Three o'clock on President Pan Yagwood's phone.

Um we have the long-awaited committee meeting of the finance committee on the payroll modernization, uh, as it relates to a longstanding item on our agenda that is a in agreement with Mosaic to proceed with the next steps of payroll modernization.

Uh with me Councillor Nave, Counselor Paniagua, myself, Councillor Jones Rowser.

Um, and if you all wouldn't mind introducing ourselves.

My name is Josh Syerson.

I'm a project manager in the API department.

Okay, perfect.

Okay.

And um we've got counselor more, you might want to come over here.

Gotcha.

And really wanted to come together today.

I'm glad that counselor Moore is joining us, one of our new counselors.

Uh if you wouldn't mind kind of running through a brief brief history of where we're at, or how we got here, where we're at, and kind of the path forward.

And I'm not sure who wants to take the lead, but we've been here before.

But yeah, so I I think um the presentation does a great job of that of just where we started, um, where we are, you know, the original objectives of the project, um, some of the issues we've had um in our vision.

So there's the agenda, um, you know, project overview objectives, our overview of our current systems, um, what did we accomplish in 2025, um, some of the challenges we're still uh experiencing, as well as um what we would like um as far as the city's vision for the next uh for the new HCM.

Um I think our ask as far as the next steps and the considerations and then uh questions.

Um Josh did a very good job preparing this PowerPoint, so I I would ask um, I mean, if you have some timely questions, you know, feel free to interject, but we do have very robust robust uh appendices um with kind of you know project to date, current status as far as you know, uh SWC implementation.

So um you know, I I think we could best answer your questions uh at the end.

So um if you could move to the next slide.

Um so these are the overall objectives of why we're doing payroll modernization, and I'll I'll add it off to uh um my colleague Mike here to go over the first bullet point.

Sure.

So improved business processes and employee services.

Um, you know, just the first step here is a modernized payroll and human capital management system would revolutionize how we do things in the HR department and across the city as a whole.

Um, you know, one of the things that's this is touching on much more than payroll.

Uh this is also something that is going to improve personnel transactions of all kinds.

It's going to increase reliability and speed of changes.

Um, one quick example, if we want to change an employee status currently under our system as it is, we need to print a screenshot of the AS400 with the employees' information.

Go to the copier, hand print what the changes are going to be on that piece of paper, return to the copier, scan it to our email, and then attach it to our docu-sign process to send a payroll for a change.

With an actual modern human capital system, it's a few keystrokes and a click.

And we have that same process completed in seconds rather than 10 to 15 minutes.

Um it also opens a pathway for us for employee uh self-maintenance of their information.

So a self-service model would allow our employees to go in, make any kind of changes to their um information, um, you know, update addresses, make changes in um open enrollment, things like that.

So it really opens a path for a much more interactive and engaging and satisfying employee experience.

Thanks, Mike.

Um, and then the next bullet points sustainable and financial, financially responsible payroll management.

Um so currently, you know, we have a weekly payroll, uh, we have a bi-weekly payroll, and then there's also the Sura payroll.

Um I would say it's the staff experience right now that if they're getting a pay stub, it's almost they're looking at what's wrong.

They're they're expecting that something's gonna be wrong with their pay stub.

Um, you know, we distributed W-2s uh late last week, and then that that's all the uh those are all the questions that are coming to the window.

You know, this is wrong because there's so much distrust, uh distrust with payroll um in its current state.

Um it's it's currently a very manual process.

I I brought a prop here, as you can see.

This is our AS400, you know, print screen of this is one bi-weekly payroll, and then the stack of paper on top is um all of the changes that uh resulted in a bi-weekly payroll.

Um with this manual process, there's obviously uh it's it's prone to error.

Um, you know, someone transposing a number, adding an extra zero, um, which typically results in uh very time consuming retro pays.

We just um, which typically fall into me.

Uh we just had 24 police officers that received a retro payment dating back to 2021 because of step and grade um issues.

Um that took probably you know, between my staff and myself, you know, 40 working hours just to do 24 corrections.

Um so ideally, in a new um in a new system that there would be a lot of efficiencies there.

Um and then the last objective, give it to Josh.

Yeah, so I think the points so far have been basically about what our current processes function like today.

But uh in addition to improving those, we also have kind of our eyes to the future of what can we do, what sort of impacts can we can we get from from having improved processes.

And one of those things we want to highlight here is how these tools and the data that's collected by these tools can help us better manage our workforce.

And so I'll just kind of use the example of of overtime costs today.

When you think about we're spending a lot on overtime, it's a little hard to know exactly how to best approach that as an issue.

You know, it could be because of the number of things that we're needing to cover across the board, it could be because of scheduling issues, it could be because people are calling out sick at times that you know we then have to call someone in to cover them, could be because of the number of vacancies.

Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that these tools and the data that we'll get from these tools will give us a much more you know appropriate way of addressing those challenges, whether that be through you know, hiring or just scheduling.

Um these should also give us tools to improve things like compliance, you know, across all the different departments and all the different settings, uh, compliance, you know, may just have different challenges in each one of those spots.

So uh these tools will give us a lot of you know visibility into what's going on today, and then you know, levers that we can pull to improve those things.

So uh moving on.

This is kind of a glance back at what we've shown you before.

This diagram really is.

Josh, we go back one slide to one lemon, just get some language done.

Okay, good.

So this is a diagram that we have shown uh the council before, uh, really trying to help us wrap our heads around the systems.

I know there's a bunch of acronyms that are thrown around and a lot of different software pieces going on here.

So on the left-hand side is timekeeping.

On the right hand side is the human capital management, uh, which includes kind of HR tools and payroll.

So what we want to try and show through this diagram is that it's a cyclical process of getting pay out every single week.

It takes both you know good timekeeping happening on the left-hand side with systems like SWC and like telestaff, uh, but it also takes you know having a payroll system that can you know process those numbers and spit out a paycheck correctly.

It takes having an HR system that's going to, you know, have all of the the proper demographic information about those employees.

It takes all those pieces, you know, working together to get an accurate paycheck out at the end of the day.

So this is something we've shown before, but we want to move towards is this other model kind of showing this is this is all that an HCM maybe could be said to do.

Um more than just those two things we'd listed before.

And I want to try and you know just show all the different things because not all these, you know, do we have today?

So uh demographic data management um is is maybe the first one of those things um kind of done in the AS400 today.

Um position management, not really a thing that we have a solution for at all.

Uh payroll done in the AS400, uh applicant tracking, not so much at all.

Timekeeping is is you know currently transitioning to be an SWC tool.

Um, so that's that's UKG.

That's the blue one.

Um and then the other two, we we don't really have anything as solutions for today.

Um so when we're talking about you know rolling out an HCM system down the road, um, it's a little hard to compare that to today in terms of cost and and labor that goes into maintaining that just because it's going to be so much more than we currently have today.

And I want to just you know turn the mic over to Mike uh and and Mike conveniently um to talk about you know what this actually looks like in their in their workflows.

Yeah, I really can't stress enough just the manual nature of payroll um as we're trying and transitioning to UKG and um you know digital timekeeping.

So telestaff uh for public safety and Kronos um for the rest of the the Syracuse workforce.

