001well good afternoon welcome to the Union cab or commissioners regular meeting for Monday May 18 and as usual we'll begin our meeting with the invocation lid seething by Chairman read vice-chairman right thank you bow your heads with me if you would our most gracious Heavenly Father I come to you today a sinner saved by grace and I have never been as confused as I have been in the last days through this pandemic and we're going through but I know you as it says in the book of I say you know all things before they happen and the outcome of it I trust in you I trust in our people I ask that you give us guidance as we try to make decisions for our precious County we ask that you bless all and and keep
002safe all law enforcement fire nurses EMTs everybody that serves the public we realize what a special kind of soul it takes to do that and we just ask that you put your Providence on all of this in Christ's name we pray I pledge allegiance to the United States of America take this opportunity to recognize some of our employees who have accomplished tenure with the county and start with those five year recipients we have Becky Hatley with Building Code Enforcement Bailey Simpson and general services brandy grant Jessica Hines and Patrick Tyson with the Sheriff's Office Carlos Al's with Human Services business office then our 15-year employees we have Dale louder with Health Department and Thomas Louisa with the Sheriff's Office we have some a retirements we have Wayne Miller in the Register of Deeds office with
003six years and Chris Michaelson the library with 17 years we thank these employees for their service I wish them continued success our next item is public hearing opportunity for hearing by claimant regarding request for refund of excise tax paid to the Register of Deeds office so you want present who wishes to comment from Causton logs if not we will move on to informal cards I'm getting the nod we have done that so they'll go to our next item which is the addition deletions and adoption of the agenda let me take the opportunity to add and delete a couple of items from consent first is a resolution for the sale of county property to the town of Waxhaw we'll add that to the consent agenda and delete item nine from consent which is the Tarkio force
004main replacement project and staffs request as Jim yes sir I'd also like to move item 22 our attacks and item number 25 condemnation to the regular agenda first goes any other additions or deletions we have a request food on the agenda all all in favor of the agenda as amended the agenda as amended say aye post you said item 26 said right no sir 22 22 I got 20 200 for 25 to make things easy you'll put them both under old business since we had no I hear a motion to approve could sim indeed all those in favor say aye post takes us to old business item 22 fire tax commission for Russia Oh Thank You mr. chairman in this you know I appreciate the work that you've done Patrick and appreciate your work all
005our staffs done I just have an issue with it from you know in our side of the county the concerns are any change any add addition of people that it's going to add a undue burden so with that that's just my biggest concern with it is the amount that personnel who find new trucks whatever can add to that bill very quickly so I'm not gonna support that item okay the motion would be - are you making a motion - no just it's just my discussion over okay and anybody's welcome look at the motion I'll move that we adopt resolutions to defiant export Fire Rescue Service districts into a Boston existing fee supported fire districts for the following service districts Allen crossroads Baker's beaver Lane Fairview Griffith road Jack sin lanes great news site of Providence
006and URI stack Road Unionville and wing it and adopt a resolution to define tax-supported hemi bridge Fire and Rescue Service District pursuing the County Service District Act all in favor say aye Oh No takes us to item it's going yes sir thank you mark we still are not possession of the perma the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permit for the answer we have not heard from fir on the status of the program okay again I'm not going to be voting and supporting this side do we have a motion and didn't have discussion yes do you like to make the motion I thought we had the discussion and then the value but whatever thank you now discussion this thing was started long before I came on the board we bought Lots we bought a pump station site
007at Lake Tillery while you were I believe chairman right and to think that we're gonna magically get the water from there to the water farm or water treatment plant without having to cross property so I just don't understand I mean we are going to try to be as fair to the people as we can wherever we bring water into this County we're gonna have to condemn property whether it comes up 601 south or comes from Norwood and so I think this is just politics but we all play the game so that's my discussion on yes thank you mr. chinnough Commissioner raped by Sherman rate I think if you had seen some of my discussions from previous meetings throughout the last several years I've been pretty plain in public that I was against the line that
008goes under Union bill over to Indian Trail to transfer the total amount of water that we would receive from the Yadkin project over to that part of the county I've been in meetings with towns I've been in meetings with other political leaders where I've said that over and over again sister the things that I have concerns with is looking at the reporting that we're going to have to do we have to report that we have grown at a rate that we predicted six seven years ago if we don't grow at that rate it says the Environmental Management Commission the state of North Carolina shall take away some of our I be to you that they can take it back so what my concerns are is with a lot of these programs as after seeing this
