yeah. Yeah. Or something like that. I mean, I can give it to you earlier so that you have more time to review. Right. Right. Because there's a policy tonight that we have two members that didn't get their packet. So, yeah. So I guess I don't have much history on the process that you've gone through before, but I guess for me, just looking at it, like having a personal forward working group inside of a smaller group, I think it's just a challenge. I think we're a larger group than having a smaller group, but I think it would make sense. Yeah. But I think having it in advance and then us committing to saying we'll take time before the meeting to make sure that we're prepared to get here, then I think it'd be more efficient. Right. At least from, from my standpoint, I think that's a commitment we should make. And that's how we've done it in the past is we slog it out at the meeting. We read it. We discuss it. We come to some kind of a conclusion as to basic wording. And then if Kate needs to wordsmith it a little bit, fine. But if there's some legal wording that Paul thinks is particularly important, then, then we really make sure we're clear on that before we give it to her again. And Dave, just so you're aware as personnel board members, we cannot speak to each other about personnel board issues, except for in an open session, because it violates the open meeting laws. So Paul could talk directly to Kate about something, but you, Paul and Kate couldn't have a discussion about something without it being in an, in an open session. Actually, it's as long as you don't have a quorum. Yeah. Two people could meet and have a conversation, but then they couldn't. Yeah. Discuss it. Yeah. Like I could meet with, I could meet with everybody individually and then give that information to Kate. That's possible too. Or we could do it in the meeting. And it's probably just as efficient to do it in the meeting. Right. And it means a commitment on all of our parts and making sure we have sufficient time to review them. It's a pretty dumb law. If you can just do all your business through a series of one-on-one conversations, but I'm sorry to editorialize, but I think the spirit of the law is that the discussions should be in a public forum or that's where the, there's a report or minutes that are taken. Yeah. Yeah. So I can commit to having, you know, policy drafts to you. How, how early would you like them? I mean, I think the meeting before is great. Then we would discuss it the following meeting. Then we can, you know, vote on it, the meeting after. Okay. Okay. That gives us enough time. It's, it's the, when it's like we get our packet on a Friday and our meeting is the next week, it's compressed and maybe not enough time, but if, if we can do it where we have it in advance, that will work. I think really better. And we can move through the ones that need to be redone. Um, and, and Kate did send a schedule of some that, uh, haven't been done for a while. Some are, you know, sort of administrative kinds of things. And some are really substantive and we really need to pay attention to them. Um, which brings us to the next agenda item. If we want to move to it as a discussion on the adoption of a possible work from home policy. Uh, I think the issue is that some people work from home, even though this is a public facing, uh, service organization that has to be available to the public. There are some people who get to work from home and many others who can't, but if people are doing it, we need to have a policy. Uh, and, and Kate and, uh, Michael, Michael and I talked a little bit about it and Kate and Michael have talked about it. So why don't I turn it over to you, Kate, and you can tell us a bit about what you're thinking is. Um, so it's a first draft of, uh, a remote work policy for the town. I based this on, I actually did a lot of research. I, I reviewed maybe 10 to 12 policies from other municipalities. Um, some large, you know, cities like Cambridge down to smaller municipalities like, um, Maynard, one of our, our neighbors. Um, and then I, I really compiled the pieces that I thought from those policies that made sense for Wayland. I tried to be as comprehensive as I could. Um, and, and so this is the result of, of that work. Um, I, I included a couple of example policies in your packet, um, from North, I think it's Northboro and. Needham. Needham. Thank you. Uh, no, no, Wellesley. I'm sorry. It was Wellesley and, um, Needham. Yeah. Uh, and I, I can provide many more if you want. I was trying to narrow down the field. And then there was also some best practices from the MMA, the mass, the Massachusetts Municipal Association or MMA. Um, so this is again, first draft. I've sent this out to our department