Um it's very much so organized chaos.

Um it's ever every two weeks, every week.

Um are we gonna get payroll out on time?

Um there is a number of corrections that need to be uh every every week for every uh biweekly payroll.

So that's police, you know, you're talking 400 plus uh officers, fire 350 plus.

Um, you know, we're we're a 2,000-person organization, um collecting paper timesheets uh from every employee, given we have two retirees working currently in payroll, um, and then a staff of three, and then you know, we tag in some IT support to make sure we we get it through.

Um it's it's just a very convoluted process with what our current state is.

Um and then I think Mike, we were gonna touch upon some demographics.

Yeah.

So the other thing that's really important for any modern HR department or organization in general is the access of usable demographic data.

Um currently, our data is incomplete at best.

Um it's isolated from the rest of our information.

We can't easily move it back and forth between systems to do reporting.

Um the other systems aren't even existing.

So, you know, if we want to run report, oftentimes it's in a very difficult to use uh format for us.

So what we find is that you know, not being able to feed into other systems, not being able to communicate effectively between them leaves it a loss, leaves us at a loss when we have important reporting that we need to do.

Um, you know, for instance, trying to figure out um employment status for individuals who are in the country on an authorization program.

Um we don't have anything that's currently built into the AS4 AS400 system to allow us to track that efficiently.

So it's something that we have to manually track, whereas with a modern system like UKG, that's going to be part of the built system and it's going to give us that capability to report out on those things quickly.

Can I can I pause really quickly now?

I know you kind of gave the disclaimer, wait till the end for any questions.

Um those of us that have been around for a little while have had the opportunity to see different versions, um, digest, understand, comprehend.

And I actually feel like I kind of know what you're talking about now.

Um I'd like to turn it over to counselors Moore and Aaron Recht to see if they have any anything that they need clarified at this point before we even keep going, because I know you just threw a lot of information at them and not to put you on the spot.

But um I don't have any questions.

I actually met with them before we came to the meeting.

Wonderful.

I have it feels as if like an incredibly basic question.

Um why doesn't paychecks do this?

Uh we've looked at, I mean, so we will get touch up touch upon that a little bit later.

Um we have looked at third party um processors.

I think given our timekeeping situation and the paper manual processes, it just wasn't um it wasn't possible at that time.

Um that's maybe something we could explore again.

I I was looking at and I'm not advocating for any particular process, it's just like this is a form built for municipalities system, correct?

Yes.

Yes.

So I just wanted to know, like obviously we are a municipality, it's 2,000 employees.

But if other companies that go up through Fortune 500 companies, et cetera, have you know much more generic or conventional system, is that out of the range of possibility.

And again, I don't need to, if we've already done bidding and stuff like that, I'm not asking for a redo.

I'm just trying to catch me up.

Yeah, no, I mean we did look at ADP as as far as being a third-party processor for payroll.

Um I don't think it ever got farther than just an introductory conversation.

I know we did evaluate them.

I think some of the costs per employees was was reaching the tens of thousands um monthly.

Um so now that's not an annual cost.

So I think it uh at the time it made sense to keep it in-house.

Um that's not to say we can't re-evaluate that.

Um, but we but we did look at um a third-party processor.

And I think one of them was like the checks were gonna be mailed out of Cleveland, Ohio, which you know, a lot of our employees want to be able to come to a window and grab a checker, get their their check that same day.

Um so that just seemed at the time not like the best avenue, but we did look at that that third party uh specifically ADP and paychecks.

Um, and just to touch upon some of the manual natures as well, that I I think Michael was talking about with uh you have to be a subject matter expert on we have nine contracts, they're very complex.

Um so it's not just okay, this person's moving into a new role, increase their salary $5,000.

If they're changing unions, their health insurance deduction changes, their dental insurance deduction changes, um, you know, retirement tiers need to follow them with that.

Um so it's it's not just oh, increase this number from 50,000 to 55,000.

There's a lot of other changes that go into that as well.

Um with the current manual nature of AS400, any of these contractual increases um we call secondary jobs, which if you don't work in payroll, you think secondary job, where are you working outside of the city?

Like, no, this is how we add on those incentives like uniform allowance or um for police, the sick time buyback, that's a contractual obligation.

Um the over the cap bonus, the off-wheel bonus, like these are very complex uh things that I still have trouble wrapping my head around.

Um that you know, we're we're forcing payroll clerks, every single person in HR to know every single specific detail out of these contracts.

Um that ideally in a new system could be automated.

Like, you know, if you're you're changing this bargaining unit for an employee, their deductions are gonna update automatically when you make that change.

So I I think that's you know, part of the reasons of just building in these efficiencies to get us out from we're so busy compiling information just to make the change or you know, to produce this deliverable, does it make sense?

Like um, you know, we we issued a check for uh a water worker once for 10,000.

Like that doesn't make sense.

Um, but you know, we we got it recouped.

But um what time does it take you to to complete a full payroll?

Uh Monday, so we have a weekly payroll that's that's paid on Fridays.

Um really payrolls, you know, heads down, Monday, Tuesdays, usually that bleeds into Wednesday, and then every other uh two weeks, um uh the bi-weekly payroll process is starting today.

Um so I mean, we're we rely on uh departmental aids to kind of compile employee timesheets.

Um, you know, as this is you know our older paper-based process, so this will change as we move into UKG, but um timesheets were due from the departments today at noon.

Um, and then that's when payroll goes to work on the bi-weekly payroll.

Um, and one of the wins we'll we'll detail later in the the slideshow.

Um, as far as uh the bi-weekly payroll is processed the Friday prior to payment date, which um yeah, I'll touch upon that a little bit more uh in the presentation.

But I think uh I think it's now the the Josh show for the next couple slides here.

So before you move forward, you you mentioned that employees can make their own changes in in the in this new system.

Yeah.

So we're gonna we'll train people to do that, right?

Oh, certainly.

Yes, I mean that'd be part of the change management.

Yep.

So what this slide is trying to illustrate for you is basically if Oracle had gone live a year ago, this is you know, the green would have been what Oracle was doing, and the blue, the one thing that's in blue would be the timekeeping system we're we're rolling out right now.

Um it's also trying to show, you know, there's kind of a sequential order you should go in when you're rolling these things out.

It kind of starts on the you know, bottom left-hand side.

You want to make sure you have a good base of data that you're working with to build out the rest of it.

So you want to make sure you understand, you know, your bargaining units, your employees, uh, you know, their their longevity with the city, all that stuff.

Position management again, you want to have like a good org chart structure of who reports to whom, um, and you know, payroll that that clicks in from there to process those things with the help of timekeeping that comes in.

So what I what I'm trying to show here is that when Oracle didn't go live, we got very much kind of stranded in that timekeeping region where we don't have all those other pieces working together in the way that they should be today.

So obviously, you know, there's there's benefit to pressing forward with what we're doing with timekeeping today, but the reason why it might have taken a lot longer than people have thought, you know, over the the year and a half that I've been working on this is that again we're kind of doing this you know uh in spite of all these other things working against us in spite of not having you know timely information making its way into that system.

So just just kind of highlighting that so you can you know understand why that order matters so much and why it matters for us to to continue on this front of getting those pieces plugged in.