009paperwork after glucan and reading you know my concern is is that we put 904 million dollars worth of infrastructure in and then we're told thank you for replacing Mecklenburg County's water the gallons that we get from them and then we don't have any after that for Union County so and that's what we're doing we're replacing them in the first phase we're replacing water that Mecklenburg County has set aside for us now in Lancaster and then in the next phase when we do our first report after the first day we drain water from that Lake we have to start reporting to the Environmental Management Commission and when we make that report we are not growing in the rate that we predicted that we were grow in especially in the Rocky River Basin so I've got some
010concerns with it I think that a lot of people in the community have concerns with it and the fact that we don't even have a necessary permitting to withdraw water from the lake as of yet why we have to do this and I sped up fashion and take land from people I've been in meetings where we voted to condemn property for one reason or other I've been pretty plain up against it a lot of other members on this board I don't have any problem is saying that you know and you've had problems with people taking land we've been a pretty consistent board of not wanting to do that it just seems like we're trying to rush things through for some reason and so it's not politics it's concerns that I've had and expressed publicly and
011openly for many years and and I just I just didn't want to vote for it on the consent agenda when I have the opportunity to say no I'm not really ready for this you know we've got some more condemnation coming up that we're going to be discussing for other issues and and I think that other members of this board of expressed concerns about those especially dealing with the Westport twelve Mile Creek you know if you have a problem with the condemnation I would I'm glad that does this board voted to take this up I appreciate that opportunity to say no without saying no to a lot of other good things and consent agenda mr. chairman I passed five years I worked with Stoney on this and I agreed the into condemnation is not something that
012we take very lightly the Yadkin project has never said it was going to go to the west side yeah it's gonna have a tie-in but that's allowing us to have backup if we lose the Catawba the water is for the section of the county north and and east there has never been anything about you know there's a lot of propaganda it was put out fake news as I heard it called that that the water is just for the people in the West and the developers and it couldn't be nothing further from the truth and that's we've all known that this county after we get past this pandemic I think it's going to continue to grow we've got a place that people want to be and we don't have we're not gonna have the sufficient water
013if we don't move forward with this project it's been in the work and I disagree that we're racing to it I think it's been in a project since 2004 and permits I mean there's a lot of things that aren't happened during this pandemic so we're a little we're we'd love to see the the last permit come in but I feel confident it will come in but we don't need to deceive people and giving them bad information and that's my concern Thank You mr. chairman Marconi desk I guess use some questions so that this is all the board is on the same page with this the project that that we're doing how many many millions of gallons of water did we receive now from Lancaster and Mecklenburg County's mr. Russian we've got allocated maybe seven to
014ten million gallons that we could use from Mecklenburg County and from Lancaster County that we're borrowing for lack of a better word I think between what we're getting from contract over and above our 20 million gallon out of the Catawba from Lancaster County and then what we get from Mecklenburg County it it's somewhere between six and nine MGD on a on a own demand as needed basis and generally that's on our high peak high demand days right on average we use about fifteen million gallons a day and Union County on an average day this time of year a little bit less than that but I think when you average it out over the entire years probably running out and so the first stage I'm giving you these numbers I don't have them in front of
015me this I understand okay in the first stage of this project what we're doing is we're bringing in water that's going to basically take the place of that seven seven seven nine million gallons of water that we're currently have allocated to use in an emergency day basis from Mecklenburg and Lancaster counties so again the concern that I have at the whole project now after reading the documentation from the Environmental Management Commission which our consultants agreed to the wording is very strict when the legal term shall is used in a document that's a strong word and in that document it says if we're not meeting our growth projections the they shall look at other places to put that water and again I would hate that we got seven to ten million gallons of water allocated and
016had the rest of it taken away from us so there's just some concerns I have there and I think that this board could send a letter and ask a question of the Environmental Management Commission making sure to clarify that especially with the pandemic and other issues going on but not just that the growth rate that we have the West Fork twelve Mile Creek that we're going to be talking about in July in a work session if we don't do that and we're growing at a slower rate then that comes back to Honus not this year not next year but five years from now the first day we do that project report we have to do a quarterly report to the Environmental Management Commission and the first day we do that is the first you know
017when we start draining water from the lake that's when we know and that's a little bit too late after we put hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure in the ground and as for the sewer plant that we're talking about and under and I know that was bandied about with fake news mr. manager when are we going to have to site the land and purchase the land for that if we decide to do a 12 or lower crooked tree sewer plan when is that on schedule to site that plant we are actively working on siting or at least identifying sites for that plant right now soon so when with this word board could the board could expect to see a recommendation from staff on on siting that plant sometime this fall so this year