heads for their feedback as a first one. Um, it's also an option to just not to choose, not to have a remote work policy. There are some municipalities who've chosen not to do that, um, for a variety of reasons. But I, I think that there's enough, there are enough employees in our town that I think this is a good idea to have a written policy. Because right now it's very informal. Um, some departments allow and some don't. So. And, and, and we have to keep in mind too, that some employees can't work from home because, you know, it's the same thing in healthcare, which is where I'm from originally. Uh, there are some people that have to be there, um, all the time. And so is it fair, uh, if someone can work at home and also has, you know, some work done at their house at the same time they're working at home. Whereas another employee in another part of the organization would have to take time off to do that. So, uh, it's a fairness issue. And one option I thought of is that it can be that the norm is not to work from home. So, except for some exceptions and the exceptions being for those people who are in departments where other people can take over if they're not there. And they're writing a report to be able to finish that report at home. I don't know what you guys think about that and the whole issue, because we are a, we are a public institution. We're here for the citizens and some people can work from home and some can, but the fact is we have some people that are doing it. So, um, I think we're better off with a policy than not having a policy, but Paul, I welcome your thoughts on that as well. So, yeah, I haven't, you know, I mean, I think a policy is a good idea. I haven't, um, uh, whoever was scrolling, uh, was, uh, scrolling a little faster than I could read. Oh, sorry. No, that's okay. Uh, I got the gist of it. I mean, I think it looks like from what I've seen, it looks okay. I have a couple of concerns. I don't think you can say that you can have full-time remote work. And I mean, you, it can, that that's obviously not the norm, but I think there could be situations, particularly reasonable, reasonable accommodations where you might need to offer full-time remote work. So if somebody has like a, uh, an anxiety disorder, for example, or some kind of acute mental health issue, and they just are advised by, uh, you know, or, or maybe not even a mental health issue, but there's some kind of need to be, uh, not, uh, in a, um, uh, not working, uh, at the town, there could be situations where to accommodate them, their mental health or physical, uh, uh, condition, you need to offer full-time remote work. By the same token. Yeah. Wouldn't that be then a reasonable accommodation and not something covered under a remote work policy? Well, you could argue, you could say that, but I think to say that remote work cannot, I mean, to say that we can't have full-time remote work. I mean, you, you could, you, you could, you'd have to, you'd have to carve that out. Say this does not, you know, this, you would say this policy is not intended to limit, uh, uh, reasonable accommodations, which, which are not considered, but they are remote work. So, I mean, I think I might just put in some qualifying language that, uh, you know, full-time remote work, you know, you know, will be considered, you know, where appropriate as a reasonable accommodation or may be considered. The other thing is the same, same concern as to the probationary period. I mean, you you can't say because of reasonable accommodations, you can't say that someone is in per se ineligible for remote work if they need a reasonable accommodation and they're during the probationary period. It may be, it may be atypical, but you can't exclude it. And then there's, I've read the, there's more to the policy I haven't seen, but most of it looked very good.
So do we want to review it independently and then bring this back in our next meeting? Yeah. I mean, unless, is there, um, Kate, is there any urgency to getting this approved? Like, like. No, there's no urgency. Um, this is, like I said, it's the first draft. I was assuming I would get comment. It would come back with more feedback. Um, we also, if, if this were to move forward, we would need to discuss it with our, you know, the applicable, applicable union. So any unions that may be impacted, primarily ask me and maybe library. Um, so it's, it's not urgent. I thought it was, uh, interesting in the policy that the town then is responsible for hazards or incidents that include, that occur at the employee's alternative workplace. And I, I mean, I thought, gee, we need to, I was thinking in my mind, you exclude that, but here it says employees working remotely remain covered by workers' compensation insurance for injuries arising out of and in the course of their own. Employment that occur at their approved alternative workplace during their approved remote work hours. Well, you can't, you can't, you can't exclude that. It'd be the same thing of some, it would be the same thing of somebody as part of their, if somebody at, uh, uh, DPW as part of their work duties has to, uh, do a, um, inspection of, uh, you know, uh, you know, near someone's home and they trip and fall, they're offsite, but they're doing their job. