DISCUSSION: EVALUATIONS
Bolkcom: Item c, is discussion regarding evaluations of appointed department heads.
Stutsman: Well...
Lacina: We have a schedule, don't we?
Stutsman: Yes. Is that schedule put together, Carol? I think Lora was going to work on that.
Peters: Yes.
Lacina: Didn't we have one on the...
Duffy: That's all there was...
Stutsman: Yes. We have a schedule. I was thinking the schedule of who actually we are going to interview. When we talked about this, Carol, Lora, Pat, and I, last Friday morning, we wonder if we don't need more time than we've originally scheduled. I guess we were thinking of maybe instead of having 3 evaluations at one time, breaking it down to 2. Because that if... it was kind of the consensus of the group that they should be at least 45 minutes to an hour apiece. So we probably need to have more time. Carol, I didn't bring my notes in, was there anything else that we...
Peters: No, that was basically it. You will be discussing this with your appointed department heads tomorrow, also, the process. But wanted to... Right now the urgency was trying to find another time to make more slots. Right now we have a schedule for November the 9th, 12th, and 13th at 9:00.
Lacina and Duffy left at 9:25 a.m.
Stutsman: So I think we need maybe a couple more times. Also we need to think about if we are going to have an executive session before an evaluation of a particular department head, when we can schedule those times, too.
Peters: So once we get the schedule then, whatever the Board's consensus is about having an executive session, before we get those permission slips out to the employee that's being evaluated.
Stutsman: Lora was going to bring up that evaluation form too, to see if that was OK with the Board.
Peters: Why don't I give her a call.
Bolkcom left at 9:26 a.m.
Stutsman: OK. We made just some minor changes, kind of just made 10 points that we're going to evaluate people with. I'll talk to you Jonathan because everybody else is gone.
Jordahl: Are we still in session, with 2 of us?
Lacina returned at 9:27 a.m.
Lacina: Quick, set the date?
Stutsman: Yes. Sure.
Jordahl: We've decided everything already.
Stutsman: Yes. I was going to say... Yes, right.
Lacina: Good, good.
Duffy and Bolkcom returned at 9:27 a.m.
Stutsman: I wonder if maybe we can just pass that form.
Peters: I'll get it from her desk.
Stutsman: OK. What I was saying earlier is that we made some minor changes to the evaluation form that we used last year. Made it more concise, had 10 areas... I guess we just want to make sure that these are all the areas that the Board feels are important; if there's any changes, then we can do that. The idea is that the employee will fill out the form, each one of us will fill out the form, plus there'll be one other outside individual that will fill out the form. Then we'll just compile all of that information and use that as part of the evaluation.
Duffy: You mean one other outside individual?
Stutsman: Right.
Duffy: Who's that?
Lacina: Somebody within the department that...
Bolkcom: How will that be chosen?
Lacina: ... can evaluate them.
Bolkcom: Are we choosing that?
Stutsman: We haven't decided. Carol...
Peters: I thought for this time that we had eliminated that one outside person. It was just going to be (inaudible)...
Duffy: I'm not so sure... Have we ever voted on this.
Peters: ... because of the time crunch.
Stutsman: OK.
Peters: But I could be wrong.
Lacina: Within the department you mean, or somebody outside, outside.
Stutsman: I think whatever would be to... whoever would offer the best information as far as giving feedback to the Board.
Lacina: Like are directions clear and are there timetables set?
Stutsman: Right, right.
Lacina: OK.
Stutsman: I didn't think we had made a decision about...
Bolkcom: I didn't think so either.
Stutsman: ...eliminating that. Because I'm thinking so many times the Board doesn't have the day to day contact with these department heads, that it's really valuable to get that information from somebody that works with those department heads on a day to day basis.
Lacina: I agree.
Stutsman: So I thought that we were going to ask for at least one outside... Last year we asked for somebody that the department head had selected.
Peters: Actually we asked for 3.
Bolkcom: Yes, we did.