018mm-hmm thank you they I would like to add that you have to have a known location before you do the final environmental impact study so you have to own the land the state wants to know where where the site's going to be before you do that mental impasse so it would be purchasing the land purchases will have this fall okay I would I would think it would be sometimes as fall so with that I know I've heard myself and one other Commissioner at least say that they were not in favor of that so again there's some concerns there and if and I think a letter asking the Environmental Management Commission exactly what they're going to hold us to in that letter that was sent to them and that document is is prudent proper it's not
019a political action it's a safeguard for again four or five six years from now when we start drawing water from the lake if we get the permits to do that are they going to take it away from us day one because if they do the Union County ratepayers have paid a massive amount of continued rates only to only to give back the commitments and the water that we've contracted with Mecklenburg County and Lancaster County for and and I think if you talk about being angry you know what you're saying having that backup having something that we can tap into if we have an e.coli if we have some other kind of problem it's absolutely important in water is very important but if we can't benefit from the money we spend other than just to allow
020continued drug today it's going to be a problem for that board and at that time and it may not be any of us it may be a whole new board but it will be a problem for them at that time so that's the concern and I hope that you all understand this is not a for instance not a game play it's something that I've got some serious legitimate concerns about and and just would like to see us at a maybe our next meeting you know send that letter and ask our are we going to lose any IBT if our growth projections don't match what what was done seven years ago six years ago however long it was it good and I think that hopefully they come back and say no we understand we understand the
021problems to understand the economy we understand there's issues but in that document it says shall they shall and that's a strong legal term to be hoping that they don't change their mind at that point mr. chair if I could add just just reporting clarification the sighting of the lower Crooked Creek plant that that project is is in your public works CIP that the Board adopted and we're we're working on that plan on going forward based on that CIP when that recommendation comes back a request to make purchase the board certainly can choose to do what it will at that time but staff is working based on the direction and understanding that we have right now just want to clarify that we're not backing Brian rottens in November December right after the November workshop yes sir
022strong you know I was with you on some of this stuff I think the one thing that you're leaving out when you say oh this is the cost of our water from Mecklenburg $3 and a half a thousand you're aware of that aren't you we we pay that if we use it we do pay a lease on that water but when we take over if we take over the Marshall system and it becomes part of the Union County yeah it can confirm your spat it can furnish when the part and you know Charlotte Mecklenburg because mr. Williams pointed out they have an inter-basin transfer where they can put water from Catawba into the Yak and in Rocky River Basins so we could replace that water too and that's that can be up to six seven
023million gallons today so I just think it gives us a lot of options and the fact that nobody will knowledge how many million dollars this county had already plowed into Yadkin County before it came down to having to to vote to rate increase and if we go with Mecklenburg County at 350 a thousand and scrapped Yadkin we'd have to have another rate increase because it wouldn't cover it I don't think mr. chairman commissioner right what what I'm telling you is that if the whole I guess the I guess the selling point of Yadkin was the 20 plus million gallons per day that we would get from the active project and if you start whittling of millions of gallons to that project because they're not us doing it but the Environmental Management Commission taking that away
024from us due to like the commitments we made to them that's the problem and again they say if they say that no we're not going to hold you to those commitments then it becomes a lot no more easy of a decision but it comes a better decision for the future of the county if they take it away from us and and the only thing we're doing is giving back to giving back to Mecklenburg and Lancaster counties what waters we're using from them whatever the rate is then we still haven't gained anything because this is all of a sudden this 50-year plan becomes a lot less time and we're planning on a long term strategy you know we could get that many gallons of water from getting from Kitab oh we can get it from Pee
025Dee River through the Hanson County there's a lot of places we can get six seven eight million gallons of water from I just want to make sure that again the Environmental Management Commission knows we're not going to probably meet those growth projections that were made many years ago when the things were going this way well I am sure that when the FERC permit comes and we start construction of the adversaries out there of the Yadkin River project will do everything they can to get that number lowered and and we're here to work for the county not against it I understand that and I appreciate that but it's not our decision or anybody locals decision to make its environmental management commissioners decision to make mr. chairman I happened to be on the board of the Lancaster
026water and yet we do I think three million gallons we we buy from them and I don't need and that is based on their will to let us have it we also as you said shell economist said that the county's going growth I think around two thousand forty thousand people weren't two hundred and forty thousand now because we were one of the fastest growing counties in the state will continue to grow and so that's that's a shell we shall grow and the problem is is if we don't do something now we're gonna be in a situation we don't have enough water so it's my great great grandchildren that that we're we're taking actions here to ensure that they'll have a community that that will thrive and have the water it needs I think it was
