Alright, welcome to the Civil Service Commission meeting.

I am Commissioner President Nico Portillo.

We are going to do a quick world call to confirm Commissioner attendance.

When I call your name, please say present.

Commissioner Freeman.

Present.

Commissioner Merrill.

Present.

Commissioner Moore.

Present.

Commissioner Pham.

Present.

Thank you.

Your attendance have been noted.

Also joining us today are personnel director, David Dallagar, Assistant Personnel Director and Lamena.

Senior Deputy City Attorney David Carlett and assistant to the personnel director, Saba O'Neil.

There are five items on this afternoon's closed session agenda.

Public employment, appeal of employment disqualification pursuant to California government code section 54957 v would.

Frankie M.

Gumatautau appealing the rejection of their application for the position of code enforcement.

I'm sorry, code compliance supervisor.

And Jorge or George El Luna Blas appealing their conviction record for disqualification for the position of Downs Maintenance Worker 1.

And then public employment, disciplinary appeals pursuant to the California government code section 54957 B1.

Rhonda Adkins appealing their termination from the position of Office Support Specialist.

Chairman Gilliam appealing their termination from the position of heavy drug heavy truck driver two and Stephen U appealing their termination from the position of swimming pool manager three.

Is there anyone who wishes to make a public comment on an item on the closed session agenda?

We will take and we will take in-person public comment first and move to public comments via Zoom second.

Second no, anything on Zoom.

We have an A connu list.

Um Mr.

Todd, are you?

Do you want to uh do you have a public comment?

No, okay.

We will now adjourn the public session and go to go into closed session.

The regular business meeting will begin at 1 p.m.

Commissioner.

All right, thank you.

Welcome to the Free Service Commission meeting.

I don't know Commission President Mitchell Portillo.

We're gonna do a quick roll call to confirm a tip.

Commissioner attendance.

When I call your name, please say present.

Uh Commissioner Freeman present.

Commissioner Merrill.

Commissioner Moore.

Present.

Commissioner Fam.

Present.

Okay, thank you.

Your attendance has been noticed.

Also joining us today are the personnel director, David Dallagar, Assistant Personnel Director and Lamen Alan.

Senior Deputy City Attorney David Carlett and assistant to the personnel director, Saba O'Neill.

Item two is the report from closed session.

I'll call on Saba to read out the report.

Public employment, appeal of employment disqualifications, don't to California government code section 549-57B1.

Frankie Mumatautau appealing the rejection of their application for the position of vote compliance supervisor.

Motion to deny the appeal passed five to zero.

Number two, George L.

Luna Blas, appealing their conviction record disqualification for the position of ground maintenance worker one.

Motion to grant the appeal passed five to zero.

Public employment disciplinary appeals for sense of California government code section five four nine five seven B1.

Rhonda Atkins, appealing their termination, the position of office support specialist motion to deny the appeal past five to zero.

Number four, Sherman Gilliam, appealing their termination from the position of heavy truck driver two.

Motion to deny the appeal past five to zero.

Number five, Stephen Yu, appealing their termination from the position of swimming pool manager three.

Motion to deny the appeal past five to zero.

We will now move on to non-agenda public comment.

Is there anyone who wishes to make a public comment on an item not on the agenda that is within the purview of the civil service commission?

But we will take in-person public comment first and move to public comments via Zoom.

Any public comments?

Any on Zoom?

No public comment on Zoom.

Alright, thank you.

Uh we'll go to the consent agenda.

Would anyone would like to make a motion to approve a consent agenda?

Agenda items three through 10, which includes regular minutes of the June 4th, 2026 meeting.

I'll make a motion.

Would anyone would like to second?

Oh, so uh second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

We will now uh we'll now take a vote.

When I call your name, please respond with a yes, no, or abstain.

Commissioner Freeman.

Yes.

Commissioner Merrill.

Yes.

Commissioner Moore.

Yes.

Commissioner Pham.

Yes.

I am a yes.

So the vote is unanimous.

Next item is item 11.

Yeah, well.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

David Alligar for staff.

Item 11s are request for me to update commissions.

Commission on various personnel department related items.

Now I'll be providing an update on the implementation of the NeoGov Attract Module and a brief update on the personnel department's upcoming fiscal year budget.

As the commission is aware, earlier this year we executed a new contract with NeoGov that included the track module.

This customer relationship management tool was acquired to strengthen the city's recruitment and outreach efforts by allowing personnel to build talent communities, conduct targeted recruitment campaigns, and maintain ongoing engagement with prospective applicants rather than relying solely on individuals finding and applying online.