Stutsman: Well, 3, right. So I think we need to decide how we want to handle that. If we want to have an outside evaluator for this department head, and do we want to have one that we pick and then one that the department head picks, or just one that we pick. However the Board wants to handle that.
Duffy: I think you're getting carried away, to tell you the truth.
Bolkcom: All right. Does the Board want to decide that right now?
Stutsman: I think we need to...
Lacina: What about one random...
Stutsman: Pardon me?
Lacina: Just one random employee in the department, instead of 2, or do you want...
Jordahl: Yes. How do we do random?
Lacina: Just take the employee list and you.
Jordahl: Put down a pin, pin the tail on the donkey there kind of. OK.
Bolkcom: We want to make sure that that employee has some sense of the person's... they probably would. I guess I'd rather... I would be in favor of having the employee pick somebody and the Board pick somebody. Have 2.
Lacina: The department head?
Bolkcom: Yes.
Duffy: Sounds better.
Stutsman: Yes. I think that's a good balanced way to do it.
Lacina: OK.
Bolkcom: It's a little more work.
Stutsman: This is an ambitious schedule we found out when we started talking, so we're going to have to...
Bolkcom: Sure. This is on for tomorrow. We could... with our appointed department heads tomorrow morning; could certainly talk about then. But maybe we should go into that with a sense of what we do want.
Jordahl: In the meeting on Friday, that I came in on the tail end of where this was being discussed, there was this idea that came forward that maybe we needed some time between evaluations rather than try to stack up 3 in the same morning. That we maybe even have an hour or 45 minutes, a gap, and then some more time where we could sort of debrief ourselves.
Bolkcom: Right.
Stutsman: That's what I was talking about...
Bolkcom: I think we just said...
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: ... we're going to do 2 at a time not 3.
Jordahl: Yes. So the question of how we digest these other reports and how that fits into the executive session thing and about getting our own heads together is the other piece of the scheduling (inaudible)
Bolkcom: It really loads it up.
Peters: The one thing that I think you really wanted to visit about this morning was getting together to go through the evaluation.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Bolkcom: Yes. Maybe we could say, let's not do the outside evaluations, the Board will evaluate the appointed department head and if the Board wants to seek outside input as each of us go on to fill out these forms if we want to call people. I don't know. That would be another way. Because I do think if we're going to ask outside people to do it we need to basically, begin that this week. We need to give people a couple of weeks. Assuming that the Board's going to meet some time in October still, to have an executive session for us to get together and discuss the evaluation.
Duffy: Why don't we just do it, isn't it part of our job, instead of having...
Stutsman: That's what Joe's...
Lacina: It is, but it's really important, I think, to get feedback as far as is the department head giving good directions, clear directions, setting timetables, expectations. We may have complaints from the public that we don't... or concerns from the public that we don't see because we're dealing with the budgets and we don't know how they deal on across the counter. I think an aspect of it is how they deliver service to the public and since we really can't go to the public to get that, the employee is really the one that can give us feedback.
Bolkcom: Yes. I think it makes sense, I just think the Board is on a very ambitious schedule. If you look at the calendar we have to get... If we're going to give a member of the public or a coworker an opportunity to fill out one of these forms and the Board is going to have executive sessions to sit down as a group, which is the item on the agenda today, is scheduling that, we don't have very much time. Because last week the Board scheduled these to take place the second week of November and that is like 2 weeks from now.
Lacina: But it's important to do it right.
Bolkcom: I agree. I think doing it right requires a little bit more time than our schedule currently is going to allow.
Stutsman: Well...
Duffy: I think...
Jordahl: Isn't 3 weeks from today, the 9th?
Duffy: Joe, could I say something about this?
Bolkcom: Yes. It would be 3 weeks from today, but this... When do you anticipate getting out the evaluation? When is the Board... Is the Board going to have the benefit of both the employee evaluation and these say, one or 2 outside evaluations when we do an executive session to sit down as a group and put together an appointed department head's evaluation? Because we're going to need to give probably the employee as well as outside people a couple of weeks to fill these out. In a couple weeks... so we get them out by the end of the week and they give them back on the 6th. When are we going to have executive session before the 9th to sit down as a group? I assume we want the input before we all meet and work through these evaluations.