027great with great insight that we went down this path and so I think we should will continue I look forward to it coming into the county as everyone knows and I've gotten a number of calls recently talking about testing wells and I found out and I didn't know this but I found out that if you're on County water you want to go back to well that's not that's against the statute and so a lot of these wells have contamination that's not good for our citizens and so what we're doing with the Yadkin is ensuring that the future residents of Union County have safe drinking water and I look forward to it coming to fruition you have a motion all in favor of the motion say Aye name forget where we were takes us to item
02829 you business report and results for the 2020 employee Climate Survey that's all it consented yeah I'll put the two items you requested under Oh business no problem good afternoon it's always nice to come before the board to share good news I hope you're gonna find the information that we're about to share on the employee Climate Survey is encouraging as we found it a couple of introductory remarks about the survey as reminders the format that Union County uses is the federal employee viewpoint survey and this is the second survey released following this format the first was in 2018 the second was earlier this year this is a validated survey tool that has been used by the federal government for over a decade that measures multiple climate areas and for specific indices for feedback the survey
029is based on several topic areas that focus on employees personal work experience satisfaction on-the-job work unit information supervision on-the-job organizational leadership Union County as an organization and also looks at work life programming and demographic information the employee Climate Survey is conducted every other year and at the completion of each survey all response data is provided to third party consultants to review summarized and prepare general recommendations based on survey outcomes we use the outside consultants for several reasons however primarily is to have objective subject matter experts analyze the responses and validate any statistically significant findings the first survey released in 2018 rendered overall positive results from county employees and our goals with the second survey were to increase the participation rate in the survey work to steadily improve and identified areas of opportunity and maintain or
030improve and previously noted high-performing areas I can share that all of these goals were met with the 20/20 survey with any survey there will be areas of opportunity identified where work can continue for growth and improvement our survey results are extremely encouraging as a whole and positive rating responses increased from 2018 to dr. Shannon and her colleague from Queens University completed the survey analysis and review again this year for Union County dr. Chen LAN will be discussing the key survey results and recommendations with you today via GoToMeeting you have been provided with the copy of the presentation slides that dr. Chen LAN will be covering and will also be receiving the full survey report at the conclusion of this meeting from the clerk first we have in short introductory video from dr. chan 'ln and
031then i'll be turning it over to her to go over the survey analysis hello the Board of County Commissioners and other attendees I'm not their dodge Hamlet I am the lead consultant on the 2018 and 2020 Union County climate survey projects my colleague dr. Chandra petty and I conducted an independent analysis of the raw data provided to us from the participant case we analyzed it and generated a 60 page full report for the public and order and in a staff members and also a 25 page of rigid version executive summary for folks who are interested in a shorter version I would like to share with you first that the news is very good it was good in 2018 at the time at Union County had a healthy climate in 2020 it's even healthier and that
032is very good news and some he says markedly so and a lot of that fed it really does go to the leadership in Union County B to give you an example of 2018 to 2020 in terms of growth in 2018 51 of 72 items on the survey should have a strengths and that in a strength has identified when at least 65 percent of the participants identify something some element of a climate be at work supervision perceptions of senior leadership of the work itself as either positive or very positive now fast forward to 2020 and 64 out of 72 items were also identified as a strength so there was an increase of 13 items of climate that were then moved toward straight staffs in both cases there were no quote challenges which would be essentially low
033ratings were negative perceptions of the climate in various ways so there's just so much good news in this report I will be in the next 20 minutes describing more about the survey itself its validity about the details of the conclusions that can be drawn from the data and also a sad of recommendations to guide future action I again would say that the county leadership is really has been very impressive in the actions that it's taken since 2018 for one I'm aware that there was a trust project undertaken that involved many of the county's leadership to educate leaders on how to develop stronger trust with the county and with their own direct reports and their perceptions of them as leaders and it took an entire year of the county leadership styman fulfilled the promise in that
034project and I think it really has shown in the results that we've seen here in the 20/20 I look forward to continuing the dialogue with you I would also like to mention that dr. Chandra petty has a PhD in analytics is a statistician by Nature and a business analytics professor at Queen's University about 35 to 40 years of experience I have 30 years of experience in academia and corporate America and a doctorate in management which is a broad umbrella of a number of topics and we need leadership climate / culture and so I think you can go very confident that the data are handled with great care and that the conclusions that we can draw there are valid and that the recommendations come from someone meaning we need who has seen many of these surveys
