Okay, are we ready? We are. We want. Will you please do the roll call, clerk?

Thank you, Councilmember Kaplan. Councilmember Tullamantes. Councilmember Vang.

Here and your Jennings. Here. Councilmember Tullamante. Will you please do the

landate knowledge for us and the pledge of allegiance? Please rise for the

opening acknowledgments and honor sacraments of the indigenous people and tribal

lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the southern

Maydu, Vowelian planes, mewag, Patwain wind two peoples, and the people of the

Bolteran area. Sacraments only readily recognize tribe. Maybe acknowledge and

honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on

these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today and the actor

practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for sacraments and indigenous

people, history, contributions and lives. Thank you.

So, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

for which it stands one nation under God, individual, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much. All right. We will now move on with our agenda. Today is the day

where we will interview, have interviews of the executive recruitment firms to

conduct the city manager recruitment with recommendations of conducting

interviews of firms to discussing the firms qualifications, three past

emotion, recommending engagement of a firm to be directed, to be directed,

directing the city clerk to forward the recommendation to the city council.

And so with that, we will move forward with our agenda and I will now bring up

Jennifer Wilkerson to start us off. Good morning, Jennifer.

As you said, I'm Jennifer Wilkinson, administrative officer in the employment

classification and development division of human resources. The city received

two bids for consideration in the city manager recruitment, CPS, HR

consulting and MGT impact solutions. Today, they're both firms will be here to

provide a presentation on their firm's recruitment process and to answer any

of the committee's questions. And so first we'll have Pam Derby, executive

recruitment manager. She's here from CPS and then we will also have Mary Jacobs,

who's a director at MGT joined by her colleague,

virtually Sarah McKee who will and then with that, Pam take the stage.

Good morning, council. Thank you so much for having us. We appreciate the

opportunity to present our qualifications. I know many of you are very familiar

with us. We are headquartered here in Sacramento. CPS is a California joint

powers authority. We have are actually celebrating our 40th year this year.

We were all in town year week before last with a big celebration. I know

Chair Jennings is very familiar with our CEO, Jerry Greenwell, who has announced

his retirement in June after 20 plus years as our CEO. And so we had a very

large celebration regarding that as well. I'm Pam Derby. I manage the executive

recruitment function at CPS HR. I'm in year 22 there. And I came from

Ube County where I was the aide to the board of supervisors. So I've spent

most of my career in the public sector. So today we want to talk to you about

what we would do for you for the city manager search. Obviously we conduct

many of these. We've conducted hundreds over the last 20 plus years that we've

had executive search. CPS HR is a full service HR consulting company. But we

added executive search in the early 2000s and that's when I joined the company.

The first thing we would do with the council is we would approve a proposed

timeline and our approach. And typically a city manager search takes about 16

weeks. So a four month period. You have about a four to six week open period.

You have the time previous to opening the recruitment where we'd be doing

engagement. Discussions with the council with the public. Maybe surveys, etc.

And so that takes two to three weeks. And then typically we can get it out on

the street. Obviously there are places we can cut time if necessary. We have

done city manager searches and is little is 12 to 14 weeks. But I don't

believe that that would be the case here in Sacramento where I believe we're

going to have to do a lot of engagement prior to this hitting the street.

So the first thing we do in our phase one is we would establish the timeline as

I mentioned and all the communication expectations with the council.

Oftentimes a council will choose to have a subcommittee that works with us in

the initial portions of the recruitment. However we usually speak with each

council member individually to talk to them about what they're looking for in

the city manager. But we also like to set the timeline as close as possible to

what we can. Obviously it's hard for all nine of you to get together. We want to

decide when the what the selection process is going to look like when we can

block out dates work with the HR team to do that. And the earlier we can do

that the sooner we can get things running and then we're not waiting at the

end for those things to occur. So as I said we'd be conducting all of those

information gathering meetings. We've done things as sandeg a few years ago

doing their executive director. I had to have meetings in five districts.

You know that's the Association of Governments in San Diego and we had to

meet in every one of their areas. We had hometown meetings basically with

mayors representing those cities where the public was able to come and talk about

what they were looking for in an executive director. They'd had some

controversy prior to that recruitment and so they felt it was necessary. We did

about a month of engagement. So not only did we do those I did four in person

employee meetings. We had an online survey. We also did a online town hall.

The public was invited to speak at count at the board meetings. So it was it took

about a month just to do that engagement piece. That is probably the

outset of what you would want to do but the reality is we can do that if

necessary. So you know typically we speak with each counts member as I said.

We certainly want to speak with the department heads. I would suggest at the

minimum doing a survey to the entire employee population we can do that

through survey monkey or Qualtrics and obviously there may be community

leaders who want us to speak with. After we've done all that gathering of

information we put together all the marketing materials. I'm sure many of you

have seen in our proposal we did have a sample of one of our recruitment

brochures. We put together all the advertising materials and those are all

the things that are happening in that first phase of the recruitment. Now in

phase two is the most important part frankly it's where we're going to be

looking for the candidates that you're looking for to come be the city manager

here in Sacramento. Obviously we would be launching all of those outreach

efforts. Our database at this time has about 15,000 city managers, assistant

city managers, etc. around the country and the first day that this post an

initial email blast would go out to that entire group of individuals but the

reality is that is that follow-up outreach calling people personal

interpersonal calls. We're doing texts sometimes these days linked in. We also

have Zoom info for identifying people. My staff is great at social media. They've

been doing a lot of innovative things on social media to attract people and

obviously in professional organizations that we'd be looking at and FBPA, the

women leading in government, Hispanic network. We do have a close association

with ICMA and M-D-T. But obviously we've talked to all of those individuals

who are in those types of situations for referrals. Oftentimes they know

people who are looking. The reality though is that for California we are a

very, you know, we're different here. We are sequa is different. We're dealing

with the state situation, the state budget situation. How's that going to affect

the city? Obviously now we're all wondering about how the federal situation is

going to roll down. In the US Sacramento has a, you know, the city has a

population of over 500,000. Well in the US there's only about 100 cities that are

over 250,000. In California we have about 25 cities that are over 200,000.