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I see your point. I mean, cause obviously you can't control, you know, uh, hazards or unsafe conditions in the home as you could in, uh, at the town, but that's just kind of the way that, uh, I think, uh, most comp policies, I think all comp policies cover approved remote work. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. But Kate, you may, you might, we may want to, you know, just double check that with our, uh, make sure our comp policy dovetails with that. I'm, I'm fairly sure it would allow that. I would agree. I think that is the practice that if you're working, you're covered under workers comp, no matter where you're working. I mean, our workers comp policy had that you're in, uh, I saw that you had something that like, you're in a distraction free. We also had like hazard free. So if somebody did something remarkably dumb, working up on a ladder on the roof or something that perhaps there'd be some, um, leeway, but, um, but that is a distraction free environment.
Yeah. But we had distraction free and safe. The roof is not safe, but, um, but yes, even, even then I'm sure that it would have been covered under workers comp, but we. So then there's also a liability insurance portion that the person's has to maintain reasonable and adequate homeowners, renters. And it says, or other liability. And I was thinking of an umbrella policy, which is the slip, trip and fall in your home kind of policy that people have. Can we, can we, uh, are there, can we say that employees are responsible for that based on what you just said, Paul? I mean, I'm not sure. I'd have to, I'd have to check that on that. Um, I don't think you could obligate someone to have renters insurance. I just, I'm pretty sure you could not. And, and, uh, uh, or, um, I mean, I think anyone who's a homeowner who has a mortgage would have to have homeowners insurance. Uh, but if you, if you own your home outright, you, you know, you probably would, but you don't have to. Um, I mean, I don't, I'd have, I'll research that. I, I, that's an interesting question. I don't think you can, I don't think the town could tell people what kind of insurance they have to have privately. Yeah. Uh, I'll be honest. I wasn't sure about that. I, I put it in because I was concerned about the town, um, having to cover damage to a home when someone was working in it that had nothing to do with the work they were doing. Right. So they had a flood or they had a tree fall and I don't know, maybe that's something that needs to be addressed in a different way, but, um, yeah. We could take a look at that. We're going to, we're going to review this now and deal with it at our next meeting and we'll discuss it in more detail. We need to know, you know, where the town manager is on the policy and thinking, you know, what, what, um, what he wants to look at as far as working from home. Um, because I think it does, it, it impacts some of the union bargaining, I think, or some of what you'll get back unions is, is that something that other people have that I can't have? And that's one of the issues that comes up in healthcare all the time. Yeah. And Kate, the, the policy, uh, I, I, I, I, I saw it read briefly. I think, does it say the department head and town manager and, uh, HR director, or does it say, is it, is it both of both have to approve? Yeah, it's the department head and town manager. Um, I was thinking of adding like, or designee. So it could be, um, you know, turned over to HR or the assistant town manager or something like that. Um, but especially for a more permanent type of situation, I do think the town manager should be involved or at least be, you know, understand what's going on. Yeah. I mean, you absolutely have to be need to be involved. I mean, there definitely have been, there definitely have been cases where like certain, you could have situations where a particular department manager just doesn't like, uh, remote work. And if you have, you know, someone, you know, in one department getting remote work and someone in a very similar function in a different, oh, I don't think I am. We can't hear you. I can hear him. I can hear him. Oh, yeah. Uh, so can you hear me now? Buddy actually. Oh. Hold on. I think we may have an issue with our IT. Okay. I can hear you. We're back. I can hear you now. