You can hear me.

No, you'll be like, I'm so hurt by it.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

Good morning.

Welcome to Finance and Personnel Committee.

Um, it is Thursday, feels like Wednesday, but it is Thursday, May 28th, 2026, a gorgeous day in Milwaukee.

Finance and Personnel Committee.

I am Alder Woman Marina Dmitrievich, the chairwoman.

I'm joined by my vice chairperson, Alder Person Peter Bergelis.

We have Alderman Scott Spiker.

Alder Woman Milele Cogs is excused but joining us soon.

And Alderwoman Charlene Morris here that presents us a quorum to conduct our business today.

Item one 260120 substitute resolution relating to reimbursement allowances for members of the Granville Haven Woods Advisory Council.

This is sponsored by Alder Woman Larissa Taylor.

She did request that we have it on the agenda.

Um we have not been able to reach her this morning.

So we will temporarily lay this over and continue to try to connect with her so that she can speak on her item today.

And hearing no objections, so ordered.

Item two five two one eight eight.

Um temporary hold by Alderman Vergelas.

Thanks.

252 188 resolution authorizing the review enhancement and expansion of the Department of Employee Relations Mental EAP Health and Wellness Benefits Program.

Department of Employee Relations Molly King.

Are we prepared for this one?

Alright, good morning.

Good morning.

And welcome and please begin to discuss your item here.

Yes, we have a presentation that we like to provide.

I guess I'll come over there.

That's okay.

I think everyone has a hard copy of the presentation.

All right.

Good morning again, Madam Chair, committee members, Molly King, uh benefits director, and I want to thank you all for taking up this file this morning.

Um, this uh this endeavor here is a proposal to upgrade our current EAP or employee assistance program, both in both from a perspective of mental and behavioral health.

And what we're trying to do here is uh to make sure that whatever program we have in the city is something that not just we have a program for program's sake, we want to make sure it's effective and it's meeting the audience, meeting our employee and their family where they are.

So this is target physic this is this uh program and this enhancement that we're working on is uh we currently have our service with United Healthcare, and we're looking to transition out from United Healthcare to Spring Health.

Um, and so one of the things as we did our research and due diligence, we did it with a fiscal responsible enhancement that will double our employee access is our goal uh to mental health care while generating measurable cost savings for the city as a self-funded plan, right?

It's because we're not insured, so everything we do impact us directly.

So the first slide here, and with me is Chris Amore, he's online.

So he will be jumping in as need be.

So this first slide here basically talks about the landscape, the current landscape.

The current landscape in just city in general nationwide is one out of five U.S.

adults experienced mental health issues, over a trillion dollars globally, is it's spent on uh loss of productivity because of anxiety and depression.

And what's staggering is and this includes us here, 76% of our at least uh members say they have experienced one or two symptoms of mental health uh issues, and that is what our nation is facing with.

And currently here in the city of Milwaukee, we have United Healthcare, and here's what our status is uh state of our um plan is.

We have three sessions for issues, six hour each day to actually get an appointment to to meet or meet with the counselor, uh, a limited uh provider network.

In addition to that, the cost increase after the visit the three visits is over.

So, what does that mean?

When you finish your EAP visit, it fulfilled to the medical plan, and that's where substantial cost comes in.

I'm sorry, how many do you get currently?

How many?

Three three visits currently per year per yeah per session or per issue?

So, individual conditions so you go for the various conditions.

Each condition you go for, you're seeking uh treatment for, you get three visits.

So, what is a really good uh mental health model looks like, one would ask, right?

And so this slide here will illustrates the limitation of what we should be, what we have and what is let's consider a robust mental health.

It says that research research shows that um to improve an employee mental health begins with at least three to six counseling sessions.

We currently have three.

In addition to that, it talks about any of you need to have a network has to have at least 60% of the appointments outside of the business hours.

You need to have a very diverse uh network provider that people can relate and resonate with whoever is providing them services.

In addition, at least a minimum of 50 clinician conditions should be able to address, and it the facts show that individuals stick with that first person they get, they're assigned to a provider, and so if your provider is not matching, chances are you're probably never gonna go back or continue treatment, right?

And so, as it states here, the study shows that 78% employees experience significant improvement in depression symptoms after completing seven or more therapy sessions.

So to me, that itself tells us what we do.

We do have a program.

No question, is it effective?

Is it impactful?

And so this is where we decided to really embed look into what we want to do.

Today with us here, I know we have a few supporters.

Um, our chief firefighter chief, he's here, in addition to the union.

Um, Eric Don, I believe, is online to to show support for this program.

Um, so as we look continue looking on here, we look at Spring Health.

What do they offer and why did we choose Spring Health?

So we decided to go with Spring Health because of several reasons.

We did interview, I believe, three to four different providers, including United Healthcare for this part of the expansion.

And they the the fact of the matter is Spring Health is one of the leading providers in mental health space.

There, this is a this is their bread and butter, this is our specialty, right?

Uh, United Healthcare is more of a generalist, so to speak.

And so they provide us two days access.

What does that mean?

You have a condition, you have certain experience, you need to get scenes right away, right?

Within 48 hours, you can see someone, you have access to uh provider, whereas compared to the six EAP, six days we have to wait currently.

In addition to that, you're we're saying let's double down.

We the the fact of the matter shows that it need at least six sessions to actually see an impactfulness uh to make a difference, and so we're saying let's we're doing three, why not do six?

Um, and so that we can have a more thoughtful uh sessions.

Employee can really spend more time getting the treatment and the needs there.

And uh what's interesting about this also is that they have a precision matching.

What does that mean?

It means that they right now.

If you were to call, you know, you what do you do who's available and are they close to you, right?

No, no, we want something more important than that's just that.

Not just who's available, but who suits your need, who do you match well with?

Who can you talk?

Can you relate to you better?

What's a cultural or whatever it is?

Who can you?

And so that that is one of the things that they do really well, and they have a triage, it's called care navigator, who will walk you through, make sure that match helps and see you through to the entire process.

So I think it's a game changer there for us for what we've been doing and what we should be doing for employees.

Um again, it covers the entire family, including children, two and over.

They have the exact same benefits that you and I do have.

Um, and again, they have a proven outcome, have three times better uh results on depression and anxiety, and we believe that the ROI on this is going to be substantial according to their study, shows three to six times in ROI.

For us, I think employee healthy showing up their whole self, showing up to work and absentism, limiting that is matters.

So that soft cost does impact just.

And so here's more of a side-by-side slide on um the uh what we have currently with United Healthcare compared to what we're consider asking for the proposal is.

Is we have three visits.

We're saying, let's double this.

Let's let's make this if we're gonna do a promo, let's do it right.

Let's go six.

We're saying it takes six days for you to even see someone.

By six days, you're probably not gonna even follow through, right?

If you're you've experienced some heart conditions today, six days to wait to get an appointment or see someone or talk to someone, to me, it could be more reactive.

I think two days is could prevent things from happening, and that's a guaranteed two days uh access.

The third point we want to make is that they have a more mature, fully established uh model, they're one of the leading in this industry when it comes to mental behavioral health.

This again, like I said, this is their special, this is their bread and butter.

Whereas United Health, you do have a plan, but they're still developing that, making it more robust.

They're not there yet based on what we've our interview with them.

Um we like the idea of the precision matching.

So it's not just who's available and how close they are to you, but making sure it's someone who can help you who resonate with you, who can provide you the need you know, you can relate to, so to speak.

Um, in addition to that, full coverage for an entire family, the digital platform, both digital platform is available and in person, and what I like about this is that they have real-time analytics, so obviously very compliant with HIPAA.

So, we as an employer, we get to know employees are utilizing, they're getting to see someone within two days, they're having a triage person fall through them through an entire um service, and those are the things we're able to see.

We don't get, you know, obviously comply with HIPAA's rule, and uh again, one of the big parts for us takeaway here is the spillover.

When that pre-visit ends, you go to the medical plan, the medical plan is whatever the cost is.

Um, whereas with the sixth visit, we prolong that EPA service at a set rate.

And here, before I move on, Chris, do you have anything you'd like to add?

And I'm not sure if he's able to speak.

Chris Amora.

Okay, well, we'll come back.

Um yeah, so okay.

And so here is one of the cool things about um spring health model is that they deliver about 45 percent uh times faster recovery than the next leading provider.

What does that mean?

You can because of how they're thoughtful and purposeful their services, you can see results 45%.

That's what their their standards are.

That is impressive, in my opinion.

Um, so speech to recovery isn't just a health matrix, it's a productivity matrix, in my opinion.

Faster recovery means employer return back to work with their whole self, more productive and being present.

Um, this is to me, this is a very meaningful uh measure, clinical measure, because it supports our financial case.

If people are not at work, we gotta hire a temper temp.

Things are being fallen away, said in the community we serve and not being served fully.

Um, and so one of the really impressive things I think I did mention here, this slide indicated is those care navigator.

We don't have that right now.

So they get you set up with someone, they reach out to you.

Are you getting the service you need?

How are you feeling?

Is there something else we can do for you?

So they see you through the entire concierge service, so to speak, throughout your entire treatment, and I think that is impressive.

We do not have that, and not many offer something of such robust.

So that to me, it's a game changer there.

And so this slide basically talk about early invention, right?

This is the value of EAP realizing the employee actually need and what they need at every step of the way.

Spring Health platform designed to be more proactive, and so what we want to do is make sure we're able to meet our f the families who need this and our employees who need this early in the stage so that we avoid things like reactive urgent care, health care, uh ER visits and things like that.

Something more chronic can become more long-term.

Um, and so yeah, I think by doing this, we we can minimize uh hospitalizations and such things.

And this basically the slides basically talk about a full holistic view of our EAP program, what we want to have, not just for employee.

Because if you're a spouse or your child is not doing well, you can't be your whole body at work, right?

You can't be your whole self at work, you're not present, and so we want to make sure we're taking care of not you but your entire family, and so this is the model we want to present.

Um, and this is the model we want to have for our employees and their families.

So with spouse, everyone has the same amount of visits, same time guaranteed to see be get seeked service within two days, yeah, and having the same triage systems, everyone else.

And what's important in a day we day service is 24 7, 365 days.

There's no time off.

You can access especially when you need it most.

Most people historically look Valentine's Christmas, those are the time people experience depression, dark moments in their lives, whether it's loneliness or whatever it is.

So we want to make sure they're available when we need them.

And so this basically talks more about, you know, the long term and the fiscal impact, right?

We want to make sure whatever we do, there we want to look it in a fiscal impact lens.

And so we believe by transitioning to this plan, by making from three to six, we control that six costs.

We know what it what the cost will be.

For example, currently an EAP on on just an overall average, uh, an EAP visit within a hundred and two hundred dollars.

Whereas if it goes over to a medical plan, it becomes it could be from eight to twelve hundred dollars.

A depression treatment is about forty-five hundred dollars a year.

So if you can get someone in a car to the study show, about seven treatments, you can able to help someone.

They're able to mitigate and triage um medications also if necessary and when necessary.

And so one of the big things to uh for us here as policy makers, reducing absenteeism is important, being present.