Jordahl: Well...
Bolkcom: So I think that...
Lacina: Charlie had a comment.
Bolkcom: I think the 9th is very ambitious, unless you want to just give a week to the employee and outside people to get these in to us.
Duffy: Joe, I've got trouble...
Bolkcom: Yes, Charlie.
Duffy: ... with outside people. The Supervisors, if we don't know what's going on in our departments and appointed department heads, we shouldn't be sitting here. We're doing things wrong, to ask somebody from the outside to come in and evaluate our... Every year now, I see more and more of this. We should know what's going on and if we don't, are we going to hire somebody from the public when somebody asks questions about a different department?
Bolkcom: Charlie, I think your position is clear on this. You don't want to do this, you don't want to do evaluations; you've said that repeatedly. Right?
Lacina: The advantage of having an employee do it though, is they may be able to say if we made a small change in the office this way or that way it might be some efficiencies or they might be able to help us set up a goal. Maybe we've had an old operating system that we could change or something.
Bolkcom: Sure. I don't have any problem with that...
Stutsman: I was...
Bolkcom: I agree with you on that, Steve.
Stutsman: I was going to clarify, Charlie, I think when you talk about outside, we're not talking about somebody outside County government, Charlie. We're talking about somebody that works in that department, somebody aside from us. Maybe one way to do this is that we could have each Supervisor go visit with somebody within that department. And then bring that information back to the rest of the Board members. Because one thing that we talked about is compiling this information and that's going to put a tremendous burden on Carol and Lora to put this information together, to have this ready for us. So that might be another way to accomplish this. If we want to visit with somebody from within that department about the Supervisor, just do an oral interview...
Bolkcom: I think trying to set up 10 or 12 interviews between a Supervisor and... it's not going to happen. It's too...
Stutsman: But basically...
Bolkcom: ... much time involvement.
Stutsman: ... we're saying... I'm saying what you're saying, just go visit with the particular, but have it more formalized. Each one of us take a...
Bolkcom: One department.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: So I wouldn't go to 10 departments and...
Stutsman: No, no.
Bolkcom: I see. Yes. That's reasonable (inaudible)
Duffy: I've been doing that anyway. I told you I go around to these departments for years, but it looks to me like you're putting the pressure on an employee of that department to evaluate their boss.
Bolkcom: Yes. There is that and if you do that...
Duffy: I don't like that.
Bolkcom: ...it almost needs to be anonymous.
Duffy: Anonymous?
Jordahl: I'm reminded of the suggestion box. I would just toss that concept out here. Where you may get some feedback in a suggestion box that will help to reveal some problems that you might not otherwise have heard of, if it can be anonymous. I'm not necessarily advocating that this employee feedback be anonymous. But that aspect of people maybe being more comfortable in writing, farther away from a direct face to face confrontation, in saying what's on their minds could give us some useful information that we might not get even in a face to face conversation. Granted, in face to face confrontations there tends to be plenty of information that comes out how things are going, people don't seem to hold back. That's part of the merit of the written evaluation from the employee of the department. I didn't say that that should necessarily be anonymous.
Bolkcom: All right.
Jordahl: It could go either way.
Duffy: I would say that it shouldn't be anonymous. Now we're really opening up the door for people to call us and send us letters and sign their names anonymous. I wouldn't be for that either.
Bolkcom: All right. Bob, you had a comment.
Bob Welsh: Joe, for what it's worth, I think, you were talking about how long people needed on an evaluation. I would think that most persons could fill that out in a week and would not need 2 weeks. At least when I get something to evaluate somebody...
Bolkcom: Right.
Welsh: ...it doesn't take that long. If I lay it aside, if I've got a 2 week schedule, I take 2 weeks. If I've got a week, I take a week. If I've got 2 days, I do it right away.