035and has helped companies think through how to move forward with results this is great news she can go through her analysis and then you'll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of her presentation as well alright good afternoon everyone I believe I mean you did in the background wonderful first I'd like to say to all of the employees in attendance and the board I'd like to thank you for your service to our community and I'm also very pleased to be the bearer of good news of the day the as Julie aptly introduced to the survey we have used the FEV survey with some encouraging results and the as an introductory statement once again to say that in 2018 there was a healthy climate and in 2020 there's even a healthier climate you'll see
036that there were games made in a number of key areas and the leadership I really believe was laudable in its effort to enhance the climate over this time now expense as Julie described has been used by many federal agencies over the last decade just in 2018 alone over 600,000 employees took this so and it is a valid measure when I've looked at a lot of climate surveys I think this was incredibly thorough and thoughtful and so when Union County presented it has the tool of choice I was actually very pleased because I think you could consider it to be a good way to get at the essential climate feature in addition it's a good indicator of how close you are to being a best workplace and I think what we can see is that a
037Union County is a good place to work and can continue in its growth - what - point - Julie's comment at the same time I think this is also cause frankly for celebration there was a lot of work that I know went into that and everyone should feel very proud about the progress made let me share a bit of conclusions here and I'd like to start by saying these what I'm showing here is the value of employee engagement when you are looking at climate surveys you're also getting a rough estimate of how engaged employees are on the left-hand side you can see that organizations that typically are a leader that is they are high engagement organizations tend to have very strong profitability whereas quote laggards with low engagement tend to be far less profitable arguably
038it's important to have engagement in and unto itself as a healthy employer were employees in addition the engagement levels are very important predictors of performance retention and in your case the ability to serve the public with high quality services okay so briefly and we have keep in mind Julie mentioned that the entire 60 page report and the abridged version will be made available shortly I'm going to keep my remarks sort of high level for you I'm going to offer you a snapshot comparisons between 2018 and 2020 both at times between with in Union County so is the result 2018 versus now and also Union County relatives the average employer or government agency that took this visa vie the federal government to the broader results that have been gathered from this last year and we'll talk
039about Keith green areas for development and I'll make some recommendations going forward now notably one thing to notice here in the left-hand column this is just a snapshot of who took this and to Julie's comment the participation rate increase seventy four percent that is a very very healthy figure before it was healthy at 65 percent I think Union County collapse that our turn we gain Buster's to get as many people to realize they could take this it's available to them they share their perspectives and so participation rates the participation rate jumped notably by comparison the agency this past year when folks took it was in the low forties that should tell you something just about the fact that people it was communicated that this existed and was a possibility notably again 51 out of the
04072 items in 2018 were considered to be strengths now in 2020 64 of those 72 items or strengths no challenges that is overly low naked with negative perspective and no if you notice the lowest ten lowest positive scores in 2018 started at a low of 48 percent viewing a feature of the climate positively that has subsequently jumped or a sense they all 10 items up 6 points it's not easy to do that climate is not easy to change and so once again a reason to law at the moment here are some of the lowest percentage positive right here I'm not going to go into these in great detail because once again the entire survey can offer you each item and a score well what I'd like to bring to your to your perspective or your
041attention is the idea that on the right hand column the lowest item promotions and my work unit are based on performance or merit was it 48 percent and then went higher as we move down the right-hand column in 2020 the lowest percentage positive in my work unit differences in performance are recognized in a meaningful way started at 56 again much higher this time around okay now your highest positive numbers very very high so if you look when I when needed I'm willing to put in the extra effort to get a job done the work I do is important and I'm constantly looking for ways to do my job better these I will say are fairly consistent with be generalized result within the federal government nonetheless it's a good thing when you're seeing these kinds of
042numbers when people feel that they're willing to put in the time to do their work and they believe their work is important that is a good predictor of how people are feeling when they come to work every day now this is something that I I was very excited to see frankly in knowing many of the County senior leadership members the four highest you are seeing the most improved items between 2018 and 2020 the number one is I have a high level of respect for Union County a senior management number two creativity and innovation are recognized number three also a sign of recognition and number four points one more time to senior management if you look over here on the right arguably the four areas that collectively had the most notable improvement were increases in satisfaction