We want our employer to be present because if you're a state, that's one of the biggest factors of short-term disability is uh mental and behavioral health needs, people taking off that time because of burnout, anything of such.

Um, so yeah, fewer short-term disability claims we expect to see, um, people showing a more up to work and less utilization in ER.

And to me, that is a game changer.

If we can avoid two or three, that would pay for this program and then some.

I can guarantee you that.

Well, I can promise you that we're not doing anything.

So, um, overall, uh Spring Health is a known one, they're a reputable company.

Um, we feel very confident and comfortable going before working with them, especially doing our due diligence.

Um, it's backed by performance guarantees established.

Uh, they are going to set up a brand just for us.

They're gonna be here, boots and ground, they're going to do marketing and outreach so that we don't have to wait until you have service, and then who do I go and where do I go?

They're going to be forefront in front of employees, always be available so that when we recognize something, we can um triage that or refer them when necessary.

And again, an executive summary here.

Basically, what we wanted to state here is that overall we think that this is a good plan for the city, it's an opportunity for the city to improve our health outcomes.

We noticed that in the last several years of me being the benefits director, one of the higher costs has been trending up, and not just for the city, across the nation is mental behavioral health.

It's become I think a top five or ten percentile for most companies.

Um book of business.

And so one of the things that we thought, you know, knowing this, what do we want to do about it?

Let's do something about it.

Let's do some of mover, let that move that needle a little bit.

And so this is an opportunity for us to transition over to a company who actually does this for a living.

Who are the professionals in this arena, and to give our employee that kind of service?

Six visits instead of three, let's double down, two days access to care, identify some cost savings in the middle of it, and working with one of the best in in-class um provider out there.

So, with that, if you don't have any questions, we are really asking you to provide us this opportunity to work with Spring Health and moving away from United Healthcare for the purpose of uh providing EAP service.

And again, we do have a few individuals here in support, both the fire department, fire union and Chris and Moore and a few others online.

Okay, thank you for that presentation.

Um we have a number of questions.

Just one to start off with when does this happen?

So it's a process works.

Um Maryor Johnson administration is happy and excited to move this far, especially in the month of May being mental health awareness month, and so with your approval, we will get into contract, we will establish a contract and work with the city attorney to make sure the contract is good.

And I think it takes us 60 to 90 days, I believe, to get implementation ready.

I guess I just thought that would be with like open enrollment.

Like what if people are within an excess existing?

So good question.

If someone is within a current program, we will still have United Healthcare open throughout, I think for the next several months or to at the end of the year at least.

And so they can continue to have service through that, and then it will be a seamless handover.

Meaning, you know, and then it uh so you work with United Healthcare one that's a provider, but most of United Healthcare providers are already in Spring Health.

So that's important.

Because we did ask those questions, part of our interview.

Alright.

So that would be a seamless transition if they're not, make that transition seamless over, but we're not gonna like cut off the you know the access to United Healthcare right away.

It's gonna be a soft seamless transition over time.

Okay, um, more questions about all the number of us.

Thank you.

Um thank you for this.

I think it's important to be cost conscious and make sure that we're providing the same or better service.

Um, how many um so looking at Spring Hill's reviews online?

It looks like some in some places their uh number of providers is limited.

Um, how many providers did we have access to in United Healthcare locally, and how many uh will we have access to locally Spring Hill?

You know I know that, but I don't have it with me.

I will have to get that back.

We do have uh Spring Health.

Spring Health has over two, it's on the slide.

Two thousand different thought it was.

Yeah, so this is going to a hundred percent virtual mental health care.

No, the there's a platform, but you also can call someone.

You have a telephonic option, you have a virtual option, and you can see someone within a neighbor uh in with the networks right here in Wisconsin.

Absolutely.

Alright, so my question is how many local providers does United Healthcare give us access to currently, and how many providers are available locally with Spring Health?

I do have that's in the back of the room if someone has that answer, you're welcome to come up.

I think for your uh, I know that there's already the right program, so we're not right.

I don't have the Alderman right on top of it here, but I will get that to you.

And then um our asking for local providers, United Healthcare has.

We're switching so the the ask for this file is to switch from UHC from United Healthcare to a different provider.

I'm asking how many local service providers our employees have access to currently with United Healthcare, and how many would we have access to locally with spring health health?

Sure.

Um, what um and then our so our agreement with Spring Health will be for credentialed therapists, yes, not talkers.

Exactly.

And so that's the good point.

So do you notice a little bit?

So we will so we will not be accepting appointments or providers with spring health that are not licensed therapists.

Right.

Their master level spring health clinicians are oh don't answer the full, they're master level clinicians.

Master's degree, or what does that mean?

It means they're master level in within a clinician field, which is a master's degree, yeah.

That's a master's degree, okay.

Uh and then uh is there any out-of-pocket for those for the three uh current United Health Care sessions that we provide?

Yes, we pay.43 cents per employee per month.

No, no, um for the employee.

Is there anything out of the there's nothing out of pocket currently with United Healthcare?

And then is there anything out of pocket for the six visits?

Same, nothing will be zero out of pocket.

All right, that's sounds like a great deal.

Um what happens if the therapist or the employee needs more than six?

What is that cost to the employee?

And then is that part of their deductive their total deductible?

Does that go to uh are those prices negotiated uh or are they out of luck and they pay cash out of pocket?

Good question.

So currently, after the three visits, if it falls into the medical plan, similar, it will go into the medical plan.

After six visits, it'll go into medical plan.

Based on the type of service, it could range um that's very exactly what happens now it would go from three from three it would filters into the medical so now we have six that's why we think the RI is there.

And then if someone has their United Healthcare provider currently and that provider is no longer or is never is not part of spring health um how does out of network provider care work so that will be on our spring health care.

So United Health is our network so they're with United Healthcare they'll continue their in that work.

So they'll continue to be in that work is just that they'll continue to serve with no new um when we turn this on and soft close we will start phasing any new visits to United Healthcare who is with United Health stays with United Health they can continue having that existing service with United Healthcare.

Thank you very much appreciate it.

Okay madam I have some similar questions but let me go to all the women more.

Thank you so much um Madam Chair and uh Molly thanks for connecting with me yesterday a lot of my questions um were answered um but in reference to sort of um some of the commentary that my colleague has been asking in reference to um so if an individual wants to stay with United Healthcare for their mental health services they still could yeah absolutely they're with a network.

Yeah they're the one who provides the services they could stay with that provider um again after three visits becomes medical correct exactly what we decided with the uh the wheel of this committee and we switch over to spring health after six visits that becomes medical and network so all the spring health providers will now be networked yeah so would not be considered out of network.

I think one of the things that I really liked about um this particular plan is the specialty right so when we're talking about mental health um you know that different folks experience in different ways burnout anxiety depression whatever right um this is this plan from the conversation that we had yesterday and just your presentation really hones in and focuses on this specialty area and that was one of the things that I loved about it in addition to um move doubling the sessions doubling the um because again you know three sessions you're it it feels like you're just sort of getting getting started so I love the idea that we're doing we're doubling um that impact and then providing support um for um for our employees um one of the questions that I do want you to you know share with um our audience is uh we we talked a little bit yesterday about just you know there are so many benefits that we have here in the city um and you know how do we go about sharing these opportunities um how do we educate our employees about these opportunities that that we already have existing no that's a great question and one of the things you know you talked to all the more thank you for think for taking the time to come and meet with me yesterday is that you know we have a lot of benefit we're we're we're we're we're very privileged right we have so many it's overwhelming after a while and over time we keep adding benefits and one of the things as a benefits director in the next year one of our strategy is to reevaluate all of our benefits to see are we duplicative anywhere?

Is it working is it being are we just having it just to say we have it is it being effective is it meeting our employee where they are and their family is it serving its purpose and so this is one of the starting point where we're doing that in addition to that and the need was there are you our fire union call and they say we are experiencing our employees CD's traumatic and you think they can have to go back to work the next day or within that day and you it's not human for us to be doing certain things and these this is an opportunity for us to show that we care and we want to be there and help.

Um as it relates to the other benefits, one of the things we do, um, you know, we have new employee orientation in which we stuffed down all these benefits and tell you all this stuff and within two hours, and then we have employee uh open enrollment.

So one of the model we're switching to starting this year, I call a drip campaign.

So we're doing a drip.

So every other month or every month you'll see us prov um having a webinar on a specific program like in in May we did um a lot we talk a lot about women's health, perimetapa, metaplause.

We talked heavily, we focus heavily on mental health.

And not just talk about it, tell you what resource we have, identify the issue of where should you go to to seek um help when you need it.

And so as we move forward, we're gonna do more of these drips.

And that includes even our um dental services because that impact heart disease um and things like that.

So we're not limited anywhere.

Because we have so much it is hard just so once a year for you and your family to like what do I need?

When do I need it?

And so by having these DRIP webinars or campaign or outreach, I think it's an opportunity for us to get a little bit more throughout the year so when open enrollment come it's not foreign or new to us.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for that and madam chairman that time is appropriate I would love to be listed as a sponsor um or co-sponsor whatever is appropriate for this file.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I had a couple questions too Alderman Specker did you have any questions on this?

Um two quick ones most of my questions have already been asked um so I know it's in the memo that was sent to F and P members but so there is a slight cost increase of 65k switching from the current model to the spring health one on paper at least um you've been arguing it's a better product overall for employees and you've also argued that if you look at the bigger picture beyond just the bottom line there's a cost savings could you just briefly elaborate on that I mean you already kind of covered it.

Yeah I mean it's a in terms of safe productivity and right so currently we pay and you know we I don't know if we want to talk we are paying uh point four three that's a fact that's in our book of business for per empty per month for our United Healthcare for those three visits.

Um we were able to negotiate less than double um with spring health uh so we're paying um not not that much for the primarily per month for that visit and then in addition to that we believe because when you need that help you need that help now before you have to go to ER or urgent care.

So within that time frame if you need to you need to see someone we believe that will reduce absent soft cost absentism but more importantly that additional three visits and an aggregate because that's one of the slides more of an aggregate if you're being a 200 let's just say for giggles say what you're paying two hundred dollars for EAP services right that's 1200 would be known factor anything after that goes into the medical pending your condition that could range from eight to twelve hundred according to national average so that's what we're trying to mitigate from that additional three but there are so much more benefits right again I think ER utilization is a big one getting that service up front when you need it start at more purposeful I think it's that would make a game changer versus you got a quick fix and then you're back at two months in the same situation because it was a quick fix.

Okay.

And then um I guess briefly following up on one of the questions Alder Burgos asked about whether anybody would lose the provider that they're currently with so even after the soft close if you had a UHC provider um even after the that goes away um and spring health is for everyone um you still won't lose a provider and part of the explanation to that had to do with something I I lost track of about when you're kicked over to medical or not because they would still be there will be within the network all the spring health providers are within our network.

So then nobody will not be outside or the soft close if you choose to go with outside of spring health and all that would be determined um that could be outside that would be outside of network but all the providers and then we have united health care lists right you can choose any so it's kind of commingle so does that still remains unclear to me well we're trying to see if the UFC UFC that's a whole different out of the UAHC providers are a subset of the Spring Health, so spring health includes all of them and more.