I'm pleased to report that the track module has now gone live and is being actively used by the exam management section.

Personnel recently utilized the platform during our participation in the Juneteenth community event, as well as an on-site hiring event hosted at the Center for Employment Opportunities.

The system enables staff to capture prospective applicants directly into our recruitment database, organize candidates based on their career interests, conduct targeted follow-up campaigns, and continue engaging with individuals long after a recruitment event has concluded.

In addition to supporting community outreach, personnel has begin using the platform to develop targeted recruitment campaigns to build difficult to fill classification.

The system allows us to identify and communicate with potential applicants based on criteria such as their current performer job, occupational interests, prior engagement, geographical locations such as zip code, and other and employment at other specific public and private agencies.

Looking ahead, this geographical targeting capability may prove particularly valuable as we begin working with Dre and their data consultant to better understand what applicant pools may be underrepresented and to develop more targeted outreach strategies.

Perhaps most importantly, the ATRAC module provides personnel with the ability to measure the effectiveness effectiveness of our recruitment efforts in ways that were not previously possible.

We can now track candidates from their initial point of contact through the hiring process to determine whether they apply, advanced the recruitment process, and ultimately join the city.

These analytics will help us identify which outreach events produce the strongest candidate pools, allowing us to make more informed data-driven decisions for future recruitment investments.

Finally, today I'd like to provide a brief update on the personnel department's budget.

Following our discussion at the previous commission meeting, at that time, the department had been assigned a 7% budget efficiency target.

That would have resulted in the elimination of between 7 and 10 positions.

Through the budget development process, that reduction was significantly decreased, and the adopted budget ultimately eliminated three positions.

One senior personnel analyst and two associate personnel analysts.

Since that discussion, the department experienced the retirement of a personnel analyst, our first departure in that classification series in more than three years.

That vacancy allowed us to reduce the overall impact to our current staff by one.

I am pleased to report that all three affected employees will remain with the city.

The impacted senior personnel analyst was able to bump into an associate personnel analyst job in the personnel department.

And the two associate personnel analysts transition the positions with the public utilities department as analysts earlier this week.

As we adjust to these staffing changes, commissioners may notice some shifts in responsibilities as staff assume new duties and ensure continuity of operations.

While we're certainly disappointed to lose our two valued members of our team, I am grateful that they were able to continue the public service with the city, given their knowledge of our personnel and hiring processes.

I have no doubt they will continue making meaningful contributions to their new roles.

And we will look forward to continue working.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

I have a question on the CRM.

You said implement and use information for future, analyze the value of prudent investments.

The pipeline of and shortening that distance between vacancy and new person in C.

And this also help us with those metrics where we can shorten those shorten up those gaps.

Absolutely.

I think one of the highlights we have is there's a couple fold here where I think it's really going to help that.

So we have a long history of having certain classifications where we have to leave them continuously open or open for months on end in order to get enough candidates to fulfill the departments.

And so what we can do with the new system is there's a little more than two million people registered through NeoGuff to sign up to be able to be notified through the system.

And so we're actually able to say if you're looking for a water department employee, we're able to go in and find everybody who signed up who works at Padre Dam or whatever municipal water agency, send them a blast saying, Hey, come apply for us.

We make more money, we have better benefits.

Come get on our list today, it's open right now.

So we're able to send those out.

We're also able to send out within the geographical area.

We did this for traffic signal technician, right?

That's another one that's heavily impacted.

We looked for everybody who listed that there were traffic mission.

We got 47 results that had never applied at the city of San Diego.

And so we were able to send them out a blast saying, Hey, Travis Signal Technicians open today.

Here's what we pay, sign up.

And so at a minimum, those will help us get our list done quicker, which will cut down that time immensely.

Um, I think as well as building the pipeline, the most interesting part about the pipeline that I think is going to really help us is when we go out now, we'll be able to leverage the information.

We have a lot of NGO partners that we work with a lot.

And we go there, they're super excited to get their people to listen to our people.

They tell them they all apply, they tell them they're all doing the things that they're supposed to be doing.

But now we're going to be able to see who actually applied.

And then what we're able to do is give feedback to the CEO of CEO and let them know, hey, we talked to 37 people, two people follow through with an application.

What's wrong with our application?

Is it our application precluding people?

Or do we need to do a better job presenting or CEO?

Do you need to can you help us out and get your people to apply?