Stutsman: Uh-huh. We need to make a decision...
Bolkcom: All right.
Stutsman: ... today how we're going to proceed with this.
Bolkcom: We have a suggestion. Then today... Can we have these out by the end of the week?
Stutsman: The evaluation forms...
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: We have the form, right? We're not changing that.
Stutsman: No, there's some minor changes...
Bolkcom: It's open for consideration...
Stutsman: ... just to review it.
Bolkcom: ... I think it's been minor, some minor revisions that have improved the form.
Lacina: Just a quick question on the form. Do we ask for one area of strength and one area of needed improvement? I hope.
Bolkcom: There are goals.
Stutsman: Yes. At the end of the form there's...
Lacina: OK. For the employee though...
Bolkcom: It's all set up where the people can talk on any of the 10 points about strengths and weaknesses.
Lacina: OK.
Bolkcom: There's not...
Peters: It's basically the same form as last year...
Bolkcom: Yes. It's the same form we used last year.
Stutsman: It's just...
Peters: ... with modifications.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: Just crunched a few questions together to shortened it up.
Lacina: OK. All right.
Bolkcom: All right. Can we get it out by the end of the week?
Lacina: Do we want one or 2?
Bolkcom: I'm sorry?
Lacina: One or 2 employees?
Bolkcom: That's the question.
Jordahl: How do we select...
Bolkcom: The employee select one and the Board select one. I guess we'd have to discuss how we'd select.
Lacina: The Committee that's been working on it, what do you recommend we do? One or 2 and... Do you have a sense of what we should do?
Bolkcom: I think 2.
Stutsman: I guess I say 2, too, and that the employee select one and the...
Lacina: The directors select...
Stutsman: ... and then we select one.
Bolkcom: All right.
Duffy: What do other counties do?
Bolkcom: Now we need to... A bunch of counties evaluate their employees.
Duffy: Do they?
Bolkcom: Yes.
Peters: These are going to be people from within that department head's department.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: Well, it could be. I think we have a number of members of staff that work with members of the public and the Board might say let's ask somebody from... I don't think we need to decide that at this point. The employee doesn't have to be from within the department. Could it be somebody they work with in the public frequently? Do we want to put a parameter on that I guess would be the question.
Peters: That's what... When we take this evaluation form...
Bolkcom: Right.
Peters: ...to the department head...
Bolkcom: Right. We're going to do this tomorrow.
Peters: ...and we say to them, Carol, here's your evaluation form, you can select one other person that we will send this to, and the Board's going to select one.
Bolkcom: Right.
Peters: But the person that you select must be from within your department, somebody you work with? Are we going to give them choices?
Bolkcom: What's the Board think on that?
Lacina: If you give the department head the discretion.
Bolkcom: Yes. I think that... I'm OK with that.
Stutsman: I wonder if they send it to their minister, I mean I'm being the devil's advocate, but if you ask for...
Peters: That's why I'm kind of...
Lacina: Of course...
Bolkcom: No ministers.
Lacina: ...then in evaluation...
Bolkcom: I'm going to get in trouble for that.
Stutsman: I mean a neighbor or your...
Lacina: The only thing would be during the evaluation we would take that into account. (Inaudible) ...
Bolkcom: Somebody that knows their work.
Lacina: Yes.
Peters: That's what we did last year. We just asked them to...
Bolkcom: Somebody that knows their work.
Peters: Actually last year we asked them to select 3 people that they work closely with.
Stutsman: OK.
Bolkcom: OK.
Jordahl: Now are we going to have that information as part of the compilation of stuff for us to deal with.
Bolkcom: I hope we do.
Lacina: Cover sheet.
Bolkcom: I hope we do.
Jordahl: When we have our executive session.
Bolkcom: That's right.
Stutsman: I'm going to suggest to save staff time, because we're under such a time frame, that make copies and distribute it to the Supervisors before.
Peters: I'll get with Lora right after the meeting.