043with senior management which could be a function of a number of different things including there was a restructure conducted and also just a lot of effort and thinking on the part of in your leadership to really utilize the 2018 results as something meaningful and work to make change number two strength and performance management score number three improved personnel diversity and equity perceptions and number four enhance perceptions of recognition recognition I would like to note that number three diversity and equity perceptions they are higher and that is something that should be recognized as an area of improvement you will see later in the presentation that there will still be areas that can be improved going forward okay notably there were only four items that declined out of 72 that is very very healthy and I would
044even like to say that these are minor decline they went down 1% and if I were and we are myself with in Union County I would pay attention to them and think how can we pull these up they are not cause for alarm the highest decrease between 2018 and 20 was how satisfied are you with your pay and that may impart be an artifact of the fact that in 2018 when the survey was originally administered there was a compensation project underway and so a number of people were experiencing possible increases in their pay so it may be a fact of that temporary elevated sense of up I just got a pay raise versus more negative feelings around pay in 2020 it's hard to say frankly and but I think that that could absolutely have been
045part of this and maybe even a lot of predicting that nonetheless it's important at all time for any employer should be very careful about pay because it is such a strong predictor of people's satisfaction and their likelihood of being with an employer okay so there were two items that were included in the inning Tony surveys that were not included in the Fed survey and that is there was sort very very few modifications made between fans in Union County however there were two that were more specifically for Union County so for example one of them had to do with training perceptions the team that that's on the project decided it wanted to know how are we doing with training and perceptions of learning and development opportunities and they view them very positively so notably out of
04667 out of 70 items that would be relevant for comparison Union County scores higher than the overall government results there were improvements in positive perceptions between 2018 and 2020 on 62 of 72 items so when you're trying to look at are we moving more positively you got a good jump on a bunch of them notably most all of them in addition we did a separate analysis on negative perception so the very fairly small group that and we don't like this we view it negatively or we're very sad as dissatisfied with something we did a separate analysis and those in general on the items the negative side has moved toward neutrality or positive as well okay now in comparing change I did a separate analysis so the Union County would have a sense of how are
047we doing in terms of improvement games relative to the rest of the government who participates in that and to be honest there may be a bias and better employers in the federal government that take valuing their employees seriously are participating here so I wanted to see how are how are we doing as a county in growth rodent as no parole so when you look at that on over half of the items 46 of 72 Union County between 2018 and 2020 made higher games then did everybody else and for lack of a better term and by the way in a number of cases there were significant increases I mean very impressive increases made that would there's little likelihood that anything would be due to chance in that case along six item stands in Union County are
048tracking generally about the theme and then along 18 item fifth and I would say slightly slightly out pieces a positive strides in terms of movement just as a framework most of these items generally move up one me to each year so to give you an example think earlier to the 10 and 11 point that were gained in a number of climate areas and celebration okay two items as I knew it were not applicable to analysis in this case among the items were ABS does a piece Newton County increases and that doesn't mean that Union County isn't increasing right these are very good results however where fezzes is outpacing Union County most of those relate to supervised or perceived supervisor behaviors that could enhance non supervisors engage we'll talk a little bit more about that okay
049here are the four primary indices that ads create we recreated them in 2018 and 2020 were Union County what I'd like to draw your attention to is that Union County has experience if you look in the far right hand column then you've experienced gains in all four of them three points one point four point three points those are good games in addition if you look at Union County relative to the rest of the group and this is remember hundreds of thousands of employees we are at Union County is at 10 11 and eight points higher on the primary indices and in 2020 feds on the whole did not generate an EC aaf index which is the only reason why we can't draw comparisons in addition smartly the Climate Survey included some questions about the desirability
050of work life program the rankings included people were asked to rank all of these items in terms of importance and I will just be to the top three given the final report will be distributed shortly the most desired three words have a floating holiday or birthday off paid maternal and paternal leave or short paid short term disability options and paid hours for voluntary community activities now in terms of satisfaction with some of the existing benefits that Union County offers you can see to the right the level of satisfaction here what I would also like to point to is that this does not mean if you're at 61 it doesn't mean that people aren't satisfied included in the items was a potentially a non not applicable or didn't use a service so a number of people