The reality is you need someone who has been in a larger organization, who

understands all of the issues that come up with an organization that size. In

California obviously in Sacramento we have the unhoused issue, we have the

affordable housing issue. There are many things that we're dealing with that you

probably are going to want to have someone who is experienced in those areas.

Everyone applies directly to CPSHR. Anyone that meets the minimum

qualifications that you advertise for, we're going to be doing a comprehensive

screening interview with. We also send them a pre-screen questionnaire to, for

some housekeeping things, what types of budgets have they managed, what size of

staffs have they managed, et cetera. We want to get some of that in their own

writing, but then we have about an hour conversation with them. To help us

decide whether they're going to be a fit for the city, certainly there's going to

be those standard questions. What's their management style, what are their

staffs, what would the staff want to change about them, but there are also

going to be some fit questions. The things that we know are important to

Sacramento that are important to the council, we're going to query them on those

things. Once we have done that, we would present a recommended short list of

candidates. I did there to a subcommittee as we discussed to the full council.

However, the council decides to arrange that situation and we would

recommend, usually that's four to six candidates, but the reality is you also

receive, you receive the resumes of everyone we've done a screening interview

with. You also receive a listing of everyone that applied. We don't tell anyone

that they aren't moving forward until we've had that meeting with you. It's

possible that sometimes there's someone you know that's on that list of

applicants that we haven't screened because they didn't put their best foot

forward in their resume, for example, but there are members of the council that

would like to interview those individuals. So then phase three is that

selection process. As we discussed, we really want to work on a lot of this at

the very beginning so that we can decide what that process is going to look

like. Are you going to have community panels? Are you going to have staff

panels? Is it just going to be the council in the interview process?

Working with HR on the logistics and dates and then we are also facilitating

facilitating all of those interview processes, pardon me, which is helping you

come up with questions. It's putting together all of the materials for the

panels. We're here facilitating in person. We're doing all of the candidate

arrangements. We are scheduling them, etc. So once you have decided on that

semifinalist group, we will have put them all through a media check at that

point. Anyone that we recommend to you and anybody that we screen, we do a

media check on them. We typically, some of our competitors do it differently.

We typically don't conduct reference checks until that first round of semi-finalist

interviews is done and you've decided on your top two or three finalists. We

like to speak with at least six people. We want to do with 360 and so we want to

speak with people that they've reported to, people that have reported to them,

and colleagues. Many people are going to be very hesitant if they are still a

group of four to six seven individuals for us to do that very thorough

reference checking. We typically wait to do that piece, usually with the city

manager candidate. If there are things out there that there have been problems,

number one, we'll see it in their resume. If there's been job hopping and we will

have found it in social media checks. So once you have those finalists, we would

then do those reference checks. We speak with people personally.

Background check in California, you cannot do a criminal background check until

you have made a job offer. But we can check things like civil actions, their

education verification, credit. We typically won't do driving either until we've

done there's a job offer because something of a criminal nature could come up in

that as well. And then we are also available to assist with employment

negotiations as desired. We do this quite often where we are doing the

employment, helping with the employment agreement. Obviously the city attorney's

office is working with us on that. But oftentimes we're doing the conversations,

maybe with the mayor on those conversations. So some of the additional activities that

we maybe would do. And for this position we would definitely do this considering the

recent media around this subject. Our compensation team would conduct a labor market

survey of like cities in California. It's important with city managers that you're

also like you're looking at as a total compensation package because much has been

made about Mr. Chan salary being the highest in California, etc. But it's

possible that he was not getting the same perks that other city managers in the Bay Area

were, etc. We need to look at all of that. But we want the council to know that from the

front as we're going into this in California we have to advertise a salary. And so we

want you to know what that looks like. So we will do that from the front. We will also

as I mentioned we can do extensive stakeholder engagement activities, surveys, town halls,

personal meetings, etc. And then also varied select activities. Multiple panel interviews,

meet and greets if necessary. Leadership assessment, we have had a long association with

Hogan which is a leadership potential test. It's not really a test, it's an assessment.

It's the candidates about an hour online and then a certified assessor would come and

do a workshop with the council explaining those results. So all of that is included in

our pricing. We have a flat fee which includes all of those activities. And so I'm happy to

answer all of your questions.

Okay, thank you. Do we want to take questions now? We want to wait till we've gotten through

both of the interviews. That was my question.

I'm just going to process. Do you want to do both?

So I think yeah, let's do both. And then both ask questions and we'll bring you both

back up so you can take a breather and thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the council. It's my honor and privilege to be here today

representing MGT to assist you with recruitment of a very important position for the City of

Sacramento. My name is Mary Jacobs and I'm a director with MGT. I have been with the

firm for two years coming over from Gov. HR which has been around for a long, long time

and I'll tell you a little bit about that in just a moment. And my colleague Sarah McKee

is also on the line and so I'll be doing the bulk of the presentation. But we are just

delighted and so privileged and honored to be considered for this important recruitment.

I wanted to let you know as I mentioned, we are with formerly Gov. HR. We joined with

MGT in December of 2023 and fully merged into one MGT in August of 2024. But what we

really love about it is that this combination allows us to reach a much larger segment

of the public sector and offer even more solutions and turns out MGT actually conducted

as an example of fee study for your fire department last year. So that's the different

types of services that we offer. We are focused almost exclusively in the education, state

and local government clients and we are committed to making a positive social impact in consulting,

recruiting fee studies, technology services, a variety of different areas. We are experts

in human capital solutions and our combination allows us to broaden those services. Our

operating group continues to be led by Joel and Katamatory. She was one of the co-founders

of Gov. HR and she is a local government professional with decades of experience and now

of course she runs this particular practice and our team members stayed the same as we

moved over to MGT. Sarah and I will be your lead recruiters and Sarah and I both are

experienced city managers. I spent 28 years in city management myself before joining this

firm and I also served on the ICMA board and we have a significant network that we tap

into. We know people in the city management profession not just in California but across

the entire country. If I may ask my colleague Sarah to just briefly introduce herself so

that you can at least hear her voice if that would be all right. Madam Clerk.

Yes good morning. Sarah McKee. Probably part of the presentation with you today. Thank

you so much for having us. We are very honored to be able to present our proposal to you

and happy to follow up with any questions you might have.