So following up on the seven categories right there.

What can we check off out of that that is done?

So what's what exists today I guess if you go back one slide Hannah so what's done today is kind of hard to define because we have somewhat of an answer for those two that are in gold today.

Timekeeping is the one that's in progress right now and we'll talk on our next slide about how much progress we've made on that front but what we're looking to move toward would be a replacement of all the other boxes.

So really the one that we have done so to speak would be you know what we've got of timekeeping which we'll talk about soon not fully done but we've made a lot of good progress on.

And I I think the point here kind of being if you go to the the next one again um the challenges that we're running into in terms of finishing off timekeeping today is is kind of why we're in front of council asking that we would like to continue moving forward with the HCM portion because without those pieces it's going to make the rest of this it's going to make this inch turn into a mile as far as finishing the rest of this project.

So that's one so I can be quiet.

Commissioner how much we have we spent so far on the timekeeping that is in one of the appendices so I can we uh if we go to the uh once we wrap up the presentation I can't I can't quote that I can't quote the numbers right now but uh yeah no we we do have uh we have all those numbers in the appendices here so we can touch upon that a little bit later so just recapping kind of what we've accomplished over this last year we'll start off with where timekeeping is at to your question counselor um overall across the board we're at 70% live with digital timekeeping this is including telestaff for public safety and SWC in a number of different apartments so water being fully live parks being very close to fully live and kind of a handful of other divisions across the city what I would want to you know draw your attention to on the SWC uh pie chart there is that um in addition to the 40% that's that's live we have another substantial portion that is what we're calling ready which basically means they're they're ready to go live at any time and really the holdup here for those groups is that you know the last thing we want to do is push people to being live with the system if we don't have the bandwidth in place to support them if something goes wrong.

So we wouldn't want to push you know 500 people live on this if we can only you know be on call to answer questions for a hundred of them.

So we're kind of you know phasing that in over time and you know I think we've got about you know 250 or so is about the most we've ever done in one month.

So we expect that to kind of you know get chipped away as as February and March move on.

But a lot of them are currently using it in parallel with paper and the numbers have shown that they're ready to go live with it at any time.

So telestaff is for scheduling we're using it for payroll.

It's not timekeeping to be clear but we're using it that way.

Why is that and is there a opportunity to shift that is their desire to change that in the future.

I think with UK we UKG Pro that that would be the intention um I I know police has a army of individuals working on telestaff so that that matches the actual schedule worked.

So we I agree that it is a scheduling software and we are using it to pay officers um but I mean with our current state um you know these these are the cards we were dealt and I mean going I think part of the reason why we're going with Mosaic and looking at UKG pro um where we're we're under the same umbrella now like the UKG SWC UKG telestaff is going to talk it's gonna talk well with UKG Pro we move forward with Oracle you know prior contractor told us yes no problem that you have these two different um software providers we will be able to integrate integrate them no problem well that wasn't the case um it's you know if you have an Android Android phone and you're trying to use an iPhone charger like that's not gonna work no matter how much but a consultant will tell you they can get it to work.

And unfortunately that's how we move forward with the uh the Oracle fusion product um honestly we we probably never should have moved forward with that and I think some of the experiences at the school district and the $9000 in salaries they're adding to get that operational um we would have been going along that same path so I think we we you know did not go live with Oracle reevaluated what makes the most sense um given our limited resources in IT HR payroll everywhere um software as a surface making sure we're not responsible for the maintenance um I'm not sure if the deputy mayor is here but I was going to use a car analogy um you know we're we're we're leasing the car analogy oh we're we're about to get it okay um you know we're we're we're leasing a car as opposed to building a car um Oracle was building the car and you know the engines over there the the the tail lights are over there and whatnot and we were expected to keep that car running whereas um with UKG Pro you know we're we're leasing the software so as far as a lot of those maintenance costs and it it is a big dollar amount um but we're much more confident in making sure we're gonna be able to you know

What's the car analogy?

Oh, we're about to get it.

Okay.

Um, you know, we're we're we're leasing a car as opposed to building a car.

Umacle was building the car, and you know, the engines over there, the the tail lights are over there and whatnot, and we were expected to keep that car running, whereas um with UKG Pro, you know, we're we're leasing the software.

So as far as a lot of those maintenance costs, and it is a big dollar amount.

Um, but we're much more confident in making sure we're gonna be able to, you know, do all of our personnel and payroll activities um with them as a partner.

So to get back to your specific question, counselor, the plan would be to make those softwares uh connect so that again the scheduling is still happening from a telestaff perspective to kind of wrap that apparatus around very advanced scheduling needs they have to work around the clock to to handle public safety, um, but to still have you know things like what accruals any you know sworn officer has access to would be coming through the correct system rather than an uploaded by paper into telestaff system, which is what it is today.

All right, so we can move on to the next slide.

Um so now I want to take a minute to just talk about some of these ongoing challenges we're gonna have.

So I I wanna highlight the fact that even once we're done rolling out SWC, there's still going to be issues.

Uh, it's not all just gonna take care of itself.

Um one of those is just the fact of it being an aging software.

So um some things to point out there.

Right now we're paying, you know, kind of multiple times for different licenses.

So a future version will pay once for a license, and that license will allow us to do everything.

Right now we're paying, you know, for some licenses to use clocks, and if we want that employee to also use a computer, that's another license.

And if we want them to have payroll done through this, that's another license.

And so, again, kind of duplicative in that sense.

Uh, we also just don't have certain functionality, like being able to use your mobile phone to punch, and that would you know, simplify life for a lot of employees who maybe have to respond directly to an emergency, you know, water main breaks and they've got to go directly out to the site, they can just do that on their phone on their way there.

Um, so so functionality, you know, a lot of improvements there.

Another thing to point out is that right now we're very kind of enmeshed with the county's uh servers to make all this happen.

That's kind of how this all got started in the first place.

And that means that to connect to these you know tools, we've got to connect first to the city's network, and then the city's gotta kind of patch us through to the county.

It just adds one more layer where things go wrong every single time.

That goes for kind of the computers that we've got to keep going, as well as for the clocks that are around the city.

And and you know, every time the power goes out at a various community center, we might have to then get the county on the phone to get it plugged back in to their network.

So just another kind of point where things can break.

Um, and the last one here, which I think is the most important, is the lack of the HCM, you know, which is again why we're in front of you today.

Um, so just some some issues to point out here is that um, you know, for example, when new employees um are hired, they're not gonna make their way into SWC for sometimes a couple of weeks, or like let's say someone transfers from one department to another, that's not going to be reflected there on time.

And that's a problem when you're a manager who's still seeing that employee, or you're the new manager who's not seeing that employee, or a new employee, how are you supposed to keep your time?

You know, we're gonna be asking these managers then to do most of their employees in a system and the rest of them on paper.

That just makes their life harder for the time being.

Um also, you know, when people go to request paid time off, like sick time, vacation time, um, their balances are often out of date because again, we're kind of patching this back and forth between the AS400 and SWC.

Um, so that lag just you know creates more issues for users.