Bolkcom: OK. So we get these out by the end of the week.. The employee gets it and we figure out from the employee this week who we should send it to. We decide... We might want to take some time... you all need to decide, we need to decide who we're going to send it to this week, too, for those employees.
Jordahl: Right.
Bolkcom: And when we're going to do that, but we're going to do that. They'd back then... We'd say we want them back by the 30th. All right? Then the first week of November, we should have our executive sessions planned, where we can sit down and review all of this information we get back and develop the evaluation for these 10 or 12 employees. Then the week of the 9th, we sit down and start the evaluations. That make sense?
Lacina: So the 3rd is a Tuesday. That afternoon do we want to sit down and...
Stutsman: That's Election Day is the only...
Bolkcom: No. I'm not going to be available on that day.
Lacina: Oh, OK. I'm sorry.
Stutsman: How about the 4th, Wednesday afternoon?
Bolkcom: Yes.
Lacina: I'm in Des Moines.
Bolkcom: Or 5th or 6th, we need to schedule probably a couple of executive sessions to go through these.
Lacina: The 5th we meet with Linn County.
Stutsman: Meet after that in the afternoon?
Bolkcom: 5th and 6th.
Lacina: The 6th we meet with Coralville. However, during the day we could, then it would be Friday. How are you looking Friday, the 6th?
Stutsman: I'm not going to be here.
Lacina: OK.
Stutsman: Unless... no I'm...
Bolkcom: How about Monday?
Stutsman: That's when we're doing our first...
Lacina: 9 o'clock.
Stutsman: ...set of evaluations.
Lacina: Yes.
Bolkcom: Monday the...
Jordahl: The 2nd.
Bolkcom: ...2nd.
Peters: Oh, Monday...
Bolkcom: We're going to need more than one sitting for this executive session, too.
Peters: On Monday the 11th I do have the Board Room reserved for a phone demonstration.
Bolkcom: Monday the 11th.
Jordahl: Yes. That's the 2nd I've got phone presentations.
Bolkcom: Monday the 9th?
Peters: No, the 9th is evaluations.
Bolkcom: All right. How about the 2nd of November? What's the schedule looking like?
Lacina: I've got a noon and a 3, but other than that I could schedule one.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: Monday the 2nd is fine.
Bolkcom: Meet in the morning?
Stutsman: I should be in Des Moines. I suppose I could miss it. What about the 5th, Thursday morning and have a light agenda for our... and go into executive session after our Board meeting.
Jordahl: We've got the 11:30 meeting with the Linn Board of Supervisors.
Bolkcom: Can we cancel that?
Lacina: I don't... Yes. Do we...
Stutsman: Yes. I think that...
Bolkcom: I don't know if we're...
Jordahl: I don't know. I think we ought to look at other things before canceling that.
Bolkcom: OK.
Stutsman: What's...
Bolkcom: What's Wednesday?
Stutsman: What's so important on that agenda that it couldn't wait for another...
Jordahl: Well, I don't know, but...
Stutsman: I think this is setting up priorities and I think this is a priority. We have committed to getting this done while Steve and Joe are still on the Board for this...
Bolkcom: What about Wednesday morning?
Lacina: I'm in Des Moines all day Wednesday.
Bolkcom: What's... do you have a... What's that meeting?
Lacina: The APAC, the grant, the value-added agriculture, we're reviewing business plans. I think the Linn County Sup meeting is light.
Stutsman: I guess I'm feeling that way, too. Thursday morning and keep the agenda light and go into executive session at maybe 10.
Bolkcom: OK. So are we meeting Monday and Thursday? Board, I think this is going to take several hours to go through this, if we're going to go through and try and organize ourselves around 10 evaluations of department heads.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Bolkcom: I think it's going to take...
Stutsman: So are you saying Monday then, and...
Bolkcom: ...6 hours. Yes. I think we should schedule 2 times. I think trying to do all of this on one day is too much.
Jordahl: All right.
Stutsman: Will we have the information...