Great. And Sarah also has years of experience in city management herself and has served

in a number of different communities. We both reside in Arizona so we are close by and

I spent most of my career in Arizona and also in Massachusetts but we obviously serve

clients all over the country. Our team also comes really with a with a whole team behind

and that team includes our vice president for recruitment services Charlene Stevens who

also served on the ICMA board spent decades in city management, city and county management

and then we have a great administrative staff team references recruitment specialists

our client services and so we are here to support the entire recruitment process.

We have experience across the country and we have 36 recruiters located in 14 different

states. We also have clients in 45 of our states and we have conducted over 1400 recruitment

since the start of Gauvejr. We have this is just a sample of some of the different types

of city and county manager recruitment that we have conducted relatively recently and

I think what it demonstrates to you is a breadth of experience and depth of experience in

large communities, smaller communities, very politically active communities and a variety

of different types of communities all with one desire and following a consistent process

but also a very customized process for recruiting a city manager. In addition to the chief

administrative officer experience that Sarah and I have we have a team that has experience

in all of these different particular areas from human resources to department directors

and so we bring that breadth and depth of experience to this process but I think what you'll

find more importantly is that our team brings with the recruitment a passion for public service.

We have served, we are former local government executives and our dedication and commitment

truly is unmatched. We have a six step process for our recruitment that is tried and true

and it works but it is customized based on your needs and our recruitments typically go

between 90 and 120 days and that really is dependent upon what it is that you want to include

in this important recruitment. We do absolutely take time to find out the quality skills,

experience you're looking for that could be transparency, communication skills. I know the financial

picture for Sacramento is important so that may be one of your top priorities for a new candidate

but no matter what it is we use those expectations not only to develop the recruitment materials but

of course to measure the qualities of the candidates. We understand the public sector and we also

understand the governance process and the structures of public bodies. We're also skilled and trained

facilitators and so we understand having facilitated many public meetings in our careers. Sarah and I

know how and have facilitated a variety of different types of public meetings. We're committed to

bringing you those high quality candidates of diverse backgrounds so that you can have the kinds

of choices that you're looking for in our tailored process. So really we do take time to get to know

the organization most importantly because this is the foundational step. We want to know what are

your key priorities that really sets the tone for how we craft the materials, the recruitment

materials and who we are looking for to meet your needs. We want to know what their backgrounds are,

what they have done, what are their accomplishments and really thoroughly understand that job profile so

that we can craft something and we know of course that the most important information comes from

the City Council. But having looked at your backgrounds I know that it's also very important to you

to engage the public and so we have included in our process a robust community survey that

we would conduct as well as a variety of different types of stakeholder engagements and frankly we

would come to you with options once we would have an opportunity to speak with you individually

and customize a stakeholder engagement process that meets your needs, identifies the people

and the groups that you want to hear from most and really distills that information in a way that can

help you make some decisions about what to include in the job brochure and what's most important.

Obviously it's easy to write an eight page job brochure but you're not going to find the perfect

candidate but we want to know what those priorities are and so it just as an example we designed

fairly recently of I personally designed the stakeholder engagement strategy for the ICMA executive

director recruitment where we engaged a variety of different groups and the members and the affiliate

organizations and staff and we had of multiple surveys and listening sessions and a variety of

different ways that we wanted to hear from in order to provide that information to the board who

then developed and gave us some input on the crafting of that executive recruitment brochure.

So we would obviously work with you in that process. We also conduct extensive outreach.

Once we know what you want then we go looking for the people that you need and we have a linked

in presence of over 50,000. We have 17,000 monthly visits to our career page and of course we

have recruiters and former ICMA board members and other city managers on our team who help us

find people for this job with significant networks. These are individual networks where we have

built relationships and we can ask people for their input on candidates and the backgrounds that

they've had and whether somebody at an assistant level is prepared to move into a city manager level.

These are the kinds of questions that we ask behind the scenes as we as we do our direct outreach.

We use significantly our social media website, other professional websites and we design an

advertising strategy that meets your needs. So we consider bringing you a diverse pool,

one of our top priorities. We have relationships with the national forum for Black public administrators.

We have a partnership with them through their consulting arm and we've conducted

recruitments with them jointly. We also have relationships with the International Hispanic

Network with She Leads Gov and a variety of other women leading government groups with civic pride

at the ICMA level and with the Veterans Group at ICMA. In fact we facilitated the Veterans

Group's first strategic plan. So we are keenly aware of the importance of looking for candidates

potentially with unique and diverse backgrounds but that also meet your needs. So that is a very

important process. And then of course we review our candidates ideally to meet your requirements.

We do live interviews with them. We spend time getting to know candidates. We think that that is

very important. It's very difficult to get to know someone if you really don't talk with them and

have those conversations. And we do when we first invite people in the screening process,

we do a preliminary reference check because we want to ensure that these candidates have the

credentials that you're looking for. We also do at that time before we even bring you candidates.

We do the Internet and social media search. We want to be able to find out

issues that they may have had situations that they may have faced. In this line of work,

it's not uncommon for city managers in other areas to be dealing with challenging situations.

Sometimes they're they haven't been dealt with appropriately. Sometimes they have. Sometimes

there are political changes and people are new councils come in and simply want a change.

We try to get to the root of those issues so that if we bring candidates forward, we will also

rule out candidates that we think may not meet your needs or maybe to politically motivated and

maybe not meet your particular expectations. So that's a really important process for us.

We also provide you with background materials in a candidate portfolio. This is just a sample of a

we call it our mini where we present the information uniformly for all candidates. And again,

that's part of our equity lens that we use as we present those materials to use so that you have

that viewpoint and that equity. And we provide you with that material and we keep you posted on

our process every step of the way. As you know from our proposal, we have a flat fee of $56,000.

That includes the entire process recruitment process background. All of the information it

includes the robust community survey with we were using our special proprietary bento tool that

will be able to provide you with visual information on those responses that can also be shared with

the community. We know and I know having done some research about the city of Sacramento that

transparency is important to you. And so we will also work with you on developing a website and

giving you recommendations and content for website updates in order to keep the community updated

on where the process is and how it's going. And so we know that people are interested and we know

that you want to keep them informed. So we work with you, we work with your human resources team

and other leadership that that designated people that you have assigned to us so that we get you

quick response and and provide you with the backgrounds that you need.