Or are they two thousand specialty providers.

Okay.

But wait, how do you know that that?

That's the question.

I feel like we're asking this question, and maybe I'm just not understanding it.

So for many years, you could have people right now that have multiple family members, which I hope is the case because that's you know a good um tool to have in your toolbox that are seeing um providers that clearly accept UHC, likely, because that's at least helping um pay for it.

What if those current therapists take UHC but for some reason are not in network with spring health?

So if you're seeing yeah, it makes sense.

So if you're seeing after that three visits, you're a medical, so John's starting, you're a medical right now.

So they're already in a network.

Well, that was like a preliminary question that I had, and forgive me for not knowing this.

Is every therapist um appointment does it automatically put you into EAP?

Like, are you just by the essence of people working in the city of Milwaukee using um therapist services?

Does that mean they're using EAP?

I thought it was a separate program.

EAP is separate program for mental behavioral health, yes.

So depending on your conditions, in a family therapist right now and not be using EAP, right?

Would you not be impacted by this change then?

You would have to choose to do uh switch to one of sort of spring health um providers.

Well, that's what Alderin Spyker was saying is you're in the middle of You could choose to, you don't have to.

Oh, so if that family therapist that you've been seeing for three years, probably not through EAP that you have a relationship with, if they don't take spring health, you continue with that.

Continue with your medical plan.

Right, that would be on the medical plan side because remember, there's only with the current plan, there's only three free visits, and then you have to then it kicks over to the medical medical plan.

Say with spring out there's six free visits, and then it'll kick over to the medical side if you want to continue.

But isn't part of mental health justice that we should consider it in parity with medical insurance?

Like, why is it separated out?

Like, why would you want three non-medical ones?

Like we want it to be considered a holistic health approach.

So we, the city, your it's a holistic health approach, so the city is covering it a hundred percent.

When you go to medical, your deductibles kick in, correct.

That's why it's a shared for our board employee, and it's a different r it could be it could be at a different rate cost, okay.

So for employees, because they really can't take any more out-of-pocket costs because we haven't seen any increase in our flexible spending accounts, which I do think that we should consider for future years, um, with the going rates of inflation and wage suppression that we've seen.

Right.

Um, average inflation right now is approximately three percent, and then under President Trump's economy, we know that it's been absolutely terrible, and buying power has been decreased.

So, what is the first thing that many people are considering is I don't maybe need that mental health wellness um appointment, especially when it's competing for precious FSA dollars to already pay down medical deductibles.

Will this change have any impact whatsoever on um the deductibles or FSA use?

It should actually probably reduce it, I think from what you're saying.

So it wouldn't be going to deductible until six.

So you wouldn't go deductible till six, but when you did use medical deductible, would there be any change in like an out-of-network cost?

No, out of network costs.

No, I appreciate that.

Okay.

No, great questions.

All right.

Um out of so other research shows that lack of accessibility um out of business hours.

Um if you are a parent right now trying to get a medical dental vision, anything that your children need, you have to miswork to do it.

I bring this up all the time.

It's excruciating impossible environment for anyone to succeed and could have its own mental health implications.

Um, so the fact that it has out-of-business hours I think is good.

Just lastly, I want us to continue.

I think this is a pillar in mental health, but there's also other wellness and mindfulness initiatives.

Um, there's other organizational things that people um are looking at, especially in this month of um high discussion, like you mentioned with it being um just the end of May here, actually.

But you know, having wellness initiatives, um, we're talking about a lot of physical wellness initiatives, but like, and maybe I'll bring this up when we when we meet with the people from Freight Art, but in part of those employee um discussions, like more opportunities when we go for healthy rewards, getting benefiting mindfulness, more um mental wellness checks, because usually that's a physical check, um, and obviously we all know that there's multiple things there, and then also just incentivizing in a way by not disincentivizing again kind of those wellness initiatives that are outside of of mental health, um, whatever people's practices may be, you know, from meditation to time off, um, to what it is that they need, I think is is things that are pretty important, and then lastly, just obviously having a psychologically safe um organization that's free of you know toxicity and those negative things, so um okay.

I guess my last thing is just to also make sure that we're really communicating this out as you see some of these changes.

Constituents will then reach out to us that are city um employees, and then we'll have to send them your way, so on the front end.

Um last but not least, it's great to have the endorsement of the um fire chief.

I I just think that considering that police and fire, but mostly police um is such a huge part of our budget, all just to triple check, all police officers have access to this entire program.

I just know with different bargaining units and whatnot.

Um, but you know, I think we we need to continue to um increase the uh membership of some of these EAP programs to just and I guess you know, this is something I can talk to the chief about.

The nature of their scheduling is so challenging.

I could only imagine, um, but it's all so needed.

Yeah, that's why the flexibility you you hit in two great points.

One is the flexibility.

When you have a child who's in school, and I had one employee who reached out, his his and her daughter was in school, and uh you want me to take him out of school so f to make this appointment and that and otherwise I have to get someone who's out of network.

That's why when we when we explore it is those were the questions we asked bring out when can we meet you?

365, you know, 24-7, 365.

They're have therapists who are our counselor who are geared towards teenagers or or whatever in adolescents, whatever age it is.

So that's why they're very thoughtful and purposeful, and again, this is their model, right?

And one of the things that you did kind of allude to and I mentioned briefly to the older woman, and I look back because I'm you know, we're in discussion about is most cities, no one really does a you know, when we think of wellness program, we want to take holistic wellness.

Right.

And you'll see more of that.

That's what we're doing now with encompassing financial wellness, family being and things like that.

One of the things that we're we're looking to do with part of our health appraisal are is encompassing mental behavioral health in there, and not anyone or many people are doing it around the country right now.

So something we are really trying to see purposefully working with Spring Health, um, to see how we can develop that along with our partners or workforce health, so that we can start at an early phase once a year, have those thought-provoking questions asked and if you need proactively um helping you to get uh assistance if you need early on before it becomes something more or worse.

Yeah, Madam Chair.

I I think another thing that piqued my attention um with this um transition over was just also the extension to the family.

It wasn't just you know the employee that's able to access these benefits if there needs to be family counseling or you know, some behavioral health for you know your adolescent that these services extended on to that and again the six that's you know, no at no cost that was you know, that was that really really peaked um piqued my attention.

So um as um, you know, work gets stressful for folks, and just you know, all these things um, you know, that impact on individual um work, um, this is something that I think we can definitely champion, um, and especially you know, provide each of the departments with the necessary information to let them know hey, you know, your employees have access um to this particular service, so um I I definitely see some really great benefits to it in the long run.

Yeah.

Or part of our uh we have you know the city has established a uh labor and wellness committee, and this was discussed with that later, and um our dawn who sits on that from the from the fire union standpoint that was fully supported of this, the entire committee did support this initiative, so he's online if you might want to.

Well, we are gonna move on though thank you so much anything else just real quickly I so Christmas Zamora's rule will not change under this it'll still be the same.

It will be a support to help refer and things like that.

Right and they'll just have to if there's a broader range of um spring health folks he'll just double down this is becoming a crisis around the country around the world we're seeing people losing loved ones daily and not just that but the various conditions until we figure out what's going on we need to find ways to how to help our employees and their families.

So what we have in house concierge I call it concierge service we're blessed with that and so now we have this a robust system available to all of our employees so we want to give them we want to meet them where they are we want to give them the service they need when they need it and even before you know become become something more elevated let's try to get proactively by doing questionnaire by seeing do you men need to consider have you consider asking those questions.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments by members all the women more moves adoption let the record reflect that all the women cogs joined us uh virtually and should be marked as present any objections to adoption of item two hearing none of order okay on a woman two okay all right we'll get to her um thank you so much that's item two okay then let's pause and we'll go back to item one then sorry we just give me one second to go back to one item one two six oh one two oh substitute resolution relating to reimbursement allowances for members of the Granville Havenwoods advisory council sponsored by Alderwoman Taylor I see you've joined us Alderwoman yes thank you so okay could you just briefly discuss um this allowance and the cost of it and who it would go to so members know.

Yeah so we we have uh nine members on the Granville Haven's wood advisory council uh and they volunteer their time so they're business owners and homeowners in um in the area in district nine and they volunteer their time to um to help vet and oversee businesses that are coming to the area to um they also um support uh and and is another resource for businesses as they come into the area and um so I really appreciate um the commitment um of showing up at every meeting uh and being available and doing the work that it takes to uh make sure that we have businesses that are that are viable that become assets to our district and so I um look for a way to appreciate um what they do um and so even though it's a very small token of appreciation um I asked if there was a way to um to be able to uh give them this financial appreciation and so I found that that um because they are technically a city entity that we could um just do a small token of appreciation for that uh and so um um so I'm asking if we could pass this file in order to be able to um to show that uh appreciation for the time that they commit to um to helping us um uh manage the district businesses.

Okay and what would be the stipend per person then?

Um so it's it's very small uh from my understanding it it's um not more than maybe twenty dollars enough to um uh that if they were coming in person that it would cover gas costs I mean not even at this at the rate that gas is right now uh but it's a very small stipend per meeting twenty dollars per member per meeting yeah and and don't quote me on that because I don't remember the exact amount.

Um, so I'll have to go back and review that we um uh day now I apologize for not not having the exact amount, but it was about 20 dollars.

Okay.

We're looking at the fiscal note here.

I was having a granica's issue.

The fiscal note says that it's sixteen hundred dollars.

I'm assuming annually that must be.

Yeah, but that that is not per member.

Oh, right.

And then it looks looks like it's a reimbursement.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I guess I'm not sure who'd ask here, is like I know we have various uh arrangements like this.

You know, I look at BOSA where they're putting in hours and hours of time.

Um and you know, I don't know about historic preservation commission.

I'm just not sure where we are um as a city.

I do agree with the Alderwoman um that if we want truly representative diverse bodies of people volunteering time, um there does need to be some stipends um and we should normalize compensating people for their time.

I guess I don't know if this is a first or the norm.

I'm just trying to get a view of this.

So do you are you able to talk about that?

Uh Gunnar Raj from the legislative reference bureau.

Yeah, I just came to confirm that it is uh twenty dollars uh per member per meeting.

Okay.

Um and that is the standard reimbursement allowance uh provided under the salary ordinance, which uh there are certain uh boards and public bodies listed as eligible.

Um I would guess that it's about ten currently.

Okay.

And this in particular, because like, you know, there's bids, mids, like is this considered a city task force or committee?

Or is it like I guess I'm just trying to understand that.

We have to like the chair, yeah.

Uh uh good morning, Kathy Brangos Legislative Reference Bureau.

Um this is actually classified as an advisory council.

Okay, and it would be added to the salary ordinance under the same uh section uh as a number of other bodies, and I can tell you what those bodies that yeah, let's look at those real quick because I I'm assuming now it's that people might add to it, which I think is a good thing.