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying you could have inconsistent situations where one departmental manager just doesn't like remote leave and you want to be as consistent as you can be. So if, if, if, if someone in two different like clerical or administrative roles, if they, if they're, if both of them want your remote leave and it's remote work and it's reasonable, you should try to be consistent more or less. Okay. So we will go through it in more detail. Next meeting. Thank you. Okay. Um, now I've lost my agenda. Always do this. Um, discussion and possible vote to recommend changes to the non-union sick leave policy. Now we've seen this one before. Um, and can you bring that up? Um, also not already see it. I already shared it. Oh, good. Okay. Great. Thank you, Jill. Yeah. So I could speak to this. Yes, please do. So there's really just one primary chain or one major change and send the sick leave payout portion, which is near the end of the policy. Everything. Uh, I think the board reviewed this recently, um, maybe six or seven months ago. Like, no, I think it was about a year ago. Um, and I think at the time, uh, the board discussed, uh, having sort of this grandfather clause where we, um, change the language for the payout so that it's consistent with our other bargaining units. Um, and this language, which is 15 years of service to the town, not to exceed 7,500, um, that's consistent with our other bargaining units. Um, but if you look at the language as it's written, which is the top section, it says less than 20 years of service, uh, which means that, you know, someone with, you know, a year of service could potentially be paid out. I mean, I don't think they would have accumulated that much sick time at that point, but I just, um, that was part of what we were looking to, uh, make more, more streamlined and more in line with our other, other, uh, party needs. And so anyone with less than 15 years service to the town wouldn't qualify. They would get, what would they get? Do they get none? There's no payout. No payout for sick leave days. Okay. Does anyone have any thing they want to discuss about this policy? I can't remember our last discussion, but we, we do, uh, I assume we are all aware that this is an additional benefit you're offering. You don't have to pay out sick leave, but I know we want to, I think we want to offer it as an, as an inducement for good attendance. Is that right? Um, yeah, I, I agree. Um, we don't see this in the private sector really at all. Uh, and I think a lot of, uh, public sector, um, organizations are moving away from any kind of pay out. Um, I, you know, I think we wanted to take a more conservative approach because our, it's still in all of our bargaining units. Uh, all of our, um, collective bargaining agreements have a payout like this, and so we wanted to be fair to our, our non-union employees. Um, yeah. Um, so that there's some, some parity there, but I, I agree. I, I think, you know, moving away from these in the long term is probably the better process. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, and are we currently, are we currently paying sick leave to non-union employees when they leave? Yes, we are. Yeah. Okay. And then you're also, I just wanted to point out, and I think you, this, this, we, we are exceeding the, uh, the statutory max, which we're allowed to do, but, uh, you're, I think you're doing up to 13 days. Is that right? Or? Yeah, that's correct. So that's, so that's like, uh, uh, almost three times what, what's required under the law, but that's, that's fine as long as, you know, we know we're providing a more generous, uh, benefit. Yeah. Yeah. It's 13 days, uh, pretty much for everyone with the exception of our fire, uh, union, which is, operates in a different way, but everyone, all of our town employees accrue 13 days. So, um, is there any discussion on the wording? Do I have a motion for this personnel policy? Yeah. It looks good. Can you scroll up again? Uh, Jill, the first page. Okay. Uh, sorry. Go back down. Second page. Okay. Stop. I would take the S off because it's non-union employees who retire or die. Right. So we, yeah, I see that. Yeah. And we're requiring, um, we're, we're requiring less, um, the, you're only requiring documentation of, uh, of a, or certification of an illness of five days or more, which is, uh, more than what most private sector policies say. Usually I think it's three days or more. Um, is that, is that, uh, intentional or is that because the union, union, uh, CBA say that or. Yeah. That's because that's what, um, asked me says. So it's