We also are very proud of our placement statistics and our statistics largely match the ICMA

statistics but this is also for all of our recruitments across all different levels including

department directors and as you know some department directors are you know you start looking at

a public work so that kind of thing and they may not be as diverse. We have a very successful record

in identifying diverse candidates with diverse backgrounds in in all of our different types of

recruitments across the board. So really lastly and I just want to close with this before we're happy

to happy to answer any questions Sarah and I we consider this to be a partnership with you.

Our process is consistent and it achieves results and as your representative we also treat

candidates with the dignity and respect that they deserve. We represent you and we know how

difficult it is going through a recruitment process when you're applying for a job and so we

ensure that they are kept informed that they are listened to and and that we then share that

information with you as well. We are available to you and to the candidates throughout the process.

We stay on the timeline. Once we establish a timeline jointly with you we meet it every step

of the way and we will work with you and identify things if if things aren't getting done or meetings

aren't getting scheduled we'll be the first one to say we need to do that let's get on that and

to give you that kind of service that you deserve. We are committed to local government. We are

professionals and we do this out of a love in our heart for the profession so I can tell you that

even doing the ICMA recruitment was very much a labor of love. Every time I participate in one

of these I consider it to be an extension of the service that I did when I was in local government

and city management for 28 years. It's a passion I think it's a very difficult job and it is

important to find that bright person for you so that they can continue serving you and the community.

Lastly I just want to mention that we are with you through the entire process. If we don't get

the candidates that you want we go back out and we look and we give you a one-year guarantee

for once you have a placement and that person starts and in our entire 14 years we've only had

3% across all of our different positions not just at the city manager or assistant city manager

that have had to tap into that guarantee. So we're very proud of the process and the candidates

that we bring forward. 94% of our clients rate our services as outstanding and nearly 60% of them are

repeat customers for us and we know that's because of the service that we deliver and the process.

So I'm looking forward to providing any additional further details and thank you again for the

opportunity to be here. Thank you very much. Really appreciate that. Okay my colleagues we are

now at that point in time where we want to ask questions and I'm looking forward to seeing you

plug up. So do we have any public comment on this item? Chair I have no more no speakers on this item.

Okay then now it would be an opportunity for us to discuss the qualifications of the firms

and then at the end of that discussion I would look forward to a motion recommending engagement

of a firm that we can then direct the city clerk before it that recommendation to the full city

council for consideration. So okay got vice mayor telemante's. Okay thank you so much chair.

My question I have one right now and I'll probably punch up again but right now I mean community

outreach is going to be really important and I think for me I used to do HR passive recruiting

for candidates myself and accounting and finance and the outreach at the beginning is going to be

really important for the community here like what the community wants to see in a city manager.

I've seen other jurisdictions that do public interviews with like the top three candidates

and my concern with my HR brain is like it would deter a passive candidate that's really happy in

their current job from applying if it's going to be such a public process and so I have heard that

and so I just wanted to hear from you both your thoughts on that and just if you have any data on

how many candidates would turn down an interview if that was like part of our process.

So I'm going to help you out a little bit as far as process because I want each of you I think the

question was directed at each of you and what I'd like to do is one of you can go first this time

and then the second time when the question is proposed to both of you we will alternate that

in fairness to make sure that one person is not up there to the mic getting an advantage over the

other okay whichever way you want to look at it okay that work okay all right well council member

telemontese you are right having your HR hat on in California we are never required there are

some states that are required to do things in a public form once you get down to the top three to

six candidates because of the Brown act here in California it is not required and our candidates

who are native to California and have been California ACM's city managers are not familiar or

attracted to that process we have done it I will tell you in the city of Richmond when I did

their city manager recruitment we got down to the top three candidates and we did a town hall

meeting where there were over more than a hundred attendees that lasted a couple of hours with them

peppering that panel with questions the reality is though is that each of those candidates had either

was out of a job or they really wanted to leave their current position so great passive candidates

it would be a deterrent that's why we always recommend that we do so much engagement on the front

end so that the you know citizenry residents understand that the council is interested in what they

think we try to make sure that that information is included in the recruitment brochure that it's

recruited that it we use it in our recruitment conversations with individuals but certainly this

is is the council's process and we want to you know more fit to what is you desire but the reality

is is that it is a deterrent for passive candidates thank you vice mayor I agree with Pam and I

have personally been through the process where you sit and you're in front of a whole group and

you're being interviewed for for a public job and it is very intimidating what I think is the

most important is the transparency with the community and when you ask them at the beginning what it

is that you're looking for and give them an opportunity for that input and then share that

information back which is what we would do in the survey and through we could structure with you

listening sessions both in person and online so that people can participate provide their

their input in the process and you share that information and you demonstrate to them that we heard

you this is the the type of you know candidate that we're looking for and that's what we're going to

see then they begin to have more trust in the process and so there might be an opportunity as an

example rather than having a whole community forum there might be a better opportunity might be to

have a community panel or two and to do that in the process of a of a whole and then they would

provide the council with input from their perspective sometimes that's a great panel of community

leaders it could be you might want to include a department head or assistance city manager panel

as well to give you that feedback I always remind panels that they're not decision makers and that

the council is not looking for their one two and three they're looking for what do you think that

these that this individual brings to the table where do you think they might need some additional

support in the position if they were selected and and then if they have any other comments and so

it's not like well our panel you know thinks that this candidate really should be selected

they're not being asked to select they're being asked to provide input but that might give you

that representation too and also be able to keep that process a little more confidential but still

get input from the community also we've done recruitment where rather than having a whole public

discussion there was more of a meet and greet a breakfast or you know an evening gathering where

you might invite it's an invitation only leaders where they get a chance to interact more

informally with the candidates and that sometimes also is a a way to get that type of feedback so

there's a variety of different things we would we would work with you and talk through what all

those different options are provide you with some pros and cons and and help you structure that

process you know there's a difference between the input process up front and then the the interview

process at the end and and so you know how that is structured you could just have the council do

the preliminary interviews of the semi-finalists so that you know hey these are the two or three

candidates that we think we could you know potentially live with and then bring in those community

members at the end so you know a lot of different options you certainly vice mayor have have

reason to be concerned about you know those passive candidates on the other hand this is a big

community and this is a big job and so you know that there are also I think is it's not unreasonable

for the top maybe one or two folks to begin to be public in that in that process we're calling

references people typically know and so but how that is so that it's not you know quite so public

is is really dependent upon you and and the structure that you'd like to put together

okay we will go to councilmember Kaplan thank you should I told you you should stay up there because