051just didn't use the service but people are experiencing satisfaction when they're taking advantage of these opportunities the highest money and notably at the employee Expo event okay now here is where I'd like to jump into the climate development areas and almost through these relatively quickly to get to my recommendation number one is that if you tease out supervisors versus non supervisors you could be talking about a hundred people versus 600 people in comparison the items for the source for non supervisors are lower with an average of five points lower in some respect that doesn't surprise me because there's something about the way the jobs are constructed and a senior level and inherently can feel more motivating at the same time it's an area where I know undoubtedly Union County given its seriousness as an employer
052will want to continue to develop so if the four declined items obviously are an area for development once again they were small and not cause for alarm in a few cases there were some modest results on items and I would say that could be an area of attention were further invigorating development in this area those areas and even though there was a jump on performance management items they were still relatively lower than some of the other one so I would recommend continued emphasis in that way as I'll talk about shortly now I got very excited I would say and I don't know a competitor in life and as I was going through all of these results you know right Union challenge give it an excellent job these are the most of these entities so I
053took a very close look at 1617 it depending on which category it was of large excuse me medium sized organizations that had taken that and Union County scored out outward almost all of them the two that it didn't beat well they were the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Trade Commission you can see their areas versus Union County it's close but I think you might use them and they benchmark for you know growth going forward in the area of intrinsic work experience there was no improvement on this when you when you aggregate these into an index and so that is an area whole so for improvement that I think could readily be addressed there was one example number 12 I know how my work relates to the agency's goals and priorities given that senior
054management has been working to communicate throughout Union County that could be an area that I think fairly easily could be enhanced okay with diversity and inclusion there were strides made however if you look at global satisfaction among different groups be it supervisors versus non supervisors individuals to identify a straight versus as LGBTQ white versus Hispanic there are some groups that are not experiencing Newton County quite as positively as others so that's going to be an area for targeting now recommendation once again I will try to be brief so that I can keep open the Florida any questions that you might have so I have nine recommendations one is that you either choose to administer yearly surveys were these every other year I know I think I would say you could be very comfortable if you
055did it every other year given the amount of work that actually goes into that it is I think a really good opportunity for Union County need that has an impressive and it's undertaken and I think that should really continue because what I would say in all of this is somebody who's very well schooled in organizational change and has helped organizations and their journey to change you're in a pretty far path along making these improvements what they call dick so making these changes snick so you're just a better healthier workplace at the end of the process sometimes organizations let up and they call the wind prematurely so it's really gonna be important that you continue to keep your eye on the ball and keeping moving second that I would suggest establishing climate vision and plan and
056an accompanying on an annual basis and really set up a clear plan were you a Gould a vision statement for the climate targeted strategies ownership of the process and checkpoints along the way so that this is something that you're talking about frequently and that's going to be what will allow you that can again continue to improve I would recommend that you pursue best workplace designations I am I an out in my review of all this I was looking at best workplace designations and I really think that Union County should be going for those that you can happily market that in your efforts to showcase the county as if you live and eat continue to leverage Union County leadership development organizational capability strength a little bit of a mouthful what I'm trying to say there is
057Union County invest a lot in talent development and leadership development I think enjoy a strength of the viewers I would recommend that you continue to do that particularly for example in developing program for supervisors with their efforts with their direct reports and you might even on for example a program for high potentials who are not currently managing but who are nominated or self nominate for participation leverage HR and to communicate policy as an existing efforts and strongly consider new benefit the contemporary workplace is considering parental leave programs short-term disability and I'm not surprised to see folks clamoring for that and so that's the kind of thing that you might consider implementing over time in addition I had a really nice conversation at the end of this with HR about how the it's important for people
058to know what their benefits are and Union County offers a number of attractive benefits that they probably just need to continue to communicate to people so they realize really what they're getting because a lot of organizations don't really know what they're getting in Union County does offer quite a bit so just continue to communicate another would be to evaluate resources team capacity I think if you continue on your path with these development efforts and even try to go a bit deeper into the organization for leadership development you may find that for example hiring a part-time staff member to help with some of that administrative workload would be a strong return on investment evaluate compensation guideline to consider possible kula and merit consideration I'll be brief in that communication is always a big issue it is