Um, and finally, we don't have you know a good you know handle on our org chart today, um, because when those changes are happening, when a new employee is is hired or a position is you know, maybe moved from one to a person's moved from one position to another, um we kind of are having to track that on a person by person basis, and those changes sometimes take a long time to trickle through.

So all this to say we're even when we finish SWC, we're gonna continue having these challenges until we get that foundation in place, and that's that's the HCM.

That's why we're looking to continue moving forward right now, even if we haven't finished SWC yet.

Um so one of the accomplishments we uh had in 2025 was moving the bi-weekly uh payroll period from a Wednesday to a Tuesday, um, from a Sunday to a Saturday.

So really the issue there was because of the timing of our weekly payroll and system limitations with AS400, we were generating, you know, you get paid on a Thursday for a bi-weekly employee.

We were generating that payroll the previous Friday, and that included uh pay for the the Mondays and Tuesdays of that week.

So um, you know, I'm never scheduling a sick day in advance.

I don't know who is, but um you could have had, you know, if you were out on sick time if you want to take a sick day on Tuesday, but payroll is already processed last Friday, then you know that that's you're gonna show you a larger sick bank balance um that's not gonna show up until the following payroll period.

So just with the inherent nature of you know uh you know, paying payroll before the period ends, you have these changes that happened on Monday and Tuesday that weren't reflected for maybe you know a pay or a pay period or two, um, which I goes into some of the issues that uh Josh just listed as far as accrual management.

Um so getting that on a uh Sunday to Saturday, so now we're on a lag that you are getting paid a week and a half after um the payroll period ends, um, which was one of the other reasons why um you know approving time cards in Kronos or SWC for a bi-weekly employee, you would have to approve your time Friday prior to the pay period ending.

What's on what's showing up for Monday and Tuesday the following week?

Nothing.

You haven't worked those hours yet.

Um so so getting this payroll, the bi-weekly payroll period to an arrears state um allows us to actually use um SWC functionally for bi-weekly employees.

So that that we we consider that a big win for us in 2025.

And with regard to business process mapping, we've taken a lot of time right now in the prep to make sure that we understand how we're currently performing some of our functions and what our ideal state for performing those same functions will be under a modern system.

So we understand and we're ready for the full migration of our systems to make sure that the system make sure that the process is as successful as possible.

So we're really understanding how we do things and how we need to do them to get to where we want to be.

And then uh, you know, on the bottom point there, the HCM solution.

So coming into to last year, uh, we had a decision on our hands of are we going to try and fix what state Oracle was in and go live with that product.

Um it took us, you know, a good a good chunk of time evaluating our options there to make sure it wasn't you know, maybe the the faster and the smoother path forward to just invest in getting it finished.

Um, you know, over the course of that conversation, we kind of aligned that the the better way to go forward here would be to opt for a different model, one that's more software as a service where it's it's really going to be kind of hosted and maintained by uh by a vendor, in this case UKG, um, who's again, you know, for leasing the car, they're gonna be responsible for most of the upkeep of that car, except for the few things that you know we have to do, like a contract changes.

We're gonna be responsible for changing the things when the contract changes, but it's gonna be you know on their servers.

We're not gonna have to be running that ourselves.

So you know, it took a took a good long while to figure out did we want to continue with Oracle?

Uh, and then we took some time to figure out what option made the most sense going forward from there.

Settled on UKG, you know, it was a very competitive price point considering the other options.

Um, it also, you know, the biggest reason for this probably was that we already have had success with telestaff and with SWC.

So this is keeping that functionality under the same roof, which just simplifies you know maintenance of all of them.

It makes sure that the tools of one system are gonna line up with the tools of the other system rather than having to again integrate those things.

Um from there, once we had aligned on on UKG, um go back a slide, sorry.

Um once we had had aligned on on UKG, uh, then we had uh you know issued an RFP for implementation services.

Um and through a good, I think, a couple of months of reviewing uh some some solid options uh and with the you know input of council, we had all aligns on Mosaic Consulting Group as being the most qualified by far of the options that we received.

So uh now you can go ahead.

Um so now just kind of coming back to this.

This is our this is our now our our goal going forward is that we want to have all these roles, you know, played by the exact same platform.

Again, it's just gonna simplify our maintenance going down the road.

Um so that's that's that.

Um just for clarification.

This is our first time hearing about UK.

No.

In our last meeting, we've got to do that.

So whatever we said, like so Syracuse Workforce Central, like that that's a uh uh software of UKG.

So UKG is just the parent company.

Um but so I mean UKG, uh I mean, we've started this what, three or four years ago now with Telestaff rollout initially, and then M SWC rollout.

Um I mean, right now, uh in terms of the whole HCM package, yes.

This is it's been on the agenda linked to Mozilla, but in terms of a formal pre-HCM, yeah.

Yeah, that's correct.

So you use quote punch in and UKG with the retention of that budget.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Um so I mean, we will continue with SWC rollout.

I think we've made a lot of um progress.

It is it is a big culture change.

Um, time sheets for some of our workforce, and you know, unfortunately felt like they were optional.

There are many times that we don't get time sheets from employees for months, um, which delays, you know, if this employee um leaves the city, it delays their payout.

Um, there's been instances of a docu sign got to us late and we paid an employee for a couple pay payroll periods after they left the city.

Um but you know, we do our best to try to recoup those payments, but with our current manual processes and the different systems we're working, and you have to you know type the same thing in three or four different places where um you know with a streamlined approach uh that would help those issues.

But um, I think the plan is for us to continue rolling it out.

Um SWC as it uh today, um it will be an end of life at the end of next March 2027.

Um that doesn't mean you know, April 1st, 2027, we can't use this product anymore.

That just means uh UKG will stop supporting updates.

So if we reach out to them and say, hey, we have this issue on April 1st, 2027, they're gonna tell us you're out of luck.

Um then did you want to touch upon the design or point two?

Yeah.

Uh yeah, sure.

So um, yeah, so we kind of see these things as being you know in parallel with each other.

For one thing, we don't want to stop our our current progress with SWC, but at the same time, we don't want to make our future HCM build out contingent on finishing with phase one when we know the problems we're facing right now in that system.

Um so again, just just highlighting that those same pain points we have today are gonna continue throughout our rollout, even once it's live, we're gonna have those same issues.

Um, delaying this work right now until we're done with SWC is just going to set us further behind on what is also very important work of you know modernizing our other processes.

All right.

Questions.

Do we want to go to the uh joke?

I'm gonna go back to the bandwidth question you talked about earlier.

Does that mean when you talk about bandwidth is that the staff or is it the what what was that?

Go to the uh the order chart to it was connected to um you see and the uh the uh the chart that you had.

And then I think it was added on the additional um patches and not having the bandwidth uh or capacity to take on the additional stack that would then move over to the ready, the ready.

Yeah, right.

So was is is that is that the the staff within inside here, or is it the external bandwidth?

Internal staff.

So what what would that look like in terms of of the number?

The number of people internally working on this project.

It would make you feel like this and not bandwidth to be able to internally handle that.

So we'll go to uh what is go back one slide.

So this is our this is our current, you know, our most recent uh meeting of the minds about how best to structure and staff this project.

So um you can kind of see on the on the left-hand side.