I'm just gonna dive in because I don't know any other way you both have been doing this for a

long time in firms tell me about a time you handled a recruitment for either city manager or

county administrator where the former administrator was not renewed or left where there are

concerns about how that was handled professionally and where makes recruitment a little bit more

difficult because people saw how the farmer administrator left so how are you going to guarantee

that we're going to get a good selection of candidates knowing that everything that happened with

our prior city manager is public thank you councilmember that is I would say a pretty consistent

occurrence in this line of work and the good news is that it's it's already known you know whatever

the council discusses whatever our public documents that's already out there so you're right the

important thing is that the candidates need to know okay whatever happened where is the council

now they want to know where is the council now things happen new elected officials come on board

what happened what is being what has been resolved and where is the council now are they on board

and and we need as your you know as your recruiters we need to be able to know and be able to share

with perspective candidates real honesty in that regard that's why we like to have those one-on-one

conversations because you know if a candidate asks us what are you know what are the the risk is

the council together on this are they you know are they going to be it's really our obligation to

share that with them these are people's livelihoods they don't want to leave for another job

without knowing that full picture so we would want to spend that kind of time with you to to really

make that assessment and then it is not uncommon in the world of city management to have you know

changes in administration differences of opinion after a certain period of time you know you had a

lot of different financial challenges and a whole lot of thing that that come a lot of things

happened during COVID there are reasons for these things that are definitely explainable so as long

as we have those facts and feel confident that we can provide those facts to candidates we believe

that we can then attract the ones who might be willing to say okay that sounds that sounds workable

I think I can work through that or well I have these great collaboration skills I think I would bring

that to the table or whatever it is that you're looking for so as a quick follow-up can you tell me

about where you've done that recruitment I don't need the name of the city and how long did

these city managers the new city managers last because sometimes they're the city managers who come

in after such an incident don't last that long right I you know again it it depends right I know

of situations where the the former manager was there six years was asked to leave and the new

manager who's still there is working out great and I also know of situations where what made that

successful what made that successful is that the council decided that they wanted to make it work

they invested in that individual they conducted a they agreed on a performance evaluation process

at the beginning and at the so that they developed goals together they had they structured in the

contract a midpoint a six-month evaluation they also invested in professional coaching for this

individual so that they would be successful in that regard we we have and certainly other firms

do provide and have provided those facilitated evaluation sessions with council to help with

the goal setting process I think the most important thing in this process and of course having

been a city manager is knowing what the expectations are when those are established up front

and are agreed to buy the council then the individual who's in that role knows what you are

looking for how are you going to evaluate them because challenges are going to come up every day

in a city this size they just are but what what are those things that are you know that

that you're looking for those strategic things that you really need to make sure this person focuses

on and so getting those established at the beginning is really I think a recipe for success

so Pam same question tell me about a time you've done this and what made it successful

well I'd love to say that's never happened but obviously we're brought into many of these situations

as I mentioned sand egg and this is all you know public knowledge obviously had had major

situation there'd been an investigation long time CEO and so to hopefully

me and some of that we did all of that engagement at the beginning it's about the transparency

but for the candidates I also think that this is still an attractive position you've had long term

city managers for the most part and so this is not a situation where yes there's been some up

evil there's still ongoing situation however Sacramento is still going to be seen as a very popular

position I believe we are the capital city of California where a great city to live we have so

many things to sell to candidates I think it's still going to be a popular position and I've been

brought in to do this many times I did San Diego CAO last year after it failed the early part of

the year I'm now doing Orange County where they had a failed recruitment you know last year

it's about looking at what the politics are it's about being able to tell the candidates I know

that the board the council is really behind this situation I think Mary's response was great I

mean it's true candidates have to come in and decide to title new ED's GM CEMs all the time you

need to come in and from the beginning you need to talk to the council about you have to help them

decide what your goals are going to be for the first year and they need to know that you're invested

in them and so those are all the things that we can do through the questions we're asking them

through the questions that you ask them I think that you know sand egg the next person lasted five

years the new person you know then the five years he retired and now they're to onto the next

but those those things happen and I think it's more about you are not a city where you've had this

turn of city managers those are the ones that we really look at and decide can we really do this

because they've gone through seven city managers in five years you know what's happening in

Los Banos right now it's a good example you know they've had some major controversy but I went

ahead and said yes let's put in for that because it's important to me that they get a good city

manager and that they get someone who is committed to that city Mary'sville is a good example

for many years they had not had someone they they'd never had a real city manager and so it was

important to me you be counting was home to be to bring in somebody who would be a real city manager

there all of these are places who've had situations that have come up so where we've dealt with them

again this is all you can look in the newspaper so thank you thanks Pam all hold on

I will bring up council member vang I just want to make sure I heard you clearly on the number of

of city managers in a five year period of time where did you say seven year period of time

thought I heard seven city managers in a five year period time here are places across the country

different places they're usually smaller entities where they will have gone through interms

placements you know maybe six or seven in a five year to ten year period okay it does it does

happen you're very fortunate really thank you council member vang thanks chair um Pam and Mary thank

you so much for your thorough presentation and also stepping up to apply really appreciate I know

we had several companies on you know on file but you both kind of stood up to that so just I want to

say thank you for putting in putting in your hat so my first question it's really around the

compensation um as you I think uh Pam you actually stated um you know compensation has been a point

of contention and concern within our city and I would say you know the public and our residents um

what recommendations would you provide if we went with your firm today uh to help us as a city

assess and develop a competitive and fair compensation package both for our city um and also for the

perspective city manager I know this is usually a conversation with city council most of the time

but wanted to kind of know what you know what help in terms of assessment or development um and

assessing us and helping us with that so as I mentioned as you know cpshr is a full service hr

