Title
An Ordinance approving Amendment No. 6 to the Budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, as adopted by Ordinance No. 9441, Ordinance No. 9442, Ordinance No. 9449, Ordinance No. 9450, and Ordinance No. 9451, by amending the full-time equivalent positions, expenditures, and establishing a new Pay and Classification Plan for the City.
Body
Issue/Request:
An Ordinance approving Amendment No. 6 to the Budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, as adopted by Ordinance No. 9441, Ordinance No. 9442, Ordinance No. 9449, Ordinance No. 9450, and Ordinance No. 9451, by amending the full-time equivalent positions, expenditures, and establishing a new Pay and Classification Plan for the City.
Key Issues:
The current vacancy in the position of Assistant Director of Finance/Controller provides an opportunity to create a succession plan for the Finance Department. The proposed Pay and Classification Plan creates a position of Deputy Director of Finance/Controller at an increased grade level. If no suitable candidate can be found for the Deputy Director/Controller position, the plan allows for the selection of a replacement Assistant Director of Finance/Controller as the position currently exists. No additional FTE is being requested for this purpose.
The Finance Department has functioned with one Payroll Specialist for many years. Backup support to the Payroll function had been managed through the partial assignment of other Finance staff. In the last year, both staff members with backup payroll training have been lost. Payroll is a critical function that includes many of the processes necessary to employee pay such as monitoring of employee time, calculation and monitoring to assure City employees are paid correctly, the proper deductions are applied to employee paychecks, timely payment of taxes, and reporting. Laws and regulations are changing constantly. The needs of the City organization have grown so that it is in the best interest of the City to acquire an additional staff member to work with Payroll. This added position (1 additional FTE) of Payroll Administrator will also play an important role in the migration to a new enterprise software system. The position description will indicate preference for an applicant that has, or will acquire, the designation of Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) issued by the American Payroll Association.
The City's annual budget was produced within the City Manager's Administrative Department for about 8 years. The position of Budget Manager was created in the Finance Department in FY22 to transition the budget function back to the Finance Department. Staff turnover in Finance and a difficult job market have made it challenging to complete that transition smoothly. Following interviews for the position in recent months, it was concluded that the best resource available to accomplish the budget transition was to utilize two current staff members. The attached request (1 additional FTE) would add a second Budget Manager position to the Finance Department. Both positions would report directly to the Finance Director and would perform duties that are compatible with existing Finance duties and with budget administration. Those duties include budget monitoring and reporting, revenue analysis and projection, expenditure tracking, financial analysis, etc.
Ordinance No. 9489 passed by the City Council on August 23, 2022, approved a new labor agreement between the City of Lee’s Summit and the Local Lodge 778 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO. The new labor agreement contains changes to the pay rates for certain positions within Central Building Services, Fleet, Public Works Operations, and Water Utilities, which will increase each Departments’ expenditures.
Presenter
Bette Wordelman, Finance Director
Recommendation
Recommendation: Staff recommends approval of the ordinance.