Bolkcom: So Thursday...
Stutsman: ...back then on Monday? So we'll do it Monday afternoon or Monday morning?
Lacina: Can we do some...
Peters: (Inaudible) Monday afternoon because I've got that presentation...
Stutsman: OK.
Peters: ...going on; we need to keep moving on the telephone.
Jordahl: Have the phone thing.
Lacina: I've Deer Creek Road discussion, Monday the 2nd. What could we do to reduce the number of hours from the 6 hours or... Say that we blocked out from 1:00 to 4:00 on Thursday the 5th.
Bolkcom: How many evaluations are we doing?
Stutsman: 10.
Bolkcom: 10. How much time do you want to spend on doing each evaluation. 15 minutes?
Stutsman: Oh.
Jordahl: An hour.
Bolkcom: An hour?
Lacina: You mean with the individual or...
Jordahl: Executive session.
Bolkcom: Half hour? No, executive session.
Jordahl: I would say schedule an hour and leave room for breaks...
Lacina: Yes.
Jordahl: ...or schedule less than that.
Lacina: No, I think an hour.
Stutsman: Executive sessions?
Bolkcom: So you're talking about... How much time does the Board want to schedule for executive sessions to prepare an evaluation? Can we prepare...
Lacina: Prior to meeting.
Bolkcom: Yes, prior to meeting. Can we do that in 15 minutes per employee? A half hour per employee?
Stutsman: Half an hour. I think we should try for half an hour. If we all have it in our mind half an hour.
Bolkcom: OK, so that's 5 hours.
Lacina: With no breaks, right?
Jordahl: Yes.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: Or with breaks.
Bolkcom: I think a half an hour is really... I think we're going to find it's going to take more than half an hour to go through these 10 areas on this form.
Jordahl: If we have the areas compiled. We should each have our forms...
Bolkcom: Ideally.
Jordahl: ...and be able to respond...
Bolkcom: Right. Everybody would be prepared.
Jordahl: ...about why we evaluated as we did. But there should be a compilation of... I'm envisioning the 10, or how many 20 items, or how ever many there are on the form, in a grid. Then who voted how in 5 columns, the Supervisors, and plus 2 employees, and fill in the grid with the point value that was given. So that we can look at everybody's (inaudible) scanning it rather than having to go leafing through a pile of paper.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Stutsman: Ideally I think that's great, but I don't think we have the time to do that. There I'm thinking with Carol and Lora's time. There again, like so many of the things we do, I think this process is evolving. If we weren't under such a time crunch, I think we have some wonderful ideas of how to improve this process. We just don't have time to do that this time.
Lacina: Are we all going to be here the 3rd?
Bolkcom: No, I'm not going to be here the 3rd.
Lacina: Not at all, not at all?
Bolkcom: No.
Lacina: OK.
Bolkcom: Yes. I assume we're going to have some meeting the 3rd, but I have a busy day that day.
Lacina: Well, why don't we just take that meeting and make it light and put in an hour. That gives us our...
Bolkcom: Yes. We could... Yes.
Lacina: Then the other 4 we roll into Thursday.
Bolkcom: I think we've set ourselves on a schedule that's just a little difficult to meet here in trying to do this in the second week in November.
Lacina: Do you want to kick it back to December?
Bolkcom: I just think we're... We need to be... We need to take our time with these. All right. This is an important thing to the employee, it's an important thing to the Board, that we just don't develop a schedule here that is just... cuts corners and I think this one does. I just thing we're on too tight a schedule to try and get this done by the 13th of November.
Lacina: Yes.
Jordahl: Well, the problem is what happens in the rest of November. Are we going to... I'd be happy to stretch it out through November just as long as we get done before the budget process starts in December. Because I don't want to be evaluating somebody at the same time as dealing with their budget requests.
Stutsman: That's a good point.
Bolkcom: All right.
Lacina: Well, do you want to kick it...
Bolkcom: Why don't we try... I guess we could try and do half of them in November and half of them in December.