consulting company and so we have a classification and compensation

department that you know we're doing class and comp studies for cities counties

you know state offices all the time however recently I brought a new person onto my team to just

do executive compensation studies and so we are now doing an executive compensation study for every

executive you know board council appointed position that we do because it's really important to know

from the beginning what you're dealing with um in california obviously we're not supposed to ask

people what they make if their public employees of course we can go look um but we want you to be

able to feel comfortable with what you're offering it has been the transparency that situation has

been a problem I do think it behooves you to have us do that executive study so that the public can

see in black and white what the comparisons are I think that's the most important piece um

boards councils find that incredibly helpful um and we can help you set what a fair package would

look like and as I said it's not just about the base salary it's about the total compensation

piece because we all know there are many perks and things that get buried into the employment

agreement that don't necessarily come out in the media oftentimes the media is just talking about

the base salary and so oftentimes a lot of the other things car allowance deferred compensation

you know all of those things may not get mentioned and so it's important to look at all of that

and we've as I said we've started doing that just as part of our executive recruitment function

councilmember vang our firm also has a classification compensation practice and so that is something that

without repeating everything that pan says right we also do this the same we have access to

all of the comparable information we would be looking at what are the comparable for Sacramento right

because you need to look at the area and the size and you know a variety of different things and so

we would probably we would come back to you with this is what we think is a recommended range

and and these types of different you know benefits would then be

negotiated as part of the of the process so it is you know it is something that is

people in the community and this goes across the you know there is this expectation that

running a city is different than you know then being in in private sector and it is in many

ways it's it's taxpayer dollars but it's also a very it's a it's an important job it's a very

big job and so what you want to make sure is that and this is why we will recommend it to you a

range you also want to make sure that you're going to track the kind of candidates who want to take

the job this big job and be compensated accordingly so you know is there an opportunity potentially

for a reset yes potentially we have worked with clients before and said you know you probably

could take the top of that range down just a little bit but you're probably going to be in this

area but we would provide you with hard data for you to review on that. Thank you.

Okay I will ask a question and I'll come back to you council member Kaplan and I'm going to ask

a question to both of you in a city the size of Sacramento with the type of governance that we

have here does that propose a problem over the other type of governance one and two is the timeline

realistic as far as being able to find a person that can meet our needs is the timeline that we

have given you is that an adequate timeline or should more time be considered or less time.

Council member Mr. Chairman the council manager form of government is the desired

form of government for a city manager role it is because there are very many and there are new

answers for everyone certain number of positions that report directly to the manager I'm excuse me

to the council but no I don't see that as a barrier I see that as a benefit and nationally even

I think you could potentially attract not just people working in city management but also

county management who have worked in very large organizations with very large numbers of

employees that that might be a good fit for you depending on what you're looking for the timeline

you know the typical timeline is 92 120 days and it really all depends on the level of stakeholder

engagement that you want and getting things worked out and then frankly we also work in things like

are there special you know do you have budget meetings coming up we need to work around what is

your schedule what are your priorities so that we build something that's realistic we don't want

you thinking that we're going to just squeeze it all together just to make it short we want it to

be realistic and we'll be very upfront with you but if you're like oh but we really want it to be

done by xyz fine we'll go back we'll we'll you know scratch things out and say okay we'll compress

our process here and we'll do this or we'll bring more resources to the team so that we can get it

done quicker so we have that ability to do that to meet your timeline but where we think that

that might be too much because one of the things that we think is most important we want candidates

to come to you at their best and when you rush things candidate particularly right there at the

end of the process candidates aren't at their best particularly if you ask them to provide some

written materials or you know that kind of thing and so we want you to be aware of that so that

they can put their best foot forward and you can really see them for the person that they are

and what they would bring to your organization so I very much agree with my esteemed colleague um

council manager is the preferred form of government I will say one of the things I hadn't said

previously is that one of the things that people are going to see when they if they look at

lots of media about Sacramento is this controversy about having a strong mayor city or keeping the

council manager form of government it's come up you know many times over the years it's been an

issue um and in California the only council the only strong mayor cities are Oakland San Francisco

and San Diego and Los Angeles so the four largest cities San Jose is even a council manager

form of government and so it really is the preferred form many people don't because they are

city administrators if they're going into a strong mayor city and so we know that that's you know

the preferred format um I will say on the timeline that again it's about making sure that we

schedule things from the beginning we look at all of your vacation calendars you know we're starting

this in you know probably in March sometime some of you are going to be going you know you have

cruises you have whatever might be in May or June for example we need to look at all of those

things and have a realistic timeline because those frankly are the things that get in the way

so I wholeheartedly agree with that um and we don't want it to be smushed together for lack of a

better term we do want the candidates to feel comfortable we want the council to feel comfortable

that we've put in enough time looking for those candidates I would suggest we run this as open

until filled with the first resume review date of four to six weeks out because then if we need

to keep looking we're not going out again we've just kept the recruitment open and I think that

for a position of this nature I think that that's the best proposal

councilmember captain thank you chair I think that's uh

a question that needed to be asked especially those who are looking at you know I can tell you I

like our city manager form of government and don't believe we need to go out for strong

America we got other things we need to we're working on and then just personally I appreciate

a slower up front thoughtful process as we go out and recruit for city manager because I think

the transparency and community engagement as well as staff engagement is essential especially

this time around you know it's this is the most important decision we make for our city and I

think we need to engage the entire council not a not a subcommittee this is this is all of us

want to want to be engaged and take part of that my question of course both of you and Pam I guess

you'll you'll start this time at a time when diversity equity and inclusion is under attack I can

tell you and my council members will let me know if I'm speaking out of term but that is not a

term we are going backwards on here in Sacramento we are doubling down and it is extremely important

since the city of Sacramento is one of the most diverse cities in the United States um I think

it's important and I want to hear from both of you um how you're going to ensure a fair and

equitable selection process and making sure that all the candidates I need to hear from you that

do you all the candidates are getting the same questions and going through the same qualifying

process but would love to hear some of your thoughts on how you'll make diversity equity and

inclusion and a diverse pool of candidates priority because that's what's going to work in Sacramento

so obviously we're not going backwards on DE and I at CPS either um we still have a DE and I

function at CPS you know we're putting on seminars and things for our clients and it's very

important to us we've been keeping statistics for the last five to six years around this we know

that in the last three years 57% of our placements have been females people of color or both when

those are broken out it's about a third are people of color and then others are both female and

people of color are just females so we're keeping track of those statistics we do ask for you know