I just want to know the costs the capital improvements committee, the charter school review committee, the election commission, the deferred assessment board, the deferred comp board, the Equal Rights Commission, the Ethics Board, the Food and License Review Board, the Fourth of July Commission, the Zeidler Public Service and Awards Selection Committee, the Harbor Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Library Board, the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, the public debt commission, the safety and civics commission, and the sister cities committee.

So you can and are they all twenty dollars or is there a range?

Uh no, I they all receive the same stipend.

Twenty dollar reimbursement.

I believe that is correct, yes.

Oh.

I don't know.

Harbor Commission, right?

Yeah, definitely just learn about that.

Um I think it's a good thing, but um interesting.

Okay.

Let's continue to so Alderman Taylor, we got some really good information here.

We're gonna move it around to some questions.

Um Alderman Spiker.

Just on that last, so under the ordinance those are eligible for that payment, but that doesn't mean they are receiving it.

Correct.

That is correct.

And there may be certain members that are depending on what their position is, they may not qualify.

Right.

Yeah, because like a common council member.

Correct.

Oh, yeah.

Lord forbid we have compensate anybody.

Okay.

I just want to make sure because I never heard any when I served on the library board, I've never heard of any members saying they were compensated.

By that it was just part of the job.

So I guess there is a larger question here about um, I mean, you want people to serve, you want to make it worth their time, but whatever we do here has to be applied in a logical way more broadly.

So we just want to make sure we know what we're getting ourselves into if we sign off on it in one special case.

Are we committing to the others that are currently listed under the ordinance and that are similar to this one because uh I mean this is a fairly unique one, but there are other commissions where folks do cap carry a heavy load and do we want to compensate them and what would be the the cost of that?

So I'm just wondering if budget has taken kind of a back of the envelope.

Look at this, or are there any concerns from their part, or is this all small potatoes?

Okay.

Budget, did you want to speak about I mean the the fiscal notes in the file overall this isn't a huge scale, so I would temper all my remarks in that way, but you know, um obviously if it's if it's going to be compiled a bunch of small scale things and start adding up to a larger scale, we might begin to have concerns, but it is a policy question for this council to decide.

It what that has fiscal impacts.

Okay, thank you.

Alderman more.

I I just wanted to be clear, uh Ms.

Kathy, the list that you um shared out, these are commissions that could be eligible or already in the mix as far as um compensation.

I can't get any for the bodies that are currently listed in the salary ordinance.

In the salary, but don't but aren't necessarily being but don't necessarily have this designation.

Um I think what I'm trying to say is, for example, um, you know, this charter school review board.

Are are we current are they currently getting a reimbursement?

Do they fall are they currently getting a reimbursement?

They are eligible for it.

I cannot say for sure whether they're receiving it or which members may be receiving it, but they are eligible for it based on the salary ordinance.

Got it.

Do you want to be able to do that?

I think I please understood the the question.

Um, so there's a lot of different bodies that hypothetically could be eligible in that such a resolution could be passed to list them under the salary ordinance.

That body is listed under the salary ordinance, but I think what Kathy was driving at is that just because a uh public body is listed under that section doesn't mean the members are actually applying and then receiving the stipend.

Stipend.

Okay.

And then how does the stipend work if it's a reimbursement?

Does the members submit it to the chair and then the chair submits it in?

How does that how does that work?

Is it a once a month, once every quarter?

Does anybody know?

If I may, it says that the allowances are or they're paid once a year at the end of the year.

Uh such board chair shall submit shall submit to the controller's office a list of members eligible for such compensations together with a record of the meetings that they attend.

Got it.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions or comments by members?

Alderman Bergelis?

Thank you.

Um, where is this budget expense listed in our like what where is this money coming from?

And so then my follow-up question will be how much did we spend on this last year and the year before?

Is just because what I'm what I gather is that there are a number of bodies that are eligible for this reimbursement.

Um but uh we don't apparently know which of those bodies are receiving reimbursements.

Yeah, I would be curious.

So I would like to figure out or understand better what the city's spending on all of the bodies that are eligible for it, and then that would help me decide if I want to support this resolution or not.

I haven't compiled that information now, but that's certainly something I could ask my we could I can ask my staff to do.

We could get you that information, you know, by next committee.

Or I mean I could do as quickly as possible, but uh we'd have to kind of I think some of this might be in different sections.

I just want to be I just thank you.

I appreciate that.

No one really knows.

Um I think this is setting a new standard or a new precedent that you know one particular public body is going to start receiving public funds for reimbursement.

Um, I may be certainly comfortable with that uh depending on the work on the body on on the reimbursements, but I really need to have a better understanding on what the city's already doing, even though there are some public bodies that are eligible, doesn't mean necessarily that um they're collecting or paying that out.

Um so I don't know if I'm comfortable voting on this now.

I would like to get more information on it, but I'll leave it for more discussion for now.

Uh Alderman Burgells, just to answer your your first question.

It's budgeted in the um boards and commissions special purpose account, which is under the the purview of the controller's office.

So that's where it's budgeted in the annual.

How much is budgeted for that annually?

Uh I I don't have that offhand.

I can certainly look into that.

There are just a lot of unknown questions.

Thank you.

Manager.

Okay, thank you.

I'm sorry.

Let me just ask the sponsor, does this have a like urgency to it?

Meaning there's some questions that I think could get this, you know, approved, but also unfortunately, council is just like two days two business days away because of this um holiday.

So is there an urgency um Alderman Taylor or can we seek to get some of this clarification.

Um there isn't necessarily an urgency um so yeah so I'm I'm fine with getting clarification.

Yeah yeah because I I hear a lot of support myself included I I'm of the belief that we should probably be doing more of this to be honest because I just again want to reemphasize um as we seek a true diverse representation of our community on a many of these commissions we need to compensate people for their time because it's valuable and we know that um when we have working people or people of different incomes um it's you know almost a luxury to have hours every weeknight to be able to be on some of these meetings and that's not reflective of our community so I I value your um advocacy here um I I think we just want to cross a few T's and dot a few I's here so um alder women more uh oh madam chair I was just going to say if it was okay with uh um with the alder woman that we just hold yeah we just hold on until we get some more info but I would agree.

Okay.

Looks like there's a motion then for hold alder women Taylor um I'm hearing a lot of support but just want to get a bit more information so.

Okay.

Hold um has been moved then uh whether I don't I guess technically it was Alderman Regulus is that was the first to talked about it.

Um and is there any objections by committee members?

It's I do have some preliminary information I could share with you that I just got for my staff but did we did budget in the in the line um Bill mentioned this special purpose we budgeted sixteen thousand for that in 2026 and uh nearly all of it was spent in 2025 15,65 dollars so the fiscal note would probably jump this up past the budget level in 26 if it was implemented mid year.

I guess with that information I mean it almost be sixteen or twenty six yeah it almost say it 16,000 total in in the year 2026 is what's budgeted and in 25 15,655 was spent so it's budgeted right there's not it's right on the number you'd almost want this minor increase or other ones to be in the 2027 budget.

That would probably be our right or this to be effective in 2027 so it could be dealt with okay and for those reasons I think it should be held while we just figure that out um yeah and then any objections to that hold hearing none so ordered but that's really valuable.

Thank you.

Okay Alderman we're gonna let's continue to work on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'll uh item three two five one nine four oh communication from the department of employee relations and freighter workforce health regarding the city's comprehensive health and wellness program for the 2025 program year.

All right maybe um we have a lot to share I'm just gonna ask for the presentation to be under 10 minutes so we already have it because we do want to ask questions so you know that way we'll have more time we're not limiting the discussion but we're just uh allowing for more committee questioning and discussion so welcome we love having you here um and then who would wish to begin the presentation Ms.

King yes well on behalf of the just for the record Molly King uh this director on behalf of the employee relations and federal workforce we're pleased to present the annual uh comprehensive cities uh health and wellness program for 2025 program year today's report will include uh uh individual participation wellness initiative key outcomes um sport uh employee well being and workforce productivity and uh it's comprehensive report really uh remains an important component of the city's broad effort to promote employee wellness um while managing healthcare costs and improve workforce resiliency um so uh maybe the next slide a little sensitive, sorry yeah I don't know if you could get the screen bigger and full screen.

It looks like it's a single screen.

It is.

Okay.

I think it is.

Um, this screen uh well, this uh slide basically show it's been over 15 years in 2025, 15 years since we've had this uh program, our wellness program, where our model is um our philosophy has always been well at work, well at home, and well it's a retirement, reflect a whole person live long approach to an employee health.

And so we are very proud of this program, what it's done.

And one of the big things when we develop the program, the intent was to make sure we have healthy employees, but also mitigate health care costs.

And so throughout the year, that has been proven to be a very successful program, and we are proud of our relationship with Workforce Health.

And with us here today, we've got uh the president of Workforce Health, Patty, uh Executive Director, Blaine and Megan.

We also have Robin who is uh handling the uh the slides.

So I'll let them uh I'll put it over to you, Patty.

Good morning, Madam Chair, and council persons, caller persons.

Yeah, so great to be here again.

This is something I look forward to every year because it's uh such a moment of pride, and on behalf of Freighter and the Medical College, uh we just are so grateful for the opportunity to serve the folks in Milwaukee that take care of our city, uh, our shared commitment and our mission to really advance the health of the communities that we serve, and I know that it aligns with the with the city's objectives as well.

I'm excited today to share with you the uh kind of an overview of our overall programming.

I think historically, those of you that have been part of this presentation in the past, have heard a lot about our wellness programming.

But today we have the opportunity to really um illustrate for you the comprehensive nature of the program and the city um should take great pride in the benchmark uh program that uh you provide for the team members across the city.

And really uh it begins with benefits strategy and collaboration.

We're uh proud to be part of that and work with the labor management committee, with Molly, with the benefits consultants, with EAP, all of the vendors that support the comprehensive program.

So part of what we hope to be is a trusted resource to help advise and support the programming for the city.

And you'll hear today about the well-being programs, and and that is really the 15-year history, but how that's evolved, and the city continues to evolve its program to align with national standards for excellence in this space.

So we'll talk a little bit about well-being, our occupational medicine services, the workplace clinic, of course, that we're very proud of, our injury prevention and the fast care services, all of which are a part of this constellation of overall benefits that you just have talked about earlier in this meeting as well.

So with that, I'll turn it over uh to Megan to take us through the slides and we'll be mindful of the time.

Yes, we do have six minutes left.

So, thank you, Patty, and thank you, madam chair and council members.

My name is Megan Grishow, account manager with Workforce Health.

Uh, respectful of your time, I'll skim read our wellness story for you.

Um, taking you through the first chapter of 2025 year in review.

A few highlights I'll point out that we're very proud of is the workplace clinic is now your strong destination for primary care.

Uh patients used to be able to and still are able to use our services for acute needs or episodic care, um, but now you can visit our primary care clinicians to close those care gaps, really focus on prevention, which Molly spoke a lot about earlier, and really meeting the uh employees where they're at.

We're very proud of that.

We were also able to introduce a health appraisal scheduler at every health appraisal.

Again, meeting the employees where they're at, getting those uh primary care appointments scheduled, getting those follow-up appointments scheduled or some of those wellness programs scheduled at the time of service.