We just wanted to acknowledge, you know, there's a lot of very real functions that people are playing.

You know, finance department is processing payroll every week, HR is doing other HR functions every week.

Um, but in addition to that, there's a very real you know need on the project to keep work moving forward.

So this chart is kind of showing how there's there's both of those things working together to get this project moving forward.

Um to your point, counselor, I think uh the capacity kind of comes from both of those.

Kind of comes from both of those sources.

Um so I I would say, you know, in total, we've got something like you know, 10 total employees maybe that are that are actually working on this from a week to week basis in different capacities.

So you know, some people who are you know spend a lot of their time working in payroll, most of their time is going towards just processing payroll, but then as we need them in the project, we'll we'll pull them in, uh, versus you know, myself and a number of other people where we're full-time working on rolling this out.

And I'd say that group is probably in that five to six range of full-time dedicated to this project right now.

Are they all in?

The six that you're saying, are they all hired or that potentially adding on to the ten that you already have?

That's a good question.

I'm saying six right now are actively hired and working on it.

Um but I think there might be you know some need.

I I guess what I would be saying is uh if you look on that diagram on the UKG software team bubble.

Okay, let me let me try to explain it then.

Um basically, basically, as we try and roll out a new software, as we try and roll out a new software, there's going to be additional need for support, like you're saying.

And so I think at that time we're gonna need to bring in more internally who are you know on staff full-time just to support that part of the project.

Potential of four more.

I would say potential one to two more is probably the most that we're talking about.

Yeah, and I think on that project team, I mean you you will have individuals kind of tap in and tap out.

I mean, some people will be playing multiple, will be wearing multiple hats to kind of depending on where we are, and as Josh mentioned, it's it's not gonna be that the you know uh payroll supervisor's job 40 hours a week to do this.

That's gonna ebb and flow as far as oh, this is we're getting to the payroll build out.

Um that's gonna be a busier couple weeks or a couple months for our payroll team on top of um you know, processing payroll, but then you know that will slow down um, you know, when they're focused more on some of the uh HR processes or the HR built out.

Yeah, I think there's an important point to remember that as this project gets off the ground and is fully implemented, there's going to be a time savings on the back end of people having to do less manual work that'll more than account for the extra manpower that might come on in the beginning or the person power to come in in the beginning to do some of the implementation.

I think what really needs to be asked is why is it different now?

And what I'll tell you is that you've done a great job of laying out the the needs and the benefits.

Um what I'll also tell you is that two years ago, the first meeting that I took was with Frank, and he gave me essentially this entire presentation, a little bit different, but pretty much outline or outlined the needs and the benefits if we are able to get there.

Two years later, we're still having the conversation looking for another million dollars in money for implementation services in a 750 recurring.

Why will it be different now than it was in the past?

The slide before would speak to that.

And I think Mike, you're gonna tell you so some of the things that we've done have been to reassess the structure and the bandwidth we had.

So going back to the conversation that we just had, you know, really looking at who the key players were, who the people who had to be in the room were wasn't always the right mix.

Um you know, solidifying some of the relationships between HR and API to make sure that you know, we've we've reduced some of the project silos.

Um, I'm I'm going to throw myself in there that you know, I think I've been much more active than my predecessor in building those relationships, working out and and making sure that I'm working with Josh, making sure that I'm getting engaged with payroll so we can get some of these things moving forward.

Um, you know, as mentioned before, we have invested a lot of time in understanding how it is that we do things now and how we need to do them to be better at what we're doing and better for our constituents.

Uh we've really done a lot of work to ensure that our internal capacity is set up.

You know, I think previously the work started, it wasn't necessarily focused, it wasn't necessarily as thought out as it should have been.

The strategy wasn't as as thorough.

We've done a better job this time around with establishing that strategy and making sure that we have you know a working plan to keep us in lockstep.

Um we did a much better job choosing who our software provider is going to be.

Uh UKG truly is the right solution for the city of Syracuse and its employees.

Um speaking to an emplo an individual who works with the school district today.

Um, you know, on a personal level, she stated just how horrible it's been for them to work with um Oracle.

And that that wasn't the right software solution.

Um big name, big reputation, not a good fit.

Um, you know, it also making sure that we're doing things in the right order.

You know, that gets back to the strategy.

That gets back to us being more planful in what we're doing and how we're doing it.

Um and then I identifying the right partner.

I mean, mosaic, there was a lot of conversation, there was a lot of research.

Uh, we really had conversations about whether or not they were the right team to get us to where we needed to be.

Um, and I think one thing that's on the not on this list that you know, I think I'm gonna kind of go rogue and throw in there.

We're sick of it.

We are so tired of dealing with AS400 and processing paperwork like we're still running the Erie Canal.

We're a modern city.

We're one of the biggest cities in one of the most populous states in the United States, and a major part of our office equipment is a pen.

We're done.

We're over it.

This is the output from the AS4.

Yeah.

I I haven't seen the print, you know, with uh the sidebar type of stuff here since I was seven years old before I came back to the C.

Matrix printers are real classic.

Yeah.

So I'm so I have a question.

Um it sounds like the the process we have now is very people heavy.

Umce this is all completed, do we see us hiring less people to do these processes?

And since we're gonna be putting money out every year for the system over uh upkeep, um, are we gonna have less less staff in City Hall to be doing what we're doing now?

I would I would want to turn that over to the gentleman sitting next to me but I think what I've heard them say over and over again is not that we need less staff but that there's a much better purpose for those staff members and what they could be doing with their time than what they're currently spending that time on.

So you know doing more right on the CFO like I I don't think you know you're not looking at laying anyone off I mean maybe the natural attrition but I think with our current systems there's a lot of things that we should be doing today that we aren't like applicant tracking um you know maybe this posted how are we tracking that manual spreadsheets uh maybe we posted it to indeed maybe we posted at LinkedIn um this would give us a centralized database of what's going on um let letting you know automate you you apply to a job you get an automated email back letting you know hey we received your application we're looking at it we're not doing that today maybe you get a phone call two or three weeks um so I don't know it's basically reducing staff um immediately maybe long term um but I don't think the goal would be to reducing staff and then um yeah as Josh just alluded to um doing some of those more value add activities it's takes us so much time to compile the information just to get payroll out we can't you know do this week over week let's look at water payroll why is it up you know 20% oh we know we had these water main breaks there's gonna be more overtime this week we're not doing any of that type of analysis today we're just getting the checks out so again I think it's it's some of those more value added um you know better controls that we're not doing today um with our current processes if that answers the question.

Yep that does thank you.

I mean that's a a great vision for the future but we also have to build those processes as well.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things I added earlier you know talking about additional data but but what do you know what are we thinking about from management perspective from a process perspective to be able to you know analyze look at with you know intentionality can you rephrase rephrase that I don't know more of a statement than the question I think just amusing upon there.