EEO information that's voluntary at the beginning of people applying with us obviously we're

working with the city right now on the water forum and every week my staff is updating HR on what

that's looking like because it's very important we want to make sure one of the things and we've

gone back and forth on this about the live screening interview and doing it on Zoom I prefer to do

them I've gone back to I just do them on the telephone number one I think people are more comfortable

I think they share more than maybe they would have if they're having to look at you they're you

know they feel put on the spot I like having that first conversation with them on the phone but also

I like not seeing them I want to hear what they have to say without having that first interview

in person that's number one everyone gets asked the same questions in all of that the only time

we recommend that maybe candidates are not asked exactly the same questions is in your final

interview with those top two to three finalists oftentimes accounts will maybe start with three

or four structured questions and then you have questions that flow out of that dependent on the

candidate you've had reference checks you have a lot of information from if if we do community

panels staff panels you've had all of that feedback so it may be that it's more conversational and you

do have questions that are not the same but that is the only time we suggest that any other time we

suggest that you do ask the same questions for one thing you're comparing apples to apples then

you know if you ask different questions of people and there may be some instances in an interview

when I'm doing is greeting that you know somebody's had some short stints so I may ask them to follow

up on those so that you know diverts that deviates from from my question set of questions but

that's you know that's because I need to know something that isn't necessarily I need to hear them say

that obviously as we said we advertise with NFBPA we advertise with women and government the

International Hispanic Network we have a great network around the country it's just something

that's very important to us at CPS as well and certainly is we're going to be going through our own

CEO recruitment that's something that I know that the senior leadership team has obviously with our CEO

of 20 plus years it's very important to us that that's kept in mind as well and that we have a very

equitable process. Thank you. Our firm also is continuing in the area of diversity equity

inclusion and belonging and we conduct equity assessments in our classification and compensation

reviews and it really is a foundation of who we are. As a woman in city management I can tell you

that I know I know how few there are and it has been a personal goal of mine for many years to mentor

young women and professionals particularly but also people of diverse backgrounds in the city

management profession because I think it is such a great opportunity to give back and there aren't

enough of those types of faces in city management overall. I was on the board at the time when

we had the women in task force the women's task force in local government and notice that that

needle hadn't moved and so it's been it's been a priority in terms of our specific process

in addition to the outreach which we mentioned to you and you know really tapping into those

organizations and our partnership with NFBPA and you know we also have a very robust process of

ensuring that we look at things from a from a fairness and equity perspective. Our team has gone

through implicit bias training we know how important that is and we know how easy it is for all

of us to have implicit biases recognizing those is the most important thing and so we have gone

through that training we structure our questions in such a way that you know that they are equitable

that we ask the same thing of everyone we do a face-to-face zoom interview for our first one I can see

Pam's perspective and in fact I'm like oh wow that's that's a really great idea you know to do

just the phone but what I find is that sometimes people need to be able to connect with you in order to

share their you know their backgrounds in their most authentic self and so I haven't found

that to be a problem in the recruitment that we were doing but I certainly respect the process

that CPS uses and and you know admire that we we will be monitoring carefully our

data as it we come in and of course it is confidential data the the individuals have the

opportunity to also decline providing us with that information but we do monitor it and we will

provide in accordance with your human resources requirements and our our contract with you

we will provide regular updates on you know the the diverse pool that we're getting so that we

will can recognize gosh we need to do a better job we need to do a better outreach to ensure that

you get the the breadth and diverse candidates that you're looking for I think that the fact that

you are the most diverse community in California actually is really a draw for candidates of diverse

backgrounds to be a part of this culture in this community that maybe they don't have quite the

same opportunity in their current environment and I think that there are many city management

professionals who would look at this as a as a real opportunity to continue to contribute in

that regard whether you know their personal backgrounds and and what they bring to the table

we will bring to you a variety of different candidates we want you to choose the one that

fits with you best but you will have choices that of folks who have those diverse backgrounds so

that you can make a decision for for Sacramento. Councilmember Telemontis thank you chair and

given the nature like currently our federal government and United States and it's just a lot going

on do you expect there to be a lot of applicants from probably red states that are looking for

more of a city that embraces DEI. Councilmember I think the short answer is yes I think that

there will be people who will see this as a as a great opportunity and you know what I've what

really I have come to the conclusion and in my experiences that local government we kind of go

with the flow right that's sort of art that's what we do is what councils do and and especially

in a council manager form of government you have been very fortunate to have some longevity with

your city manager over the years that is that that alone is a draw even if it didn't go as well

as you had hoped it at the at the very end people pay attention to that that to me is going to be

the bigger draw and then and and just being in California which of course is a really highly

desirable state yes you're going to get a lot of California applicants I think that you will also get

some great applicants outside of California that you may want to consider from other areas in

larger communities and or you know some I'm going to say aspiring city managers that might be

at the assistant level and some of the the bigger communities that might be ready for this opportunity

depending on what it is that you're looking for and the type of leadership skills that are going

to really fall out of the process. Thank you okay to my colleagues oh I'm sorry that's right please

you have to answer that no no no no no no we got a process we're going to keep going on.