All these enhancements were designed uh by Molly and her team with the mindset of again meeting employees where they're at and decreasing health care costs for the city overall.

So we have more we'll talk about here in a few minutes.

Um but one before we move on.

I wanted to add one thing is that you know, you Aldo when you mentioned that well, we you have to take off time to work to get to get a doctor and so forth, and when we do the health appraisal, we were very mindful.

Now we have Saturdays out, we're doubling down on that evening hours.

So we're really trying to meet employee we're there at and be more accommodating in addition to have our service translated in Spanish also.

Okay, thank you, Molly.

Uh skipping ahead a couple slides.

We'll start with our wellness service, and we believe that one of the most powerful measures of success is the employee experience.

And so one of our wellness champions, Lynn Kakishi, uh, was very gracious to be able to share her story, and so I apologize about the informal technology, but we'll play that now.

Hi, I'm Lynn Kekashi, program assistant with Forestry Central.

And I wanted to share my personal experience with the wellness your choice Milwaukee program.

Initially, I participated in the on-site health appraisal simply because I value staying informed about my health and appreciated having access to a free convenient screening at work.

I felt generally healthy and expected my results to be routine.

So I was surprised to learn that several of my values have fallen into a higher risk range.

Motivated by those findings, I promptly followed up with my primary care clinician for additional evaluation and support.

Through early detection and coordinated follow-up care, I was ultimately diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition that may have otherwise remained undiagnosed as subtle symptoms gradually began impacting my daily life.

I truly credit the health appraisal with helping uncover a condition that allowed me to take action sooner, improve my quality of life, and better understand my health.

Since then, I have actively engaged in many of the city's additional wellness offerings, focusing on improving how I feel both at work and at home.

Because of the positive impact these programs have had on my own life, I volunteered to become a wellness champion so I can encourage my coworkers to prioritize preventative care and take an active role in their own health journey.

And I make a point of sharing with my co-workers the wonderful health savings account benefit offered by participating in the program and how the funds can help offset costs for everything from over-the-counter medications to even getting chiropractic care that most insurance companies do not cover.

Thank you.

Very nice.

Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you.

And I'll turn it to Molly in case you'd like to chat about any of the breakouts the city was able to offer.

Oh, yeah.

So basically, as this slide shows, and maybe a little competent competition here.

Um we do have a few competitive office.

Yes, we did on it three times.

Don't you worry, we did on the controllers on this.

I asked you three times.

Can you verify that's actually for their accountants, right?

What do you expect?

We have a very smart controller.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Uh financial well, uh financial wellness, of course.

The two of them have all 100% participation, and so while we not everyone did, everyone's above that 50-60% range.

So that's great.

Um, do we have some work to do?

Yes, we we have a few areas.

We've now been going to police um training programs, right?

When they have there's no recruit classes, we show up at NEO, we show up there with uh members.

We have a few wellness champions who are very competitive within the police departments.

We have a robust program in FIRE.

So over time now we're starting to develop this relationship with the other department and ensuring that we have more participation.

Again, this is a free health care check for everyone.

And the concept, one of the things we did in the past, we do a lot of surveys to who is not participating, what kind of group, not who as a person, but what kind of an aggregate level are not participating.

Is there a stigma behind this?

Is there something's happening that maybe we need to message a bit differently?

We have been messaging differently, letting them know this is an independent provider, work for cells, separate from the city.

They administer and keep those data um within their purview.

And so, as you look on the right side of this slide, or that we slide it the other slide, you can see the ethnic breakdown of how individuals are participating and by um generation or our age group.

So, as you see that the, you know, the 40 to 50s are happy participating, but we have participation to all levels, right?

And so we want to continue to see how we get more individuals to to take advantage of this benefit.

Thank you, Molly.

Uh, skipping ahead a couple slides, we are going to jump to our workplace clinic, which we're incredibly proud of.

Uh, the utilization that you'll see here on this next screen also demonstrates incredibly strong utilization over the past few years.

And uh following on the next slide, thank you, Robin.

Uh, you'll see here one of our advanced practice providers and primary care clinicians, Gina Mosconi.

Uh, she sees patients for a variety of uh visit types, and the top three, you'll see our vaccinations, blood pressure check or medication management as well as respiratory infections.

Overall, the distribution of these visit types make us feel very happy and strong and confident in the clinic model that we're currently offering.

Um, it shows patients trust us for their care not only for acute uh reasons, but also for their preventative health strategy.

So we're very proud to be part of that role in their life.

Uh taking us to the closing chapter of our wellness book, we'll talk about some calendar year initiatives that we are going to be focusing on.

Again, we are strategically evaluating these services to not only be fiscally responsible, but again, Molly's uh main mission is let's meet the employees where we're at.

Uh so a few of those initiatives, and Molly, feel free to jump in here.

Is we are optimizing the healthy reward point allocation to drive healthier outcomes, including adding a whole new category in mental health and well-being.

We're incredibly proud of that.

So not only will this allow to break the stigma, we want people to know their resources, but they're being incentivized to use them as well.

So we're uh very happy that Molly and her team were able to uh strategize that with us.

Uh we are also hoping to expand medication dispensing within the clinic.

So this not only will help with medication adherence at the time of service with your primary care clinician, but it will also be able to um be a cost savings.

I know um, Madam Chair, you speak a lot about having to take off of work to go to the doctor.

Uh, we're gonna save you a trip to go to that retail pharmacy to pick up your meds.

You could do that right in the clinic to save you some more time.

Um, and then one final uh high-level strategic update I'll provide is we are going to be looking into advancing some digital tools for chronic care management.

You'll you might have seen in our uh biometrics slide that we are very proud to uh announce that our diabetes and glucose indicators are continuing to move into that optimal reign through some digital tools.

We are going to be focusing on our blood pressure hypertension within our population and continuing to focus on our diabetes and pre-diabetes management within the city.

So we are very very proud of all these strategies.

We really thank you for your leadership and your investment in the city employees and their families' health and well-being, and we're very proud to partner with you all on that.

Just to add a few other things, if you can go back to that slide.

So if you can keep it sharp, one more things we want to mention quickly is one is we're looking to, you know, when you go to the wellness center, what what are the costs compared to dargin care completely ER?

And so what could we do to meet employee where they are?

Where are the employee list uh living, where they're residing, and do we have access close by?

So that's one of the areas we're evaluating in 2026.

Um, and so it's more to come there.

But if you can go to slide 11, I just want to indulge me for one split second more.

Um, when we talk about wellness, we talked about we talked about it, we want to be holistic about it, and we looked at our financial wellness.

Here's a really uh compelling slide, but working with deferred compensation and voya, the team at defer compensation.

We showed that individuals who attended um one of those financial wellness webinars and seminars are high are participating heavily more than others.

Over 10% or 10% are participating on our bridge.

That's 10% of their income they're putting away for their future benefits, and that is impressive.

We have, I think recently we've also had a receive another award for our state-of-the-art financial wellness program.

And so it would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing job our wellness financial wellness team is also doing.

And again, as we talked earlier, we're now encompassing behavioral mental health as part of our well holistic well-being um evaluation once a year.

With that, we'll be happy to take any questions you might have.

Okay, I was wondering, um, you show the participation in the health appraisal, but is there a slide or effect of how many employees are maximizing their like reward benefits?

Absolutely.

Yeah, we'll jump ahead a couple of slides here, Robin.

Uh, you can see that 80% of the population participated in at least one healthy reward activities and then deeper engagement beyond the minimum threshold, and those uh point allocations are designated below, uh, with 21% of your population achieving the highest standard of 120 points and 125, excuse me, and 350 dollars towards their FSA account.

But like that seems great, but if you've got average of 70 percent doing health appraisal or or 80 percent, but only okay, I see what you're saying.

So then okay, wait, this is then broke broken down in tiers.

So there's like very few people, let me say it like this.

Very few people doing the healthy appraisal that don't get some level of healthy reward.

There we go.

Okay, so they're gonna need more coffee.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I see that's what I so there's not like anyone who's really doing that, but then not getting, but there it seems to be few that are getting the maximum.

So what do we think?

Um, because we did look at this last budget, we may look at it again through surveys and feedback.

Do we feel that, um, because I see you saying you're gonna tweak it in the way that from what I understood was that mindfulness, there'll be other mental wellness activities that will qualify for the reward.

So that's amazing.

Um, but also what if the reward was higher?

Do we know if that people would do it if it was if they could get a little bit more of an incentive?

It's a great question.

Yeah, uh, we always ask the question uh with Molly, would people do this without an incentive?

And so we really want to drive the why behind it.

Uh, we also are very strong proponents of managed care.

So while people currently have the choice to earn points through, you know, the mirror's bike ride next week or investing in EAP services, uh, we would like to see more incentives around completing your managed care with primary care clinicians.

Uh, we did increase that incentive a little bit.

So to answer your question, madam chair.

If we were to increase the funds, I do think that people would be a little bit more incentivized to do it, but I would also like to be very thoughtful and strategic and where else can we allocate these funds to make it truly impactful and meaningful and really explore all of our options and write anyone else to do that?

It seems to me that these gold star participants that are maximizing healthier rewards, are helping the overall system by maintaining an incredible healthy lifestyle and therefore making it less expensive on the entire organization and the ROI on that would be outstanding.

So um, you know, that's the case that I spoke with a colleague, it'd just be interesting to even have a trial year, like if you know I always think of trial, um, because it's it you're also using it in health savings accounts, like it's you know, for and generally I don't know how people spend it, I'm sure we have that information, but like, you know, if you're getting more acupuncture or massage or wellness, whatever's included, it's still overall wellness, so like um, I think there's some incentives, and I thought the way that it was built is that if your FSA is used by the middle of the year, which I think most folks expend it by June, right?

Then you can dip into your HSA, I think for FSA covered costs if I I can't remember what it is.

Yeah, so there's a lot of benefits.

Yeah, and so right now we're a RFP for um we're in the middle of we came before you uh replace our fe for our health appraisal flexible spending and HRE, healthy reward account, um provider, uh administrator account, and so in doing so, you're also evaluating what else is out there.

There are things such as lifestyle savings account, which is much more flexible.

The that's a great advantage.

I think it's I think if I have the choice, that would be something I would consider for us and looking to as we evolve as these programs are evolving.

However, it is a taxable account.

And so what else is out there?

So we are looking at and seeking these um opportunities.

So you can use meditation.

Currently, you cannot do that with the HR and FSA account.

Um the HR kind of mimics the FSA IRS regulations.

Um the differences we get to carry it over with the boundaries, um, our our balances.

But uh, we are evaluating to see what else is out there a little bit more, give the employee a little more flexibility besides prescription, right?

Let's be more proactive about our needs.

It just seems that we've been at this level for many years, so it's been frozen, which we know frozen is technically a cut.

Um, and I get that it's a benefit, but it's just some people are really, you know, really acing it in the gold level.

Like that takes a lot of time to enter all that data.

Um, okay.

Let's move it around a little bit.

So any other we'll go Alderman Spiker because he was last last time, and then I'll go more.