parity with our, our, our collective bargaining agreements. I, I agree. I was surprised there was five days cause it's usually three. Um, but yeah. I mean, to me, this is an example of where you, I don't know that you have to match it. If there's a operational reason to want it one documentation earlier. I mean, I don't, I, I, this is, this is part of a larger discussion, but I don't think we have to be equal in, in union and non-union compensation and benefits, but. I mean, Paul, I would say to that though, that in terms of like an administrative standpoint, it's easier to administrate it properly. Yes. Equitably. If things match up instead of. True. One here, one there, one there. Right. No, that makes sense. Yeah. And then I'm sorry, can you go back all the way up to the first page real quick? Sure. Okay. Stop. What's the required amount. Well, it's a, well, it's, it's not, it it's, it's, it's a cruel. It's an hour per 30, uh, hours and it maxes out at, uh, uh, 40, like one, like, like five days, but you can exceed that if you want to. Um, okay. I'm a little confused by the, this accrual thing, the first paragraph versus the third paragraph. So you have a total of 13 days, but then the 125 hours per fiscal year, that's more like 15 days, isn't it? That's 15.6, uh, or at eight hours. This is you accrue a total of 13 days per fiscal year, but it's capped at 125 hours. So if on your second year you accrue up to five hours, then you stop. Okay. All right. Yep. All right. That makes sense. Yeah. Sorry, Kate. You probably knew that. No, no, that you, you got it. Thank you. Can you say that again, Jill, just so I have it for the minutes. Yeah, sure. It's that you can accrue 13 days per fiscal year. But then once you've accrued up to 125 hours, you stop accruing additional sick time. So if like your second year, you've accrued how many days is 125 hours. Let's say you accrue 23 days, your second year, then you stop accruing. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Until you then take sick time and your bank lowers, and then you can accrue back up to 125 hours. It's really when you have employees for a long term with such very generous vacation, uh, sick time policies, especially ones that pay out like this, you often put in a cap so that you can't keep accruing. Mm hmm. Forever. If you work a seven and a half hour day at 16 point six, six, six, six days. See, it looks okay to me. Anybody else, or? No, I think this looks great. Good. Yep. Okay, so can I have a motion, please? I move to approve the sick leave policy as amended. Second. Thank you, Paul. Um, so roll call vote, Jill? Yes. Paul? Yes. Dave? Yes. And Marianne? Yes. Okay. Thank you. That one, please. Okay, so let's move to the human resources directory report. And thank you for including all that stuff, Kate. It's good to know. Oh, sure. Yeah, we've been, we've been busy. Um, so I, I really just wanted to give a quick update on where we are with recruitment efforts. I, um, printed out, this is our job page. We've actually shifted how we, uh, we don't have a true applicant tracking system yet, but we're, we're moving in that direction. So this is one step in that direction where you, uh, where you see this job opportunities page and they can click and then send us an email to, um, apply right from our website, which we weren't doing before. Um, so as you can see, we have a handful of positions where our recruitment has been fairly steady. Our turnover rate is fairly low right now, which is great. Um, I, I've added a couple new positions to this page since I've printed it for you, but, uh, one in IT and then our, um, HR, uh, benefits coordinator for, for us for part nine, which is really excited about. Hopefully we can get someone in here soon. Um, and then I also wanted to provide you with a copy of a new job description. Um, this is our community health nurse. Um, and this is the template, um, and tools that we received from MGT who did our class and comp studies. So this is what our new job descriptions will look like moving forward. Basically they did the job analysis questionnaire and the factor analysis. And based on that, um, they gave us this tool for creating new job descriptions. So that's what these are. And I think they're, they're much cleaner. They're, um, more concise. Um, so I wanted to give you an example of that. Um, and then I think for the other update I had, um, oh yeah. Um, oh yeah. And then just to, to talk a little bit about what we're doing, um, in HR, uh, we are, we've created this. I can't say we, cause I, I did not create this, our HR newsletter, which we're sending out quarterly to our employees. We've got a lot of great feedback on it. Um, this is primarily our, uh, Jaylen Braddick, who's our