And so we're able to then focus and target the groups that are actually applying and then put pressure on people who aren't and maybe use those resources that time somewhere else for people to find.

The departments record their vacancies and uh technology that we fly language here, but um and request the listing.

Yeah, so it's the same system, so it's the same system, it's just a new module on there, uh meant specifically to help us get more candidates.

Okay, new person, new module.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

So are we so when you go talk to the I don't start with that?

37 people, so how do you know what positions of interest?

So only two people apply.

Well, the positions that are open, only two people who qualify.

You're talking to a room of 37 people that are of what level, and then what positions are we opening?

I mean, do we have a bunch of uh unclassified positions open or do we have enough positions open?

I guess that would be one of my questions.

Yeah, and so exactly.

So, what we're able to do is track that candidate pool.

Right?

Because as I think we all know, we don't have all the classifications open all at once, so we're able to track that candidate pool after we go meet with them, teach them how to apply, teach them where to go, and we're able to give us some time, whether that time is one month, two months, three months, give them some time, we get a variety of job openings on our website, and then we can go back and keep an eye on them.

We can reping them, let them know, hey, no more jobs are open, go check it out, apply, but we'll be able to see who applied when and for what.

So after a couple months, if we notice if we aren't getting any um anybody signed up to go for new jobs out of these candidate pools, then that's where I think it's gonna ping us to like go back and talk to the CEOs, the people who are responsible for putting the best together and saying, like, hey, can you talk to your people?

Is we need to lower questions, we need to work on what our website looks like.

What barriers are stopping people?

Is it just the people not wanting to apply, or are we putting in like false barriers that we don't see because we're personal people, right?

So that's it makes sense.

So do we know their do we know the positions of interest?

So if we're talking to a population who's heavily all involved, you know, dying to be like far, then you're not open to that, but we've talked to 37 people, and maybe two are willing to work somewhere else.

So that's just a thought.

Um, going back, and I'll I guess I'll stay on the track with the time to feel love it, keep doing all that you're doing, rah-rah.

What conversations or commitments are happening at the department level because we can lower our numbers as best as possible and make it perfect.

Where are the departments or conversations that are being had to ensure when I say a list is open, you then actively interview, actively keep moving along, have your panel ready because that's where we start to eat into 30, 45, 90 days because you put the yes, yes.

So, well, there's a couple of comments for that.

So I'll start with over the last two years plus, there's been 14 days of unfettered hiring in the city of San Diego.

We've had hiring freezes, we've had strategic hiring freezes, we've had requests of bill processes, we've had rift hire increases.

So over two years, the city's had two weeks where they can fill without giving permission.

Now, those that's because of the budget, and those are going to extend out, they're gonna extend out time, right?

There's nothing we can do about that.

That's an administration, that's their goal to get with the budget.

I will say on the back end is when they do get approvals.

How we're getting them done faster now is we have our outstation section, which continues to live, even though it's been cut recently.

Um, and what that does is that helps expedite and make things easier on the department to fill their positions, and so what you saw last year, last uh calendar year, 2025, you saw that the outstation departments it took a hundred days less from vacancy to hire the non-outstation departments, um, and so we believe that is really helping, but until we get rid or until the budget process gets better, we have more money, and there's no request to build that's creating a barrier to quickly hiring, we won't have data that shows we're hiring because there's a block on that hire.

Um I I acknowledge or in my opinion, um, I recall this time last year, shortly thereafter Darren uh came in and did a presentation to speak on the excellence of personnel and how far you guys have corrected the numbers and reduced the numbers.

What efficiencies are we expecting from Drew collaborating with them?

Oh, for Dre, yes, for the department, division of race and equity.

So, what I'm looking for from them, when I've talked to Kim, who's their deputy director now and their staff is really getting into our analytics and taking a look at the representation of the city, um, and trying to understand, hey, what communities are we doing well in?

What communities are we not doing well in?

So we've been taking a hard look at different zip codes, right?

Because you can take a look at zip codes up there in the northern reaches and in Marnie von Wilkins District, we have low representation in the city of people from that district.

The promise zone, we have the same thing, and so when we're asking Dre to do with their consultant, which has not been completely meeting for yet, but they're working on it.

Um, what we're talking about is like, how do we get out to the communities to make a representative workforce and then digging into that data?

And so that's one of the things with the track now, we're actually able to target zip codes.

So if we notice the zip code is underrepresented, we're able to send them a blast about their jobs.

But that's what we're looking at with Dre is really trying to get the equity picture out there, make sure we're reaching all communities equally.

