Title
Evaluation of the Opportunity to Merge Alachua County and City of Gainesville Equal Opportunity Functions (B)
Explanation
At the request of the City Commission, the City Manager established a team to evaluate the feasibility of combining the City of Gainesville Office of Equal Opportunity and the Alachua County Equal Opportunity Division. This request was made in light of the fact that the County's Equal Opportunity Director position is currently vacant, and the City's Equal Opportunity Director recently announced his intention to retire in September, 2009.
City and County staff recognized this as an opportunity to showcase City/County cooperation. The result could enhance service to citizens and possibly reduce costs to both organizations - which is especially attractive in these difficult fiscal times.
The evaluation team was composed of:
City Staff: Russ Blackburn, City Manager; Jimmie Williams, EO Director; Sandy Barnard, HR Director; and Charlie Hauck, Senior Assistant City Attorney.
County Staff: Randall Reid, County Manager; Jacqueline Chung, EO Supervisor; Kim Baldry, HR Manager; and Dave Wagner, County Attorney.
To perform the review, staff gathered extensive information about the size, jurisdiction, reporting relationships, staff and budget size for County and City Equal Opportunity Offices throughout the State of Florida. Ratios of EO staff to employees and to citizens were calculated to evaluate the appropriateness of current staffing levels. A comparison of the current City and County EO Offices and their roles and responsibilities was also done and investigation and technical assistance workload was evaluated. Currently the City EO Office has 6 FTE's including the Director and the County has 4.75 positions, including the Director. A summary of this analysis is attached.
The team identified six possible options for merging the offices:
1. Merge the offices under the County
2. Merge the offices under the City
3. Maintain current offices under a shared director
4. Create an independent office similar to the Airport Authority
5. Do not merge the offices, but have County do all the external investigations
6. Do not merge the offices, but have the City do all the external investigations
Considerations: In evaluating each of these options, several considerations came to light:
The City's Equal Opportunity Director is a Charter Officer and the Charter has specific requirements that must be considered;
The City and County have different ordinances. The City prohibits discrimination for any employer with five or more employees, while the County includes only employers with fifteen or more employees. The City has a broader definition of protected class to include sexual orientation and gender identity;
Legal staff expressed concern about increased liability for each organization under the first four models. The work for each Office has two major components - providing internal resources and services, including complaint intake and investigation for City or County employees; and intake and investigation of external complaints for citizens working for employers that are large enough to be covered under ordinance, or for other citizens complaining they have been discriminated against based upon a protected class;
Annexations continue to shift the jurisdiction of external investigations from the County to the City; and
The Directors for both the City and the County participate in the work of the department by conducting or participating in the investigation process and other day-to-day work.
Based upon the analysis, staff considered Options 3 and 6 (from page 1) to be viable and added "continue to maintain two separate departments" as a seventh option. A cost comparison of the models is attached.
Option 3 - Maintain current offices under a shared director. In this model, an inter-local agreement would be created for the shared director and governance of this department that would report through the City of Gainesville Charter Officer position. Staff would maintain their current City or County employment as is. Under a Shared Direction, each entity would have a supervisor at each physical location to provide service to employees, and the County would reclassify its Director position while the City would reclassify a position to a supervisory level. This would result in no reduction in FTEs. Staff believes that based upon the requirements of the City's Charter Officer position and because of the complexity of each organization's policies and procedures, collective bargaining agreements, benefits, liability and so on, that it would not be prudent to completely merge the departments. In addition, staff believes that there are a number of potential conflicts under this governance model. The Charter Officer would lead both City and County EO functions, but the County citizens do not have a vote in this representation.
Fiscal Impact: No reduction in FTE, but it is estimated that this would result in a savings of $29,121. There is some potential increase in liability for both organizations.
Option 6 - The City would do all external investigations through an inter-local agreement. The recommendation is for this to be in the City for two reasons: one is the Charter Officer Amendment has stipulations that would make it difficult to assign this to the County; and, the majority of employees working for covered employers fall within the City limits, or in soon-to-be annexed areas. This arrangement would simplify access for citizens by providing one office for discrimination complaints regardless of location in City or County. Staff also believes that this option may reduce duplication of efforts with respect to public education and outreach. Currently both offices may attend the same community events or host outreach activities and provide essentially the same message regarding equal opportunity.
Fiscal Impact: For Option 6, the County would reduce one position and use those funds to contract for these services with the City. It is estimated that this would result in a savings of $13,935; however the actual fiscal impact will be determined by negotiations with Alachua County for payment to the City for provision of external investigations. The County currently averages 3-4 investigations per year but provides "technical assistance" to an average of about 20 clients per year. A significant difference in the external programs for each entity is the technical assistance provided by the County. Technical assistance is provided on non-jurisdictional complaints by framing and notarizing a formal complaint, referring it to the appropriate external agency and assisting the client as requested through the investigative process conducted by the external agency. Assuming that the City takes on both the technical assistance and investigations currently performed by the County, they would use the funds to add an investigator to handle the additional work load.
Option 7 - Continue to maintain two separate departments. Staff believes that the merger of these two departments is especially difficult because of the City's Charter Officer requirement, the differences in the ordinances and the fact that there is minimal cost savings resulting from a merger. Therefore, continuing to maintain two separate departments is a viable alternative.
Fiscal Impact: There is no cost associated with Option 7.
Fiscal Note
Option 3 "maintain current offices under a shared director" would result in a savings of $29,121. Option 6 "Do not merge the offices, but have the City do all the external investigations" would result in a saving of $13,935. There is no savings with Option 7 "continue to maintain separate departments".
Recommendation
Staff recommends option 7 or 3. Staff believes that, no matter the recommendation adopted, that a great opportunity exists for an on-going dialogue between the City and the County EO staff that will benefit the community. Therefore, we recommend the implementation of a joint inter-governmental City-County Equal Opportunity advisory staff group that meets quarterly to discuss and evaluate issues relative to equal opportunity in the community.