communications manager and HR, our HR generalist. So put this together every quarter, um, and just to highlight some of our employees. Our, you know, um, anniversaries and some, some fun stuff that we're doing to try and build some, um, community engagement and, um, with our employees. Um, can I ask you about the, uh, community health nurse job description? Sure. So now we have a template that all the job descriptions would be consistent. Yes. Okay. Okay, good. That was part of what you got from the study. And one of, one of our goals in HR is to actually go through all of our job descriptions. I mean, I don't know if I'll make it through in one year, but that's the goal is to rework all of these descriptions so that they're all consistent with this new format, doing the factor analysis based on what MGT provided and then making sure that they're consistent. Um, and are there changes? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to say congratulations on five years. Uh, I wanted to ask about the, uh, the job description itself. Are there changes to the position? That was one of the ones they flagged. Are there any things that are different from how it was before? Not really substantive. These are more, uh, wording changes, streamlining. Um, you know, what I found in a lot of our, our older job descriptions, there's a lot of redundancy. So it'll say, you know, it does a particular task and then says it in another way. It does that same task. So like it's cleaning up a lot of that language and making it a little more like a modern version of a, of a good job description. And they're consistent throughout. Yeah. And we still had a lot of mimeograph machines and we pulled out. Correct. Typewriters. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Were they always this long too, or was there more added? They were longer. Oh, they were longer. Yeah. We, we would regularly have five and six page job descriptions. I agree. Some of these are even, are a little long for my, I, I figured two pages and probably good, but we could maybe even streamline more. And I'd be happy for if you wanted to start reviewing job descriptions again and provide some feedback, I would be happy for that too. Yeah. Sure. And was, was education always combined with experience or it's, it's interesting how we're combined to be. Yeah. And experience as opposed to education then experience. No. And our, our old job descriptions, it was separate. It was education and then the experience, but MGT actually recommended combining them because it's a minimum qualification. It helps condense it. But I also just wanted to highlight our wellness program. This is new for us this past year. Um, again, I'm not taking credit for it. My, our staff, our HR staff is just fabulous. They created this from scratch. Um, we did a walking challenge in August. We did, um, like a popsicle, uh, event. We did all sorts of, we, we just did a bunch of fun events for employees to try and help build morale and, and engagement, um, which I'm really happy about. And I think we've gotten, like I said, we've gotten a lot of good feedback. I think we haven't had a newsletter in probably 20 years. Yeah. There used to be one. And that was a great newsletter. Yeah. I thought it was really good. Yeah. This goes back to Karen. That's how long ago. I don't even know how long ago that was. It was over 20 years for sure. I like the employee spotlight part. Yeah. Yeah. That's it for me. Unless you have any questions for any questions. Anybody have. Where'd you get the mojito recipe? Yeah. I don't know. I think Jalen came up with that. Um, yeah. Thank you. That was good. Yeah. It's good to see the, um, the newsletter and the wellness, um, programming. It's good. So moving to our next agenda item, approval, session approval, open session meeting minutes from five 20, which are in the packet. Um, so I know that Dave and, um, Paul didn't get those. Dave, you have them now. Yes. Okay. Yes. Paul, did you get them? The packet I sent you? Did you, did you send it to the same email? Cause I did not. No, they were in the packet. That would be pretty funny if I did that, isn't it? I, I had, uh, I got them in, in time to be put in the packet. I thought, I thought I did pretty well. I sent it to your Gmail. Uh, that's a different one. Hold on. It's the one that says draft, draft, draft. Okay. I got it now. Yep. Yep. You have too many emails. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see any changes for the, um, the minutes. What did you say, Jill? I'm sorry. I, I don't have any changes for the minutes. They look great. Okay. I just need to send you the one that's the, cause I slipped on. I just need to send you that for July. Cause we went through everything. It was just, I had to split the two. So when I get home, I can shoot that. Okay. Right. Cause they're ready to be, they're ready to be posted. Yeah. I have the July 29 ones. Okay. So you will have those for our next meeting. Yeah. I'll have them by the next meeting. All right. So may I have a motion on the May 20th? Paul, do you need a little more time to look at that? Yeah. I'm almost done. One second. Okay. Yeah, it looks good. Can I have a motion? A motion to approve the, uh, May 20th, 2026 open, uh, meeting minutes. And I have a second. Thank you. Thank you. Dave seconds. Okay. Uh, roll call mode. Paul. Yes. Dave. Yeah. Jill. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Um, I had one question. Um, uh, the sexual harassment policy. Did it, it's good to come back. Cause that's what you said in the minutes. And we, oh, we brought it back. Right. We did. Yeah, we did. We did. You brought it back. We voted on it. We did. We voted on it. Right. So, um, and Jill, you have the next meeting minutes in June and the next meeting date. Now, last year, we valiantly tried to have one set. We picked them, we picked a, a, a day and a monthly meeting and we never kept to it. So anybody want to think about that now, or do we just want to set it as at each meetings? I think each meeting, honestly, um, we're traveling a lot the next couple months. So it would be hard for me to make a regular. Okay. What do you think, um, will we have enough things that we will have to work on for October? Uh, yeah, I mean, we can start by going over the, uh, the remote work policy. So that's a big one. Um, and then I can, I, I have a few others that I've been working on that I can probably send. Um, I won't have it a month ahead, but I can probably get it to you a few, few, like three weeks ahead. Okay. That would, that would work for people if we had it a few weeks ahead and, um, maybe gave a heads up. So, but the one question I have is what, and this is another, you know, what can we do so that people get it in the, in their emails and what, what can we do about the town emails that people aren't receiving? Yeah, that was, I, I apologize for that. I usually do send it to your town and then I CC it to your, uh, your personal. So you get it. Uh, and I, I just want to say that was just me spacing and I forgot. I apologize that you didn't get it. So I will make sure to send it to both next time. I don't know why you aren't able to access your town. I don't know when it's, it's, I don't know why I think Paul, it sounds like we're having similar issues. No, I mean, I can, yeah, I can access my town email. I just, I, um, um, I'm not, I'm, I'm in Boston now. So I don't, it's, it's set up for my computer at home. All right. Okay. So usually it's, usually it's not a problem for me. Okay. Okay. I'll track it down. But if you do CC personal and just. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that moving forward. I was doing it and I just didn't for whatever reason this time. So I apologize. I wondered if it was a problem about the town. Um, I apologize. The month of October, I have a lot of travel and family obligations. Only two days. I could do a personnel board meeting or October 19th or 20th, but I am happy to give Kate my meeting minutes. If there's a date that works better for everybody else. I'm okay. Those dates, but let's see what other people. I, I, I cannot do the 19th. I could do the 20th. You said the 20th. 20th. It's a Tuesday. Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait, wait. I could do the night. It would be four o'clock again. Yeah. I just have, I just have another, um, I could do the 19th. I have something at six. That, uh. So the 20th. On the 20th. You wouldn't have a. I have no conflict, but I could do the 19th if we wrap up by 530. Do that. Yeah. What do you want to do the 20th? Just because then. It works for me. It works for me too. It works for me too. It works for me too. How about you too? Is the 20th okay? Yeah. Why don't we choose the 20th policy and then there's no. Just. Oh, okay. Sounds good. Uh, four o'clock on October 20th. And we will get feedback to Kate on the remote, uh, work policy. And, um, and then the ones that you have been working on, if you send those to us, that would be great. And then we could probably handle all of those things. Okay. Wait, are we giving her individual feedback or are we just reporting back to the next meeting? Oh, we're reporting back at the next meeting. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Um, so there being no further business. Uh, if I can have a motion to adjourn at 5 15 PM. Motion to adjourn. I will move. I will move that. Okay. Paul. Second. Second. Okay. And roll call vote. Jill. Yes. Paul. Yes. Okay. Dave. Yeah. One. Yes. Yes.