You know we're talking about something that needs to get built you know the the internal processes are I talk about software as a tool not a solution right um and it's all about you know our our people and our processes and you know what we're moving to but I think the the first two are equally as important if not more important than whatever product people technology yeah so well we mastered all these processes and there will potentially because they always are a lot of hiccups in the way so what are the ones we're kind of foreseeing that could come up and what are the solutions I mean I think internal capacity is always going to be an issue I mean we obviously have limited resources but as as Mike mentioned I think um we're going into this project eyes wide open I think initially when we you know air quotes live went live with SWC back in January 2023 um we had one full-time digital services person working on it uh the director of digital services at the time maybe put four to eight hours into it a week I know I was attending six hours worth of meetings and then the payroll team was also attending meetings we didn't really have an HR representative in the room room which we have very complex contract so you know we we we went live uh we didn't have a single employee in the system and we had seven or eight personas which were basically you know local 400 employees CSEA employees so we went live without even knowing what we were going live with so I think we have built some internal expertise um I think going through the RFB process we know what we're getting with mosaic whereas I think the previous um contractor third party we uh utilize with uh a lot of waiver of competitive bids that you know you go through these contracts you don't know what we were very vague language as far as what are the deliverables so I think um you know mosaic is the right partner for us we we did do interviews with multiple vendors um mosaic um I think also so the county they they use SWC or you know they use Kronos as well they don't use UKG for payroll processing um but they will have to move their Kronos to the cloud um my understanding is they're also looking at mosaic as an implementation partner um to help with that transition so I think you know not that the count you know you know our our little big big brother over there um I think you know they they're realizing that mosaic's the right vendor for them as well so my question um and um I before I said it before I'm very familiar with day force um and so all of the um modules per se that you had there is uh utilized majority of them and um I think it would be a great asset um so your statement I'm I'm sick of seeing y'all um but um my main question is um well one I think that as far as staff capacity um I don't see us you know more or less laying people off I think there there will be a um or not laying people off but or re you know cycling them I think there'll be more uh individuals uh needed in the IT department once we do um do this but my question if you go back to the module part of it um

Um but um my main question is um well, one, I think that as far as staff capacity, um, I don't see us more or less laying people off.

I think there will be a um or not laying people off, but or re you know, cycling them.

I think there'll be more uh individuals uh needed in the IT department once we do um do this, but my question if you go back to the module part of it, um that if we are not able to fund you at the 100% need, then say it's half.

What what would you which would you get?

Uh I can speak for that.

I mean, the first thing I would chop off is performance management probably.

Um but um I I think demographic that's a must.

Payroll's a must, timekeeping's a must.

Umagement, in my opinion, is a must.

Umployee self-service.

I I think that's just comes with it, but I mean I think employee self-service is a nice to have.

I think employee self-service is very important.

I think that um employees being able to go into the system, see, you know, um where their mistake might be or where something didn't uh calculate, and you know, bringing that to someone's attention is very important versus them having a piece of paper that's been gone for two weeks when they can look at it at that hour.

And if you're changing your banking relationship, you updating your own direct deposit information.

We we get we get phishing emails every single week in payroll from different individuals saying, hey, change my direct deposit information every single week.

Yeah, you can see the uh any type any time when individuals are taking um tests that they have to take or or updated uh um what is it like sexual harassment uh stuff.

Exactly.

It's all in a system.

Um so I think that part is very important.

Um other thing I would add to that, you know, as we are going through this process of exploring what a software like UKG could do for us.

We already did kind of bear that in mind of what are the nice to have that we don't really need at this point, and one of those just to give you, you know, an example is they have functionality where you know there's an AI assistant chat bot thing who can answer employee questions and probably do some of the work that HR is is getting asked right now.

That's one of those things we decided not to spend the money on.

Yeah, so I would like to think you know, a lot of that work to kind of cut this down has already happened to this point to where most of this is is stuff that we're gonna need for this to actually work going forward.

Is there a built-in component um that would allow someone to get their W 2 form put right into the system so you guys don't have to be mailing those all out?

Yes.

That's all in there.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was not here for the previous round of this, but I just on a compliance perspective, want to know that your contract has built-in benchmarks this time.

Yep.

Yes.

And those will be followed before we disperse funds, etc.

I think that once this legislation was it would be to get passed, uh, that would be our next step is working out that contract, and that's exactly the top of mind for us is to make sure that we're not entering into a well, a lot of time was spent on this, and so we're gonna pay out a whole bunch towards that, right?

I want to look at, because I want to look at recruitment and application tracking.

And again, go back to uh how we were previously done.

Um before all this craziness.

We uh this body at some point was promised that that application tracking and recruitment was something that we were promising as well.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, it was something that was coming.

And uh so I guess that leaves me to ask a question that without that in place, what would are you using to recruit as well as on boarding process?

Is it all paper?

Today.

It is all paper.

Um and unfortunately the truth right now is uh we are at an even greater disadvantage than we typically are with our recruiting efforts because we've lost access to the full suite of Indeeds services.

So we can post about three jobs a month.

Um anything beyond that they're they're charging us a lot of money for, and we just don't have that right now.

So what the applicant tracking system is going to bring us, um not only is it going to allow us to more accurately track all the applications, be able to efficiently and frankly more personally respond to applicants and let them know where they are in the process at any point in time.

It's also going to allow us to introduce a concierge onboarding process that right now all of onboarding is made.

You know, you're sitting in a room, we're having you we're going over paperwork with you.

I know some of you have recently done this.

With this type of applicant tracking system, we can do some of that beforehand.

We can integrate training into it at a certain point.

We can do e-verify, which is something that we truly would benefit from doing as a city.

Um we can also be creating a very personal handholding service for our new employees.

And anyone with experience in HR knows that that's something that leads to a lot of to a higher level of retention.

If you feel like you're being cared for as a as a candidate and a new employee, you're going to feel a higher affinity to your employer, and that's gonna keep you around longer.

With all of the things built into this system, that's gonna allow us to really uplift and develop our employees in a way that we just haven't been able to now with our current paper and pen processes.

Which just to add on to is going to allow the brain power we have in this city to do better work than processing paperwork right now.

And it's gonna keep them around longer, which is going to result in lower costs in the long run for employment.

So with all of that, when is the sunset for a AS400?

That's that's a loaded question.

Um we we do a lot of things in AS4.

I I mean the the goal for AS400 being our payroll processing and AS, you know, demo employee demographic, I think um July one twenty twenty-seven.

Um I mean, this isn't a short term project.

I mean, this would be a twelve to eighteen month long project.

Um that said, I mean, we still do a lot of other things in AS400.

We're still doing water billing and AS400.

I think we're doing some type of property.

Um I think assessment uses AS400 in some capacity.

Um, so I I you know, when we say AS400, that's that's an umbrella term to me as far as we do a lot of different things.

But specifically the payroll and the you know HR demographic side, um, I think the goal would be um July one, twenty seven.

We are using AS400 also for timekeeping.

Um so with a successful rollout of SWC, the timekeeping component, um, we're looking at decommissioning that as early as July one, um twenty twenty-six.

Twenty twenties.

Six.

Yeah.

But I mean that's what we're rolling out right now, which is not been ongoing.

What about what about because I I I I know that there are a couple of spaces where the city has partnered with the county and partner with the district.

What I I think you mentioned that, you know, part of the transition from Oracle is that city dis city school district is sick of it too, right?

Is it they seem to be struggling.

They're struggling, okay.

Good word, struggling, right?

Not sick of it.

Okay.