Jordahl: What I'm suggesting is seeing what we can find on the first 2 days or 3 days, like the 16th and 17th, 23rd, 24th, and 25th of November.
Stutsman: Oh, that's right you're going to be gone aren't you, Joe.
Bolkcom: I'm going to be gone the 18th through the 2nd...
Jordahl: Well, we're all...
Bolkcom: ...or the 19th through the 2nd.
Jordahl: ...going to be gone the 18th.
Bolkcom: Yes. I think the whole Board will be gone at ISAC and other places the 18th, 19th, and 20th. We're not meeting the week of Thanksgiving.
Jordahl: Well, we're not having Board meetings, but that doesn't mean we couldn't...
Stutsman: But Joe's going to be...
Bolkcom: I'm going to be gone.
Stutsman: ...on vacation.
Bolkcom: I could be gone, that would be OK.
Stutsman: Part of the reason we were rushing this up is because of the...
Jordahl: OK. So we're looking at the...
Stutsman: ...2 experienced Board members...
Jordahl: ...16th and 17th then as possible times to stretch this out.
Stutsman: Well, we are going to have to have additional times for the actual evaluation, so I think we almost need to have...
Bolkcom: It should be the 16th and 17th as a set up for that.
Stutsman: ... the 16th and 17th for those times.
Jordahl: Mostly the 16th I suppose.
Duffy: Can I ask one more question about the evaluation, Joe?
Bolkcom: Sure, Charlie.
Duffy: What'd we do with last year's evaluation?
Bolkcom: What do you mean, what did we do with it?
Duffy: I mean what... Was there...
Jordahl: That's a good point. That'll be (inaudible)
Duffy: ...a positive that it... Did that improve the...
Bolkcom: I think we...
Duffy: ....department head's department or what...
Bolkcom: I hope so I think...
Duffy: Or did we just throw them away like...
Bolkcom: No, they're in people's files.
Duffy: In other words...
Bolkcom: But I think every department head had some goals they were going to work on this year and when we sit down in the next few weeks we'll be reviewing how they accomplished those and they'll be reviewing how they accomplished those. We'll get together and talk about it and set some more goals. You know, it's no big deal.
Duffy: Well, they can set goals. They can do it here without going through all this.
Bolkcom: All right. What do you want to do? Just try to get through them and see where we get? If we have to...
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: If we don't we can regroup and take the time in early December and finish them. Budgets or no budgets.
Jordahl: I think that, you know we talked about the way that it would take a lot of time for staff to compile this information. But I think if we're proposing to sit down at this desk with stacks of responses...
Bolkcom: We'll figure out how to streamline that.
Jordahl: We should streamline it before those meetings, not during them. If there's some way we can figure out to streamline it before the meeting.
Bolkcom: Well, if you've got some proposal...
Jordahl: I do. I have a proposal and that was to compile these things in a grid.
Bolkcom: I think the numbers are one thing. I think there's going to be a lot of narrative that's going to go with these that are not going to be conducive to that.
Jordahl: Right. But we shouldn't have to leaf through things to find the numbers. That's a lot of it.
Bolkcom: We can...
Stutsman: I don't know who's got the time to put that grid together, quite frankly.
Bolkcom: We can talk to Lora about trying to do... It may be a very simple thing to do.
Peters: Yes.
Bolkcom: It may be no big deal.
Peters: Yes. Let's talk, Jonathan.
Stutsman: Yes, maybe...
Bolkcom: What I'm saying is that to do these well, we need to take the time and talk about them. All right?
Jordahl: Sure. I'm not suggesting we not talk about them. I'm saying it would be easier to talk than to filter through pieces of paper.
Lacina: Let's plan on canceling the Linn County meeting and having a work session that Thursday, because obviously we've got a lot of stuff to work through.
Bolkcom: So is that the only time we're going to schedule is that Thursday to compile these?
Stutsman: I thought we were...
Lacina: That one's for sure, right?
Bolkcom: Right.
Jordahl: Wasn't the 2nd also?