Um, what is Dre made up of classified or unclassified?

So it's unclassified, so it's the division of race and equity.

Uh, they're now in the IBA's office, um, so just curious, um, because I believe this is work that was being efficiently and effectively done to the personnel department.

I think the personal department was making great strides and with the system enhancement taking great strides, and I'm hearing impacts to classified individuals while we're creating roles of unclassified positions, do some of the work, and then the additional costs of bringing in a consultant to do that.

So we can leave that alone.

Um I heard the staffing ultimately we landed on one impact of the department.

Three, three impacts, separate from the retirement, and then the person bumping down.

Yeah, so we we a senior had to bump down to an associate, and then two associates have had the leader of department, and then we have the retirement, which saved another associate to have the department.

Okay, uh David, I have some some words to pass on to you and to your personnel department.

On your first item you mentioned Juneteenth, and you mentioned community outreach.

So that's some words of appreciation for you.

This is coming from uh the Cooper Family Foundation.

The Cooper Family Foundation would like to thank the city of San Diego for personal for supporting our dual team festival by providing valuable job career for career information to our community, your presence helped connect attendees with employment resources, career opportunities, and valuable services that empower individuals and families.

The commitment to workforce development and community engagement made a meaningful contribution to the success of our event.

We sincerely appreciate your partnership and your dedication to helping build stronger communities through access to employment opportunities and resources.

Thank you for helping our helping make our dual team festival with the celebration of freedom and a pathway to future success.

So you and Department of B are to be commended for supporting uh my community and uh this uh well we see.

Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Staff and everyone's one of the staff members out there and all the staff going out there, and thank them.

They waived a fee for us, they know our our horrible fiscal picture, they did wave the fee, so we definitely appreciate that.

Okay, all right.

And we use the new attract there, so we were able to we're gonna be able to follow up with those people as we go and hopefully we get a report out that we made some conversions.

Sounds good.

What do you think I was gonna say?

These days I don't think I can make sense.

All right, well, I wanna reiterate uh Commissioner Freeman's uh original your first question in that series about the timelines that you responded to about the the out stations.

Um while we have had only 14 days of hiring in the past two years, um that has given us an option to do some reexamination of our processes and uh when the when the bell does sound to start doing that again.

Uh I'm hoping to see an immediate payoff as to the processes we can proved during that gap.

Um, so we've used our time slate.

So uh thank you for that work.

Yes, thank you.

And and I will say just as far as the immediacy of the data showing good results, we won't have it, just to be clear with the commission, right?

Because we're gonna have two years of long hiring data because of the RTF process, so it is gonna take time.

I've told city management, like we need two solid years of hiring without barriers to be able to show a good clean picture.

Because what we run into is when the barrier goes away and we report back to you guys three months later, it's gonna look amazing.

It's gonna look crazy because it's gonna be all the stuff that happened quick.

And so that's why we need the bigger picture.

Because what I don't want to come to you and tell you is like, oh hey, check it out, it's taking 13 days to hire.

Then that's because the data's flawed because we're only looking at a small window, so we have to make sure we have probably a year to two years to really get the long, the process took long, and the process took slow to see where we're really at in the meeting.

So just temper that, but that's why I do like I do like the um the data we came up with when comparing both the outstation to non-outstation in the same period of time with the same barriers, a hundred days less for LC.

And I think as long as we have the snapshot of improvement, so even if it's not long data, the thought of what we do have we maximized this time to where when we come back whenever the bell rings, we should have enough people that we create some type of pipeline, even if it's soft data, doesn't have to be long.

We should know that we're bringing bring being able to bring in 45 people, 60 people in a I know a lot makes it hard to be fast and swift and correct, but I think we should have maximized what the system can look like if we had conversations and commitments from directors that are impacted and divisions that are impacted.

There's a lot to be said about the budget, but then what is the behaviors that are going to show what needs to happen in our departments?

So I think that's where um the data quick data should still would still be sufficient, yes.

No, and I not reports and analytics and true stuff, but we're all perfectly.

No, absolutely.

I know we thought this was gonna be quick meeting, but shortly.

The one of the good things too is obviously the the audit that we did was about 290 days.

That was on average the high.

I will say, looking at the median, not the average, looking at the median over FY25 for the outstation departments is around 120 days, so and that's with barriers.

So, anyways, yes, we will have good, we will have data, but I don't want to get you data too quick that lies and says we're better than we are, because it still takes time to do governmental hiring.

Any more comments?

All right, let's go ahead and adjourn.

Thank you very much.