It's a super quick question on the health appraisal appraisal participation.

I noticed police and fire, which we have a number of employees in those categories, are kind of the lower end of the tier and 72% usage from fire and 68% from police.

Have we done any sort of um questioning or surveying of just those specific departments to figure out whether um the you know what's making the difference here?

Whether compensation is really what would move them off the dime versus you know, easier access feelings of you know, more time.

I imagine time would be the in the case of fire.

We know that they complete annual exams as part of their um NFPA guidelines, and so I think that might be one contributors.

They feel like they're already having that annual exam that's more comprehensive than the health appraisal.

So I don't know.

Uh I can't speak to the police, and I think it's a good question that we always want to look at what would be the motivators and how can we make sure that it's uh easily accessible and convenient.

Yeah, they have that exam.

Sorry.

When do they have what timeline do they have that exam?

Um, that's really good.

It's offered a couple different times throughout the year, uh, in groups for the for the firefighters.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

That's a really good question, Alderman.

Because one of the things we didn't serve is a great idea.

I think that's another low-hanging easy thing to do.

Citywide might be a little tough, but if you could delve into some of the more performing departments.

One of the things we are doing now, we're showing up to when they have recruitment class, we're showing up to their their building, we're asking to can we enter, can we come and you have meet and greets and meet and confer and things like that?

And so, and we also have a buy-in from our their union presidents, which is amazing.

We have a lot of buy-in from that from the labor and wellness committee, and so we will leverage that relationship there to see how we can penetrate even further and figure out what's going on.

Yeah, and then one more quick question regarding fast care usage.

I see there's a breakdown by location, so Greenfield is the lion's share of usage, but do we have any idea which what sort of employees are using the fast care?

Are there any sort of metrics that you're um getting from information acquired there?

Whether departments are ages or people with kids or any of that stuff.

Yeah, great question.

Thank you.

We do have that data.

I apologize it's not in this slide deck here.

Uh, we do see a higher mix of spouses, adult dependents, independent children utilizing fast care in comparison to our workplace clinic.

Uh, and we also see a little bit more during the weekend when our workplace clinic hours are closed, just out of convenience.

So, uh, we're happy to provide you that data.

Okay, yeah, I just wondered if there were any meaningful patterns there and any gaps and folks you might expect to use it but aren't utilizing it and any changes we might make to accommodate that.

So, thanks.

Okay, all the one more.

Um, thank you so much, madam chair.

I just wanted to um sort of piggyback on um just going back to um the health appraisal participation.

Um I know that you all make it really convenient because you know it's like it's here at City Hall, go to the eighth floor.

Um, and I say thank you so much because you know, I don't have to go anywhere else, and so it works out beautifully for me.

Um, but in regards to some of our law enforcement, um, do you all provide any of this you know, take that on the road, for example, to um the districts, the MPD districts, because people gotta check in.

People typically check in there, right?

Um, has that something that has been ever done or considered?

Great question in our district office where they're very limited hours.

We are there for our traveling wellness center programs.

We do have some touch points with them, but main health appraisal locations are at the fire and police academy, which was expanded this year.

We also see a lot of spouse participation at that location, as well as our MPA offices.

Uh, we typically see uh overwhelming amount of utilization almost at a hundred percent for each of those health appraisals there.

So we've also expanded to afternoon Saturdays and evenings for them.

That was gonna be my next question.

Yeah, thank you.

Meet them where they are, yes.

Yes, that's it.

That's it.

Thank you.

Yeah, okay.

Um, Alderman Bergellis.

Thank you very much.

Um, going back to the uh 80% of the eligible population uh participated in one healthy reward activity, 76% of people participating um achieved uh a healthy reward.

Um does this include spouses or is this only employees?

It does include your entire eligible population, which is spouses as well, okay.

So some people, so the the gold tier is 125 points, which frankly is not all that tough to achieve.

Um if you use the app, the app is kind of glitchy sometimes, but you guys are helpful with that.

Um, but uh so an eligible employee with a spouse can get 350 for themselves and another $350 for their spouse.

Correct, yeah, up to $700, and those funds also carry over through after they retire up to three years, if I'm not mistaken, Molly, which we hear as an incredible benefit because as we move into retirement, one of our biggest expenses are medical.

So what is the cost for each of these different tiers that we have?

We we kind of went through um in budget last year with some budget amendments, trying to adjust some of these figures.

But um, how much are we spending on bronze?

How much are we spending on silver, how much are we spending on gold?

Um that's not something you have available, but I think it's really valuable for us to have at budget, depending on where the mayor comes with adjustments on his proposed budget for these dollar amounts.

I'd like to be able to understand if you know what it would cost if we change the 350 to 450, 550, 1550, whatever the well, frankly, uh these are real costs.

If employees are doing the right things and um uh showing that they're a healthier employee, the city has a tangible measurable benefit to that, which we can certainly adjust and translate to a higher first tier first or higher top tier.

The first tier, second tier, okay, like yeah, it's it's great to have that those additional funds.

Um, but if you can get 75 points, you can probably get 125 if you made a conscious effort for it.

Uh, and right now that difference is two hundred dollars.

If we made that difference, five hundred dollars, we will certainly have more participation.

Yeah, you can look at it as a as a pain in the butt to go through the app and to click the boxes to document it, but that's about accountability.

You're doing you're demonstrating that you're actually doing the work.

We need to have uh demonstrated effort if you want to get that reward, but I want to make it worthwhile.

I would love to have a fifteen hundred dollar top tier reward and see how many of our employees have that and have you guys come back to the finance committee and say, Hey, we're running short of money, we need more money for our top tier because we have so many people participating in this free benefit.

It's not a free benefit, it's a benefit that pays you money.

Yeah, we want more participation, so I want to make that top tier goal the gold standard to have 80% participation and a hundred percent top tier status.

This isn't hard to do, it's a big benefit to the city, and I think we should be rewarding employees that are doing the work that um we show and we know gives healthy um uh healthy result to our uh workforce.

Thank you.

I think that's that makes a lot of sense, and I I would say you can think about as a city how what sorts of things you incentivize at that higher level, and with our expansion in primary care services in the workplace gonna we know that investment in closing those preventive care gaps will be not only good for health, but good physically as well.

So I think um you could look at what you're incentivizing with that additional funds and yeah, really drive the right behavior.

Yeah, one of the things we talked about is how to be incentivized for active health care.

You know, you need to get your screening at certain age.

Are you doing that screening?

Um, and so it those are the ones we want to, you know, are you getting your colonoscopy or mammographies?

Are you having a physician?

Yeah, dedicated primary physicians, um available to you, and so those are things that it's a good opportunity for us to, you know, because you have a physician, you have someone to go to you, child, you're gonna go and see them, especially if it's like this.

Preventative care, you know, I had a a few hundred dollars for one visit that was preventative, which is unusual.

Um, but I can go to the clinic across the street here at the City Hall complex and not have to worry about any of those uh deductibles or costs.

Mr.

I'm just checking the board to make sure we don't have someone who wants who's trying to chime in.

If you are not wanting to participate in the meeting, please mute yourself.

I can't read that far away who that is.

Not muted.

Um, or we will mute you.

Um, uh more more comments, uh older woman more.

Thank you.

I just wanted to be clear on your ask, you were looking for um the amount spent per category.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, and do you know all normally just lump it all to do is there a budgetary um item?

What I would be interested to know is we budget X number of dollars for um healthy rewards.

Um for you know, 2023, we spent out this was the budget, we spent out this much for 2024, we spent out the budget.

This I would love like a just a three-year comparison just to sort of see, and and that, you know, it just dovetails on the request that was asked.

But I just I'm curious as to if it's being you you know, how much of it is being are we spending because it could go to well, there might be probably not for fifteen hundred dollars, but it could be an opportunity to say, hey, this this may be an opportunity for us to to bump it up a little bit, right?

So, but I would be interested to know that budgetary um category.

So it's encompassing, go ahead.

We we circulated uh a couple budget amendment proposals about that last year.

So we should have the numbers and I remember 590,000 as a total um expenditure for health rewards for last for 2025.

Circle bag that you know.

For twenty five twenty-five.

And we we we ran through a couple different scenarios taking a peek to see if we can find it now, but I don't know if Nick was able to access it.

The actuals for healthy rewards last year.

No, I didn't I don't have that.

Uh I mean, we I think you could assume that you don't you'd be looking at the universe of people that are maxing out, hitting the new max.

Although you're saying if it it might be bigger because if you really make the max more of an incentive, more people might hit the max.

So there'd be some speculation there, but we have to do some multiplication.

Right, and we have we we have that information available and if you um when it's found if you could share it with the committee, um, just so that we're fresh and ready for budget season, which will be here before we know it.

Yeah, I need that note to get you that info before your budget amendment.

Um that budget amendment might already be written.

Right.

And Mr.

Chair, I just want to say um I'm leaving money on the table.

I'm working on it, I'm working out, working on it.

Yes, yes, I was just like, no, I am going to get my points this year.

Our deadline for the the financial wellness uh is June 30th.

So if you haven't already got your 125 points, which equates to $350, hurry up and do so.

Yes, um, look, I'm gonna be trying to do all the things, okay.

Um but I just wanted to um say that um if they're again it goes back to those health and wellness champions and you know how we can sort of formulate that in each of our um departments.

Maybe we need to get a couple of them.

Uh but to just really kind of keep this on the forefront, you know, uh, you know, looking at special things.

Um I'm I'm very tempted to have the city clerk throw a pizza party for if we can get over 90 per I'm I'm such a you know veggie here.

Veggie pizza.

Well, I will eat the veggie pizza.

I will order a sausage pizza for you or pepperoni.

But you know, but to just say this is so it important.

I I think going back to just the preventative.

How do we just do a better job and getting the information out there?

And again, because we have so many opportunities, right?

You know, how can we get those champions to, you know, just remind people, hey, we got a walk schedule today, you know, whatever.

Um, but just to just get people engaged and really take their health and wellness um seriously.

Well, you are the well-being champion for the uh city clerk's office.

One of them, so we expect you to I absolutely take out that charge.

So um uh older woman more and uh this came you're to answer the question.

Uh I did find your November 7th uh memo, uh Molly.

Uh we had 842, this is 2024, actual HRA utilization.

Uh tier one, eight hundred and forty-two participants for a total of a hundred and twenty-six thousand.

Tier two was nine hundred and fifty-four participants for a total of two hundred and thirty eight thousand spent.

Tier three was fifteen hundred twenty-eight participants, three fifty each, five hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, about nine hundred thousand altogether.

In had we increased those payouts uh to two fifty, three fifty, and five hundred, it would have been an additional four hundred and eight thousand dollars.

Uh and if everyone had moved to the top tier, it would have cost an additional seven hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.

That's using actuals for twenty twenty-four.

I'll forward this to the committee so that we all have it.

Um, but I think it would be healthy to update those numbers uh with 2025 actuals, uh, so that we can see exactly where we would be.

Um with a with uh various different price points.

Awesome.

Excellent.

Um, any other questions on this item from the committee?