Bolkcom: What about the 2nd?
Jordahl: Thought that was the 2nd and the...
Bolkcom: Can we do it the morning of the 2nd...
Jordahl: ...and the 5th
Bolkcom: ...and the 5th after the Board meeting?
Stutsman: I bet there probably won't be much on the agenda for the 3rd.
Reverend Bob Welsh: Carol asked that you go Monday afternoon rather than the...
Jordahl: Yes.
Bolkcom: I thought we had conflict Monday afternoon.
Stutsman: I would...
Jordahl: Does anybody have a conflict Monday afternoon of the 2nd?
Stutsman: I should be in Des Moines for that Task Force meeting on the 2nd. I can miss it.
Bolkcom: No, you should be at that, that's related to County business.
Lacina: Right.
Bolkcom: Right?
Duffy: I've got 2 times I'll have to go over to Des Moines, Economic Development.
Stutsman: Let's try to do it on the 3rd after our regular Board meeting with the idea that... You're not going to be here.
Bolkcom: I'm not going to be here.
Lacina: On Thursday?
Bolkcom: Tuesday.
Lacina: Tuesday.
Bolkcom: I'll be here for the meeting, but I have other commitments during the day.
Jordahl: Wednesday.
Lacina: How much time can you come in on Tuesday?
Jordahl: So we've got Thursday, Friday, 5th and 6th.
Lacina: Let's just skip everything else on Tuesday and do an hour of work session then and roll the stuff for that informal into the next week. Or for Thursday's meeting we could have informal and...
Jordahl: I get the sense that whatever Joe's doing... I don't know what your activities for Election Day are but probably doesn't want to put in a couple of hours on that morning on Elections Day. I don't want to speak for you, but is that realistic to spend a couple hours on that morning.
Bolkcom: I'm going... I'll be here for the meeting that day.
Jordahl: That's it.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: I'm suggesting the 5th and 6th of November. Is there a problem there?
Stutsman: We do have on the 5th in the morning.
Jordahl: Yes. Right. So is there any problem with the 6th for anybody?
Bolkcom: Sally's going to be gone the 6th.
Stutsman: I can change those plans. The afternoon of the 5th.
Bolkcom: That's open?
Jordahl: Uh-uh.
Bolkcom: Let's go all day on the 5th.
Jordahl: Great.
Bolkcom: All right.
Lacina: OK.
Bolkcom: There it is. We're going to be meeting on the 5th in executive session to discuss employee evaluations. All right. We're meeting with staff tomorrow morning to go over this and I guess to summarize. It'd be nice to have that form ready to pass out tomorrow for the employee (inaudible) evaluation.
Stutsman: I think the form is ready.
Bolkcom: It would be good to tell the employee that we want them to pick somebody that knows their work and that the Board will pick somebody that knows their work. We'll send those out and we'll want everybody to return them by the 30th of October. Right? Then we will... Every member of the Board will also have forms on each employee and fill those out by the 5th, and we'll (*slight break in tape) a system to compile that information in a way that is easy for the Board to digest it and understand it.
Stutsman: OK.
Jordahl: To bring Charlie's point forward. We have the evaluation from last year with it's... sort of the conclusion to that with the goal statements and stuff. That should in some way be part of that executive session, I think, as a consideration of that last year.
Bolkcom: Right. The employee might want that as well, to refresh them about what their goals were. All right?
Stutsman: The other thing is that we do have to request each employee to give agreement on...
Bolkcom: Agreement on executive session. That's correct.
Stutsman: ... executive sessions.
Bolkcom: We'll do that tomorrow. OK. Carolyn?
Peters: And you do want the meeting with Linn County rescheduled?
Bolkcom: Yes. All right. I think that covers that item.
Welsh: (Inaudible) 16th and 17th (inaudible) 3 days.
Jordahl: Yes. Just block them out.
Lacina: Let's see how far we get.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: Before people start making commitments for those days.
Bolkcom: Keep them clear. All right.