So one of the first things that I ask candidates who are outside of California is are you aware

of the cost of living because yes I think we're going we oftentimes see candidates frankly from

red states however most of those red states they cannot even with the salary that they make a city

managers in California make leaping the housing bubble is impossible and oftentimes they have

not looked at that they just they've been to Disneyland and they think that's you know I want to

live in California it's great there the reality is is in having we've had a master contract with

San Jose my entire career at CPS you know in San Jose oftentimes has been the most expensive place

to live in the country and we're not far behind in Sacramento it's better but the reality is

is that that's the first question it's not about what their leanings may be or if they're coming

to a red state and they want to be in a state that's more in T.E. and I we've heard that as well

I just did a court administrator to a very small court county here in California who came from Ohio

because she said I can't deal with the situation here anymore I want to be some place that's more

progressive and so it may come up I think we're also going to see many more federal employees who

we have an awful lot of federal employees who left the state and have gone been appointed to

positions in DC they're going to be coming back and we have contacts with many of those people

and we've been working on how are we going to find to those people again so yes but the reality is

is that that's not always the big drawback for people coming from those other places so thank you

and chair I have no more questions but I just want to thank you both for your time and for

applying to this and like also just spotlighting what makes the city of Sacramento like a place to be

I mean we are at the capital of California are we do have a good council form a government

and you know the longevity and we do have a new mayor and council and that it's normal for

cities to go through this it's not something crazy it's normal and I'm just really excited about

this process and continuing this new era of Sacramento so I just want to thank you both for your time

and for applying and yeah I'm just excited for next steps thanks for your comment council member

thank you so much chair I too want to echo vice mayor Taliman's and really want to thank both Pam and

Mary for presenting today I think it's going to be a tough choice today I just wanted to follow

up really quickly on councilwoman capitalist question around just diversity equity inclusion and

belonging and you both touch upon this a little bit but I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper and

I really appreciate both of your firms commitment to DEIB as we're seeing everything happening across

our nation and you began touching upon it a little bit and I would love to just dive in a little

bit deeper on the type of practices that you put in place in your firm to address you know you're

perhaps your own biases right in the in the recruitment process right I think even as an organization

as as a city right we have our own biases as well and firms do too and so we'll have to hear a little

bit about just you know your organization the work that you're doing internally to you know address

your own biases in terms of hiring process certainly councilmember and that is a great

question to ask as I mentioned we do have implicit bias training and consistent training through

our organization our firm just recently went through a whole be a certified recruiter if if anyone

in our organization participated in interviews any interviews of anyone internally we had to go

through a three step training process to ensure that we recognize our biases that we understand

things you know as simple as the last question bias right you know as somebody they ask that last

or they answer that last question and it's either they do a really great job or they don't do such a

great job and that we immediately jump to that but going and taking a look at that whole

process making sure we know we talk about it we have weekly meetings with all of our recruiters

and executive consultants to talk about we bring up a topic in each one of these meetings for example

how do you review a resume to ensure that we're not jumping to conclusions some people are really

good at writing resumes some people aren't as good at writing resumes do we jump to conclusions

because they're you know short stints and we say oh when you know we're not going to consider them

but they have all the other you know qualities and capabilities or do you know are we putting people

in that just because we they came from a community that we think is really cool or big or you know

whatever it is and so we talk about all of those and we share those and and we share

war stories as well in our organization because we learn from each other and we learn from the ways

that we can do better step by step so we also share we have a shared set of sample questions

that have been vetted through the process and we've got human resources professionals on our team

for a human resources directors and local government and other areas that are part of that review

to analyze those questions and ensure that they're being asked in such a way that they are

you know that they're unbiased and that everyone has an opportunity to respond to them in a positive

way so you know I guess what I would tell you is the entire organization and before MGT

Gov H.R. was built around this the importance of fairness and equity and so that becomes a

foundational value of not only our practice group leader which is Joel and Katamatory who started

this this program but our entire organization and the human resources department of MGT and all

of the cultural activities that we build in all of the you know we are a remote first organization

and so getting to know people has been a foundational value of the organization as well so practicing

all of that together just makes us better recruiters thank you for the opportunity

so we have all been through implicit bias training at CPS we do that every couple of years

you know we're very committed to ensuring that our questions and our brochures our designer for

our graphics designer is actually a vendor but we put him through training to make sure that he

was designing accessible documents that's become very important to us it's something we're doing

across the organization we've had many of our clients ask us to make sure that everything we're

doing is accessible so we're working on that we'd also meet as a team once a month and talk about

war stories talk about the things that have arisen that we need to address we send all of our questions

through there's a program that we have that all questions get sent through to ensure that they are

uh meeting bias standards there's all types of things that we're using to address that and the

latest thing is two weeks ago when we were all here for our 40th anniversary we had inclusivity

training that the entire company went through in the morning and then all the supervisors and

trainers had a separate supervisors and managers had a separate training in the afternoon so it is

something that we're very dedicated to and that we have continued training on those things and

obviously because we have our own internal DE and I staff we offered in our training center as

well so oftentimes staff is taking things on their own that they can do through our training center

so but I don't want to take up more of your time

okay so to my colleagues um for just to update you we have conducted our interviews

we've discussed qualifications as they have given us their answers and we've asked our questions

our next steps would be to pass a motion recommending one of these two outstanding firms

um to the full board and uh direct the city clerk to forward that recommendation to the

full city council for consideration and so at this point in time if there are no more questions

then I would entertain a motion at this point in time but I want to make sure that all of your

questions have been answered asked or answered and I also want to make sure that there's no other

business in front of us today okay councilmember vice-mirro tell them on to I like to make a

motion to have CPS HR consulting to move forward their city manager search and come to the full

council some motion on the floor is there a second motion on the floor it's been seconded

and then when I like to just add if the uh maker of the motion is amenable when this comes up that

there's a full council discussion on the process and details and specifics like for example I'd like

to see negotiations be the mayor and the chair of ppne I think that provides a balance to the full

council um and more of a detailed process timeline um how we view confidentiality I think those

those conversations uh items that need direction to be given should be held at council at that time

I think you'll find that most of us all of us agree yeah yeah that's yeah that's right and come with

questions repaired that you need answered from the full council so that we can move this process along

thank you okay are there any more recommendations at this point in time

yeah

seeing none hearing none all in favor of CPS HR being the firm that we move forward with at this time

say aye

aye

oppose

okay congratulations um we thought you did both did an incredible job um this is probably

in all my years of interviewing probably wanted a toughest decisions that I've had to

make in my in my life and I just want to acknowledge that both of you have done an incredible job

um and I feel that we could have made a decision to go with either one but um for whatever reason

we've made a decision to move on with one and we're going to get the benefits of that as we go

throughout this city manager recruitment process so again thank you for being here and thank you

for your time okay okay so I'm going to direct a city clerk before this recommendation to the

city council for consideration this direction to the clerk uh is there any more business in front of

us today seeing none hearing none and without having a gable this meeting is here by adjourned

um