We've been watching the city struggles there.

Right.

Um so are they are they transitioning somewhere else?

Is the direction the same as we are transitioned to UKG?

Are they going to the same direction?

Is the county already there?

No, so the county um they have an older PeopleSoft uh HCM.

Um that's so we we piggyback off the county for our general ledger accounting and our accounts payable processing and some um accounts receivable.

We're doing those um in our current uh instance of PeopleSoft, so that's maintained by the county.

Um the county has invested quite a bit over the last couple years to really um build out their current people soft.

So timekeeping, you know, they're they're using Kronos for that, but um they've they've really doubled down on an old uh people soft version.

Um so that they're processing payroll in that.

I know they just invested a lot of money and time into project costing, um, which we're not even gonna touch upon that in this presentation, but that that would be the goal of you know, this person, this cop's working over time, associate that with this grant, automatically retort it record it to a grant.

So we're getting that reimbursed.

Um right now, any of these, you know, grant anything with payroll is manual because of the AS400.

So we're doing a lot of journal entries, moving salaries, paid, you know, to an operating budget, moving those to a grant, um, that ideally in it with a better software, um we can automate some of those processes.

And uh ultimately result in better grant recoveries as well.

So I guess it because of uh that that answer, is there any city here that is in our position or at least we are using as a model of updating that have already updated the information and are up to date.

Um I mean I know I think the state of Indiana uses UKG Pro.

Um a couple uh Boulder, Colorado, I think uses UKG pro.

Um nothing in New York that you know of.

So no, because I I think Garage, I think it's Rochester School District, they're they're going through it with Oracle as well.

Um yeah, they're I think in 30 million dollars or no more.

Yeah.

Um so I think you know, seeing what's happening uh across the three way there, we we realize Oracle is not the correct solution for us.

And my initial question about how much it has cost so far.

Yes.

So we're doing that.

Got a few different uh bar graphs here.

So, you know, project started in 2020.

Um, as I think, you know, console, you guys are very well aware.

Um those that did balloon in 2024, um, we use some some significant dollars to uh UI.

Um so if you want to go to the next slide, this is gonna be tough to read.

But the you know, these are all the different contractors we had.

Um so I think um at the end of 2024 that that's really when we ended the relationship with EY, and then um, you know, it really buckled down of who who who can we use, who don't we need.

Um so we've limited mo almost all of those contractors.

I mean, we're still using Kronos, that's UKG.

Um Kathleen's uh a former um AS400 program for the city, so we're using you know, Kathleen LLC, uh ERP one's gone, EY's gone, Deer Alien Bait's gone, Trailer Technologies is gone.

Um Central City Data's uh also he's a former um you know API employee that he does some pro programming for us, and then um yeah, the last one, I won't mention that last one.

Next slide has more information too.

The active ones being in yellow.

Oh, perfect.

Thanks, Josh.

So I get my question is um is that it for that question?

So so all these graphs are great.

Have we combined the number with the number?

Seven point great, correct?

A little more number about eight.

I think it's 7.8.

7.8?

Yeah.

That's what that based on this, but over uh five years?

Five and a half, six.

Next slide.

Or sorry, a few after that.

Uh that one.

This one also shows, you know, which platform was that money going towards with you know about uh half of that going towards SWC related expenses, and then about half of that going towards towards Oracle.

Okay.

Can you can you can we have that too?

Share that.

Did you email it to us?

I can keep it.

Yeah.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um I'm also counselor.

Thank you.

So being that I'm of a certain age, I was just wondering if um if there's any reluctance um throughout some of the departments in possibly senior staff, um, to uh adjust to the new, you know, transfer to IT-based versus paper-based.

It's culture change, but I mean I think it's it's a long time coming.

Um I mean, for you know, uh an entity our size, you know, 330 plus million dollar operating budget.

Um the fact that we can't run an overtime listing every day um on demand uh is inexcusable in my opinion.

Um, you know, police and fire between those two departments.

I mean, we're talking almost 15 million dollars in overtime, and we don't have decipherable reports to see what are we doing.

Um and just the the manual nature of you're typing in something from telestaff into AS400.

Then there's another instance of AS400 you're typing it into.

Um it's it's just it's uh it's a very old process.

Um I mean, as far as and even me, I mean, like now Tuesday's by noon, you have to approve your timesheets.

Like I put something on my calendar because you just you know you're not used to doing it.

Um but I mean it's a culture change, and um, you know, staff's gonna have to get in line.

If you want to get paid, you gotta submit your timesheet, sorry.

No, not necessarily staff.

I'm saying the department, the individuals run into departments.

Um are there any, you know.

I think I think we've seen that definitely on the the rollout of SWC so far.

I think that usually when a department starts with it, it feels like a pretty big imposition on what they're used to doing.

You know, it feels like we've got to learn a whole new system and all the new ways of doing that.

And I think that compliance to procedures and policies tends to feel that way.

You know, if you're actually having to go through those hoops, uh maybe in a closer way than you've had to do that in the past, it feels bad at the beginning.

And I think over the course of that, there's kind of a natural like trajectory that that's looked like where people get more comfortable with it over time.

And as we've seen in water where it was it was quite challenging to get that, you know, really functioning at the beginning.

Uh, but once it was functioning, it then took kind of a second effort to get employees back involved in using it in the way that they need to be using it.

Nowadays, you know, we've been live on it for five months now, and in that time they've they've reported how how much fewer times there's been where a paycheck has gone out wrong.

Nowadays, you know, we've been live on it for five months now, and in that time they've they've reported how much fewer times there's been where a paycheck has gone out wrong, and they've they've been you know glad about that over the time that they told me.

Not to say that they're my biggest fan in the world, but you know, they've been they've been you know the the first ones to admit that actually it has been working and it's been saving them time at the end of the day.

Specifically for water, I mean they wouldn't have had visibility in their hours beforehand, so they wouldn't have known like what what are my overtime hours I'm gonna get paid on my next week's check, whereas they have that visibility now, um, which I think is a big win.

Um, I was gonna have one more comment that oh, work day.

You had mentioned work day.

We did evaluate work day.

Um, as far as you know, we would have had to sw switch our timekeeping to a workday product as well, which from a change management perspective, everyone was used to you know SWC and Chronos, we didn't want to roll, you know, oh, we're gonna decommission this and now we're gonna roll out a new timekeeping to go along with work day.

So um again, that that was one of the softwares we did uh evaluate, and it just wasn't cost effective.

So if employees have a question on how to perform uh certain tasks because they're learning, then these transitioning to the new, where do they go to?

So typically we have when we have kind of a sit-down with the department to structure how we want that to actually look as we're as we're working with them.

Uh usually we'll sit down with the department head with anybody in the department who's you know used to helping get payroll out into payroll department for processing.

And then we meet with the managers and we meet with the employees, kind of in phases.

Um and so you know, any department that we've actually gone live with so far, we've gone live because we've done the initial conversations, we've done training with them, and then we've had you know several weekly sessions where once a week we're getting together for a set number of hours and we're reviewing it together and practicing.

And so then if they have, you know, even after all that, they might still have questions to your point.

Then there's other ways, you know, help desk tickets that they can submit and get answered, or you know, we have office hour sessions.