Anyone on the board?

Okay, alright.

Uh Alder Woman Moore moves to uh place this item on file.

Hearing no objections.

So ordered, thank you very much.

Uh thank you very much to you all for being here today.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Moving on to item number four, file two six zero one five two communication from the department of administration.

Budget management division amending the positions ordinance relating to position authority for positions in the Department of Public Works Operations Division.

Welcome from budget.

Is Mason coming?

Mason is upstairs.

Uh welcome uh director Kovac.

Oh, Chuck.

Oh, Chuck's here, yeah.

We can we're prepared to discuss all this, yeah.

Good morning, uh committee members Chuck Schumacher, operations administration manager.

Um, this is a file that is related to a uh classification report that is also attached to um to your files.

Uh what we're doing here is we're moving some positions out of the fleet dispatch section and into sanitation, and we're creating new positions in the fleet dispatch section.

So I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions from committee members?

Alderman Spiker.

Um, so are there three new positions then being created in fleet?

Sounds like but it's still budget neutral because why?

Because of the three um equipment operator positions that we're giving up.

Okay.

So there's three vacant positions that we're getting rid of to make room for the fleet additions.

Yes, okay.

Thanks.

What kind of equipment were these three positions operating?

The equipment operators, they're they do garbage, recycling, street sweeping, um, you know, it's a whole variety of different equipment that they use.

And the positions were were vacant for a while.

We weren't able to fill them, we were unwilling to fill them, unable, unable to fill them.

But we still have a need for street sweepers.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So why are we giving up on street sweeping when we still have a need for it?

Yeah, we wouldn't say we're giving up on street sweeping.

We're giving up on three.

We're giving up on three positions.

Um we've been running um a vacancy rate of about uh 19% um for equipment operators.

That's unfortunately not new news to us.

Um that's been the case for a number of years.

It's we're competing against the private sector for um, you know, uh uh CDL equipment operators.

Um the but to to get to maybe the heart of your question, Alderman, um, you you might recall that um you might recall that we've got two new pieces of software uh that we've been using um the Samsara system, the routeware system.

These are two new pieces of technology that are helping us um uh shuttle work orders around between back office staff and drivers.

Um that's that's new software that we really kind of stood up prior to the August 2025 flood, found that very useful.

Um the the administrative need that we have is people that can uh take information um coming in from drivers and then routing it back through uh the system to other drivers.

So it's it's almost like you know, we need some additional people to shuttle the work orders around in sanitation.

So we're we're leveraging um you know that system to sort of you know help get work orders out to people as they need it.

Yeah, Mr.

Chair.

Well, uh yeah, uh inspector, you still have the floor.

Um so I get it that with the two new pieces of technology you might have um well it might bring about certain efficiencies in how you sleep streets, push snow, that kind of stuff.

Um, but the three new program assistant positions in fleet, would they be doing that type of work or what would they be doing?

No, the the the three new positions in fleet, those are the people that are working on um the daily schedules.

Um so these are the folks that do the daily garbage and recycling schedules, they're monitoring equipment that has been repaired overnight, they're connecting equipment, jobs, and people.

They're also the folks that do the um the snow schedules, so um yeah, so that that's what those folks are doing.

But given those technology technological improvements, wouldn't there be less of a need for folks to be doing that?

And how did you survive without those three positions in previous years then?

Yeah, well, so no, it's it's it's two separate functions.

The the creation of the daily schedules um is you know, an ongoing daily activity that we have been doing for years, you know, aside from the new technology that we've got for quarters.

Without those three people though, so how have you managed it thus far?

Why is there the urgent need besides theirs just and I mean we've budget director Kovac and I have talked about Squish and DPW and if you've carried a vacancy rate for these many years, the question is, well, why don't you write size it and push down the number of requested positions?

Well, this would be a reason because then you'd have the flex to do something like this, like add three new positions outside the budget.

So um I guess I have a little heartburn here, um, and again, returning to the question of what happened in fleet that we need these three positions when we survived last year and apparently previous years without them.

No, uh so so to be clear, um, we didn't survive last year without them.

As part of your file, you've got the DER classification report.

Um, and what that's you know, this is part of the reclassification process is that they're they're taking those we're moving the positions from from fleet to sanitation, and then you know, we're creating new positions based on DER's study of what the fleet dispatcher folks were doing.

Oh, so there aren't is it really just three people going over from fleet to sanitation?

I thought there were an addition three new fleet people.

So yeah, so that so there are there are three people currently going from fleet to sanitation, and and what the DER study does is it reclassifies those positions.

And then those there aren't three new people.

There aren't three new people, no.

No, there I mean there will be three new people in fleet because the existing folks have left and gone to sanitation.

But that there won't be three new city employees as a result of this move, they're just moving over into the newly reclassified positions, or are there it looks like there's six people on paper here?

So that's what's confusing.

You would be recruiting for three new positions.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna be recruiting for the three, we're gonna be recruiting for the three new positions that this that the study establishes in fleet.

Okay.

And if you're recruiting for those three new positions, you're saying that's a product of the classification study.

Correct.

So did the classification study reveal a need that heretofore had been unmet, and that's why you're asking for people to fill these positions.

And if the unmet need were one that you were getting by with out meeting before, what's changed other than that?

I mean, with a classification study, I can see if the jobs change and there's new responsibilities, you want to adjust the um make sure the person's getting paid for the job they're actually doing.

But in this case, it seems like three new positions are being requested, and I'm I'm just not understanding where that need came from.

I don't understand how a classification study would um would generate that need as opposed to just say, look, these three folks are better used here doing this kind of stuff.

If I'm the only one utterly confused here, then we can let it pass, but uh I'll can you can you solid can you can you narrow your question a little bit?

Yeah, I understand you're confused.

I I'm just I'm trying to think of the best way to answer that.

You know, again, the the best way I can explain it is there's there's currently three people right now.

There's currently three people that were moving from fleet to sanitation, okay?

Um that leaves those that leaves three positions sort of that leaves a whole.

Let's look at it like this.

That leaves a whole of three positions in fleet.

So what we want to do is we want to we want to create those positions now.

And DER has studied those, they've determined what the classification should be, and now what we're doing is we're saying, okay, we want to make this budget neutral.

So we're going to uh we're gonna reduce the number of equipment operators we have by three, and we're gonna use that funding to fund the three new positions in fleet that we're creating.

Okay, so then the three people who left fleet that you're now then recruiting for those holes in the new position, they're going over to sanitation.

Why was there the need to have these three people over in sanitation?

Right, and that that's that's the technology I was talking about, the routeware and samsara system.

So so now that we've got those two.

So we need fewer equipment operators and more paper, well, not I would say admin staff.

Yeah, I mean, for sure.

You know, I mean that's that's and it's not true that we need three fewer equipment operators.

It what's true is we can't fill those positions, and so now we're tossing in the towel and saying in order to fund so there still is something funny going on here.

Um in order to fund these three new positions in sanitation that'll support the technology and in the back office, um, we need these three new positions, and lo and behold, we have these positions we've never been able to fill, and so we're just gonna take those and call it a day.

So that's what's happening, right?

I mean, I the way I guess I would present it to you is that we're we are we are unable to fill those three positions.

So rather than let them sit vacant, what we think is a better use of the money is to you know, create to to fund this new need that we're seeing on the admin staff side for purposes of shuttling work orders around.

And those technologies were discussed in budget, so why during but I mean what is ultimately sticking my crowd here is this kind of stuff happening mid-season as opposed to during budget.

So when those technologies were um advocated for at budget, why wasn't there then the foresight to say hey, you know, we're gonna need some more admin positions to support these technologies, and so that's what we're straightforwardly asking for now, as opposed to later highlighting how much um squish there is in the DPW budget and availing ourselves of that and coming up with this positions kind of after the fact.

Why wasn't this something that we discussed?

Sure, thought about it budget?

Sure, so so as we were developing the 2026 budget in the spring of 2025, we hadn't fully stood up uh the routeware system.

Uh the the August flood really caused us to jump into that system and you know forced us to utilize it to its highest extent.

Um, and that that process has you know taught our staff how to use the system to its best use.

So now that we kind of have got the experience, we understand you know how the how the information gets put in the system from the drivers, how it's reviewed from supervisors, and how it's pushed back out to to various routes and the routes that have to change based on that dynamic information.

What we're what we've discovered is that we do need some more administrative people to help with with with that process of taking the information, plugging it back into the system so that the jobs can be rerouted.

So, final comment question is I might have thought that technology would have introduced efficiencies, which would then require fewer employees, but the upshot here seems to be we need more employees if we're implementing a technology to support the back office.

So the technology in this case resulted in three more employees and not any more um efficiencies in terms of fewer employees.

Yeah, I well I I guess I'm not sure I would say it didn't result in any inefficiencies.

I think employees and people we pay money to do the job.

It the idea is you know, the police chief and always is talking about a force multiplier technology in that.

So the idea is that you can do more with the technology, but ultimately, you know, we're gonna be facing tough budgets, and you might say, hey, you know, we use these technologies and therefore we're able to provide the same services with fewer employees.

In this case, this is a case study of showing that we actually need more.

Alderman Spiker, yeah.

Uh believe it or not, the questions you're asking are questions we asked.

Okay.

Uh you I I'm I did not think your questions were confused.

I thought they were very much in line.

So I I do think I sometimes go along with your word squish.

I don't really like it in this case, and I'll tell you why.

I mean, I said over there, I wouldn't like it either.

Um, you know, yes, we're we're funding a certain level of equipment operators, and then we're not always hitting that level, and so that does mean there's room in the salary budget, but if you're still trying to deliver the same service, you sometimes deliver it through overtime or through temps or or or through private contractors.

So that doesn't always it doesn't necessarily mean there's room in the budget, but it does mean there's there is there there is this inability to hire up to exactly the funded level, and there has been for years it's getting slightly better now from the other larger market reclasses.

So that's if all we were doing was funding these three three new admin positions by trying to realize savings that might have happened anyway.

I think I your questions uh well, we asked the same questions you asked.

I do think there's a connection here that isn't fully fleshed out, but we expect there to be a connection between the new software that admittedly three new administration staff to implement the software.

We think there will be a connection between making all of the equipment operators more efficient due to the software and due to the dispatch and communication assistance work.

So it's not that we're taking we're not we're not like banking a savings that was gonna happen anyway and spending it here.

That's I think that what you're what you're asking, and that we had the exact same question.

There is a connection, we hope expect between these three administrative positions and improving the efficiency of the uh of the equipment operators.

So this we hope that the savings are connected.

Yeah, no, and that that was the vision, that sort of efficiency.

If you have this technology that tells you, I mean you can take care of your routes in a much quicker manner, or you don't have to.

So, okay.

No, that's that's that's good enough.

Thank you.

Okay, can we move on from this then?

Anything else?

No.

No, no, we can't.

We'll let it know another.

No, no, we can't.

I feel like the deterrent of the making sure if we do some of this in the future, we're very mindful of it has already been set.

So goal accomplished.

Thank you.

Sure.

All right.

Any other discussion on this item?

Hearing, seeing none.