Um and we've we've you know gone to the pretty great lengths to make ourselves as available as possible because again, now that they're live, we understand.

This takes how long to respond to an inquiry in something as important as this.

I think it depends on the type of inquiry, definitely.

But if it's a department that we know is live with this, we would treat that obviously differently than a hypothetical question for a department who's not live, right?

So if it's someone that's live, we're gonna get that fixed within the day in most cases.

Okay, yeah.

I mean, to so we don't have a performance management module right now, and I think to Mike Um Mike's point about just a more formal onboarding.

You there was a document for SWC training that we pushed out a few months ago to departments that at onboarding, that's one of the trainings.

You have to do SWC training, you have to do sexual harassment training, and you know, there are other specific trainings that you know are specific to your position, those can also be offered right at onboarding, um, whereas right now it's really uh haphazard.

So training to use the system to be able to log in whatever you need to log in.

Um what's the question anyway?

I I lost it.

So the the employees will have training for that, but then training never stops because then you have new people coming in all the time, and you know, people can continue to go to these trainings if they wish though.

I mean, how how is this gonna I are there like set trainings in in days that they know they can't go to, or how is this gonna happen?

That's a great question, and we realized that along the way because we realized, well, this is never gonna stop if we keep doing it this way.

Um so kind of our first solution there was that we've we've spent a lot of time building kind of an employee-facing website where there's videos and courses and things like that that someone could go through maybe at the time of onboarding.

So, like when if they're hired into a managerial role, they might have to sit through a course that teaches them how to use it for that.

Um, and then you know, on top of that, we'd make ourselves available for office hours and other things as those questions come up.

Yeah.

And does this um will this allow um potentially you know, a year or two from now?

Um possibly the staff is growing, but does this will allow for uh work from home staff as well?

Um sorry, can you rephrase that question?

Well, this allow for work from home staff eventually.

I mean, would they be able to like work from home utilizing this or I'm sorry?

So I mean I I don't think we have like a formal or remote work policy.

Um I don't know if there's any appetite to change that, but like yeah, this would be available like on the web.

So I mean if you wanted to like log on at home on your laptop, I I believe you could.

Okay.

Okay.

So I think I misinterpreted the question.

So you want to be paid, right?

I mean, during your workout, can you get uh credit for working at home on the AP?

You have to do your training.

Um so are you talking about specifically like so it's a true work at home?

You got four you got four videos to do.

So you do it on your own time or you're punched dead on company kind.

Um I don't know if I have a good answer for that.

No, because a lot of companies will do that.

So when I um the job that I did through New York State and we use day for us, it was on your time.

Um basically, if you came in that day, you might do it first thing when you got there and then finish your schedule doing regular work or at some like your lunch time, you do that uh you're saying like you went home at 8 p.m.

you did a training for an hour.

Are you gonna get paid for that training?

No, no, no, you know it was on it was on staff time.

Okay.

It wasn't never at home.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

So I mean, not at home.

It was not during it was always during work hours.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Yeah, the position of the HR department in the city would be that you get paid for anything that you're asked to do as part of your job.

So, yeah, the training would be paid.

Yeah, so if I want to be cognizant of the time and and people's potential child care needs at the end of the day and other things happening.

Um, I'm gonna finish off with one final question and acknowledge that the item that we're talking about is the whole holdover item from either end of November, early December of last session.

Um I hope you also understand why the council is hesitant to approve another major expenditure for a project that seems like you know, we've been asked to do so a number of times already.

Um what are you able to do and not do at this point without engagement with Mosaic?

In terms of rolling out UKG or anyone the project in general and kind of the evolution of our payroll.

The first the first answer that comes to mind for me for this would be that you know, there's probably a version of this that we could do it where we try and roll it out ourselves if we're doing the same platform.

I don't think there's much you know disagreement or discordance internally about this is the right path for us to move down.

Um and there probably is a world where we could, you know, implement UKG pro.

I just think that that is a is a you know three to five year conversation rather than a one-year conversation.

Um so that's that's my first answer, but I'm not sure if you have things to add.

Yeah, we don't have any UKG pro experts on staff.

I mean, like these are the experts for a reason.

I think we could continue to roll out timekeeping, um, then we get to end of life.

Um staff has some inherent issues that you've already mentioned.

Um being able to consolidate those and offer a better employee experience.

I I don't think um, you know, the city moves forward with UKG Pro without an implementation partner.

Last question would it be possible to maybe have a projected timeline on all of this at all?

We do have that.

I do want to be cognizant of time.

We do have that in this slide deck, and we can make sure that you get that.

Um I think that the you know the expectation for this engagement would be that you know, by around June or July next year, we should we should have been able to finish all of this work.

You don't expect it to go any longer than that.

Yeah, I would want to see like that that is that is I like that.

So that one.

There you go.

And I I did want to return to your question earlier, Counselor Williams, about what's different this time.

Uh one thing that I would add on to what Mike had already said was that um I think in the past, as you saw from those project spend charts, we've had a lot of different vendors in the room to help us with these things.

And I think that at least what I saw coming into this kind of late in the game was that that resulted in a lot of bits and pieces that didn't necessarily work that well together.

Um I think that what we've done a lot, you know, having those consultants out of the room is we've spent a lot of time getting to know the processes ourselves and trying to understand exactly what our future vision is of how this works.

Um and and another piece of that being, you know, we don't want to embark on digitizing a process if we haven't even examined the process yet, because there's a lot of wrong ways you can do something, and just because you're making it digital doesn't mean you're making it better.

So that's what we've been trying to take our time to do over this last year is to, you know, if you could you find the process mapping slide 29.

Um there's uh you know, a lot of work has gone into mapping out all kinds of different processes.

So, you know, we've got a a few examples here, but trying to highlight really, you know, particularly what are the pain points we're having with this today?

Is it you know system related?

Is it just process related?

Is it people related?

Um, and how do we how do we mitigate those issues?

So we've we've spent a lot of time doing that, and uh and uh you know the hope would be that we have kind of a central kind of project leadership this time from the API department, uh, which you know in the past I think consultants have kind of preyed on the fact that we have a little bit of a split between, you know, silent silent way of doing things where they might go and ask HR a question and ask payroll at a question, get two different answers.

And I think our goal this time is we know ourselves well enough that we can all give them one answer, um, and we can make sure that we're building it right along the way.

Those are just a couple things I would add on to that answer.

I font's too small for me as well.

Yeah, right.

And let me say the intent was not that you could see our our much better process.

I just wanted to get you the sense that we've been doing this work, and if you want to get together and talk about those those processes, we could do that in much greater detail than right here.

So who's who's taking ownership?

Because you you talked about strategy, uh talent and and right software.

Who's taking who have we designated internally to that is actually leading this and taking ownership as we know from the past.

Yeah, we actually uh have a ownership group.

Uh, it is a group consist of the deputy mayor, okay, um, myself and the director of HR, um, our CFO and the first deputy commissioner of finance.

All right, that's who we can blame.

Anything else council south?

Okay, all right.

I just want to clarify this is completely cloud-based.

Uh cloud based?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

All right.

With that, I thank everyone for their time and we'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.