Alder Woman Dmitrievich moves approval of.

Um, I'm sorry, um, older Alder Woman Dmitrievich moves to uh place item four on file.

Any objection to that motion?

Hearing none so ordered.

Okay, passing the gavel back for item number next.

Five.

Yeah, round five.

Okay.

We are now gonna move quickly through these next items.

So item five, two six oh, oh, nine three.

Let me just grab this.

And that is our communication from the department of administration, budget and management analysis division regarding vacancy requests, fund transfers, and equipment requests.

Um, so we do not have any fund transfers.

So we'll first begin with property tax levy supported positions, department of administration, budget and management division, budget and fiscal policy analyst four, city attorney, assistant city attorney, five, common council city clerk, license specialist two, controller, accounting program assistant three, election commission, election operations manager, department of emergency communications, emergency communications manager, fire department, deputy chief fire, battalion chief fire, fire captain, library, librarian three, three positions, library reference assistant, two positions, police department, media producer, police district administrative assistant, police services specialist, investigators for positions, police human resources administrator, human resources supervisor, department of public works administration, department of public works inventory and purchasing manager, Department of Public Works Infrastructure Division, Program Assistant 2, Electrical Worker 3 Positions, Custodial Worker 2.

Any questions on property tax levy supported positions?

Hearing them will now move to non-property tax levy supported positions.

Department of Community Wellness and Safety, Recast Program Coordinator, Department of Compliance and Engagement, Equal Rights Specialist, Employees Retirement System, Office Assistant 3, ERS Chief Financial Officer.

Department of Public Works Infrastructure Division Civil Engineer 2.

Department of Public Works Water Works Water Chemist, Water Treatment Plant Led Operator, 3 Positions.

Any questions on property tax or non-property tax levy supported positions?

Hearing none and seeing no fund transfers, Alderman Virgelis moves approval of item five, which is our budget uh and management vacancy request and fund transfers equipment requests.

Any questions on that approval?

Any objections?

Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you.

We're now on item six.

260095.

Communication from the Department of Administration relating to approval of changes to certain single or sole source contracts or contract amendments.

Um Miss Rhonda Kelsey, are you here?

Or anyone from purchasing?

Yes, I'm on the board.

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Good morning, I see you.

Good morning.

Okay.

Um good morning, committee members.

There uh is one contract that requires your approval this morning.

Uh it's in the file.

This is the uh CIMC Incorporated contract for the Milwaukee Police Department uh for the purchase of CIMC terrain mapping software in the amount of 81,000 for a three-year term.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Um let me just check.

Is Alderman Woman Cogs still with us?

No.

No, okay, just didn't want to call on her if not.

Any that's our only one, Miss Kelsey, as you mentioned, correct for item six?

Yes.

Okay.

Any other questions on item six?

Then hearing none, Alderman Moore moves approval of item six.

We'll move on to item seven.

260097.

Communication from the Department of Administration informing the finance and personnel committee of waivers granted for sing certain single or sole source contracts or contract amendments.

Ms.

Kelsey.

Good morning again.

Um there are two contracts in today's file.

One for the police department and one for the prior police commission.

These are both contract amendments.

They've come before this body in the past.

Uh the first contract amendment is uh uh for the purchase of a soft interview room.

Um, uh for the install of cameras and whatnot for the police department.

So we are or have, I should say, we've amended the current contract amount, which includes five contracts again with axon, for body cameras, tasers, etc., any amount of uh roughly $18,000.

So this this purchase increases the current contract amount of $13.75 million or so to roughly 13.774 uh million.

The second contract uh again for the fire and police commission.

This contract is with Safeguard recruiting.

We are so again you all are familiar with this contract.

This is their marketing branding uh contract to increase uh uh recruitment efforts for police officers.

Um so we have amended this contract in the amount of 175,000 dollars, which yields an increase of the total contract amount to uh 430,000 uh dollars, and we've also uh extended the contract through uh April of 2027, and that concludes the contracts in this file.

Okay, questions or comments on item seven in the contracts before us from purchasing.

I'm sure.

Okay, Alder Alderman Bergellis.

Um so my question might be directed to the fire and police commission for the recruitment vendor.

That's that's quite a um it's an extension, it's a little bit more money.

Um, or I'm sorry, it's it's an extension uh for a little bit less money.

What um what results from the first year contract uh indicate that we should continue with the same vendor?

Since um this is Leon Todd executive director of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission since we uh began our partnership with Safeguard recruiting in approximately uh August of last year, applications have nearly doubled from uh August through December.

Uh we had 742 applications during that period, uh which was a significant increase in the number of applications.

That cohort of applicants is still in the testing process.

They've not been hired yet, but they will join uh class two of 2026 for MPD, which is scheduled to start in early August.

And then so far this year we've had just over a thousand applications, which is a significant increase uh in applications.

Now, I will uh provide a caveat to that while applications have significantly increased.

We've not yet seen a uh corresponding increase in the number of new hires.

Uh that said, we are uh working with Safeguard to fine-tune uh our applicant uh outreach model uh as well as uh internally in FPC.

We are looking at doing a number of things that will hopefully move more candidates through the application.

Sorry, the testing process uh including a uh new express exam for the initial written test.

We've uh requested.

I'm sorry to cut you off because we're just talking about the recruiting contract and not results from from uh recruiting efforts, but uh so you mentioned that this contract started in August of 2025.

That's well, I believe it was signed in April or May, but that's when it really got going and uh and Safeguard launched itself.

Okay.

So the original contract terms from May 1st, 2025.

Um we saw that waiver presentation May 29th, 2025, uh, and that first year contract from May 1st through the end of April 2026 was for 255,000.

Uh that contract is now expired, and we're renewing it for 175,000 for another year.

So you're saying that it didn't start May 1st?

The contract started May 1st, but the work began uh in earnest in mid or late July.

I believe.

Alright, and then what's the di what's the eighty thousand dollars in cost savings from the original contract and the renewal?

So the contract renewal amount for 175 is the same cost for the digital recruitment campaign.

They are providing um free of charge this time, uh weekly uh and monthly standing meetings on creative elements.

They're also um uh at no cost adding an additional recruitment video and photos, uh which does have a significant dollar value, so they're uh okay.

So they're there are some startup costs that were covered in the first year contract that don't need to be duplicated.

That makes perfect sense to me.

Um the August 26th recruit um uh police class, is that class going to be full now?

No.

Uh I go I don't anticipate that there will be a significant increase for that class.

Um, but again, we are working on a number of things that I'm hopeful will improve results going forward.

So we so we have more applications but the same number of people that make it to the class to the academy.

For this one applicant cohort, that is correct.

Alright, so I mean I will I will mark that as a um note of concern, uh, that we're spending money on recruitment, getting more applications but not getting more people through to the academy.

The entire purpose and requirement that we have for maintenance of effort in Act 12 is to increase our sworn staff.

Uh and frankly, unless we fill these classes, we're not going to be able to maintain our sworn staff.

So my concern is that this is great to have people apply, and we have a bigger pool of applications.

But if we don't have more people filling the academy classes, this is not a successful recruitment effort.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And if I can briefly respond to that, very briefly, because we're gonna move on from this.

Thank you briefly.

Uh, Dallas, I do share your concerns as well.

My concerns are uh, well, one concern is that if we do not continue the contract with Safebar, our application will uh decrease significantly.

That would result in even smaller classes.

Also, uh, as I mentioned, we are working on a number of ways to increase our hire rate, get more applicants uh ultimately hired, and I think uh it is a process, and uh we're working very hard on it.

Thank you.

Well, to be fair, if a boat is if a ship is sinking in the ocean and uh we're we're taking on water, we have to either get a bigger bucket or more buckets, right?

Um, but we're still sinking at the same rate.

I I well I I don't necessarily agree with that analogy, but I agree that we need more applications and we need to get more people through the testing process and get them hired.

We are working on both very hard.

Okay, maybe you gentlemen can continue to work on this together because there's been a lot of back and forth, but I can understand the need.

I understand.

Okay, anything else on seven?

Anything else on seven?

Anyone else?

Um, then we'll have uh Alderman Spiker move to place that on file and hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you.

We're now in number eight two six oh nine eight communication from the department of employee relations relating to classification studies scheduled for city service commission action.

Ms.

Nickerbacher from DER, please.

Thank you.

The report before you today does do uh is for the purpose of reclassifying the positions that exist in that fleet operations section.

Um just to do uh a big picture overview, and I can answer any more detailed questions.

The current fleet operations manager, we looked at the classification.

I wanna I want to emphasize this report was not a market study.

This is actually looking at the classification of the position, comparing it to others in the city, in this case public works, and realizing that this fleet operations manager is actually operating at the same level as other positions in the water works and sanitation in regards to the people who are actually working on the floor and assigning people and equipment.

Um we're gonna create we recommend creating three different titles different than what we have now, creating a public works dispatcher lead to assist people on the floor in real time, as well as two titles of public works dispatcher one, with one being the underfill, but with people being able to move up to the two.

The other thing we did, just because this is not the only dispatch section in public works is we took a look at the dispatch center and water.

Uh, they have similar but slightly different needs.

Our recommendation there is to create position authority for the two level and position authority for the one level.

Um, and uh that's related to the schedules and um what people are actually doing on the job, and I can answer any questions.

Questions on item eight, questions on item eight.

Hearing no questions, alderman Bergellis moves to place eight on file.

Any objections?

Hearing none so ordered.

We're on number nine, two five two two one six communication from department of employee relations, amending the salary and positions ordinances relating to clerical or administrative corrections.

Miss Knickerbacher.

These are just corrections that we have found.

Thank you.

Any questions on the corrections?

Alderman Moore moves to place nine on file, objections to placing it on file, hearing none so ordered.

Item 10, 251, 855 substitute resolution relative to acceptance of funding for 2025 2029, lead hazard reduction and healthy homes grant from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Um, this was referred to us from the public health and safety committee, correct?

Yes, positively, if I make sure.

Any objections?

Hearing none so ordered.

11 260102, an ordinance to further amend the 2026 rates of pay of offices and positions in city service.

Um we do need to amend that because it did include item one issues, which were the reimbursements for the allowances for the members of the Granville Haven Woods Advisory Council.

Yeah, it was held, so then we have to amend it to remove it, and Alderman Bergellis does that at this time of hearing no objections, so ordered.

Then Alderman Burgelis moves as amended passage of two.

Um I'm sorry, passage of 11.

Okay, so now it does reflect the work of our earlier files because we removed that one item which we held in item one and passages before us.

Any objections to passage on 11, hearing them so ordered.

12 260103 and ordinance to further amend the 2026 offices and positions in the city service.

That also reflects our work from earlier files.

Passages moved by Alderman Spyker.

Any discussion of passage, any objections, hearing nuns so ordered.

There are um three files before us.

We'll take them as a group that should be placed on file because they're no longer necessary.

13 is 190232, 14 21023 1, and 15 251 683.

Um, and those will be moved by Alderman Bergellis to place on file.

They're no longer necessary.

Any discussion, any objections?

Hearing none so ordered, and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.