059a big predictor of turnover and overall engagement and satisfaction and if you offer merit raises that only track inflation people will simply see it as a way to track inflation so you simply might look at every other year how many years you think is necessary to go out the possibility of doing both cooler and merit considerations to the degree that you think that's a possibility okay the last two one would be to implement a broader equal opportunity policy and anti-discrimination statement because of the need for consideration of diversity inclusion across different groups so you might look at policies of neighboring counties how you can frame the wording as inclusively as possible and then lastly would be to create a countywide strategic plan those efforts may be under Fletch and just haven't been unveiled yet and/or
060they're packaged in a particular way so that may be happening I've raised that because I know how serious senior management has been about communicating its strategic efforts in the past and I think that's been very helpful and people will more readily see how their work has meaning and focus and where they see it into the big picture when they see the strategic document and have communicated broadly widely for all layers of Management and will greatly heighten engagement just by knowing they matter and here is how it may we'll eat it that's what and just want to mention that you could in fact enhance engagement on that so as I end my presentation I would like to give a little bit of a nod on the idea of return on investment of employee engagement that what's
061really important that you align employee engagement with county strategic aims and priority and that's when you really see that people are working toward what the county aims to fulfill for it popular and then lastly interests and strategic questions how will engagement help the organization need a subjective how can we compete for top talent and I think you can do that very readily in part by further marketing how healthy decline it is how can we ensure we have a pipeline for retirement most organized it governmental organizations right now are facing pipeline shortages and people are going to be ready baby boomers will be ready to retire and leadership development effort and an engaged populace will be better able to fulfill those key role and how can engagement allow us to provide high-quality services to residents again
062I would say that the function of really communicating with employees about where are they their role within the strategic plan that we needed by leadership so with that in mind I'd like to offer as I take questions if you can still see me a Somali here's to you I'm standing here I have my champagne ready because I do think that this is really an opportunity for celebration of a lot of hard work and as an employee unfolded who looks at the thing I really think you should feel very proud questions for dr. Chaman yes and let me turn this back over yep I think the policy here won't let us have any champagne glasses we'll toast anyway Commissioner Helms yes I'd like to know does the survey give a breakdown for individual supervisors so they
063can focus on if they individually have a weakness within their group joy I think you can help I will we don't break it down for individual supervisors but we do by division so each division director if they had a certain number of responses did receive an individual report so that they can work on any weaknesses work on strengths continue work on strengths and so forth for their specific divisions my question our divisions are rather large so how do you work down to the individual group to find out where you've got a problem that might be driving this well they can always do follow-up surveys they do have a tool that's available to them currently the where they can do follow-up surveys that are mini surveys to drill into certain areas that they want to they
064also receive specific advice from a separate consultant that did the division reports that gave them some ideas about how they could address any areas of weakness that they had in their divisions Julie what was the minimum number of responses before a division report was produced 12 or more responses and in 2018 it was 15 so we lowered the number in order to capture some more and be able to provide some more information down to smaller departments I might add if I could quickly add something I'm trying having a little bit of trouble hearing I think that's a very good question it's important climate surveys to look you're and the body the lower-level bodies in an organization because otherwise people will not fill out a survey or they will fear their identities being disclosed for better
065or worse so the county smartly chunked it out the way that it did I also know that at the division level the division has took these results very experienced ly investigated their effort down the organization Thank You Don mr. rushing has a question Thank You mr. chairman can you tell me why we're asking sexual orientation and whether or not our employees or transgender it seems an odd question when we would get the overall global satisfaction why would we break those folks out because as you were saying about the identifiers I'm sure we probably don't have very many transgender employees but if we do what if they're showing up ten percent or twenty percent satisfaction rate wouldn't that target those people for retaliation from their supervisors or again what would those numbers be if they were
066lumped in with the global satisfaction [Music] okay we're asking sexual orientation and we're asking gender for transgender or chose not to answer those numbers are lower and an indicated indicating we need some type of improvement there but why are we asking those questions why would our why would we not just lump those in with everybody else because especially the transgender I can see that being something that if a supervisor has a transgender employee that's not satisfied with their job they're they're going to be looked at and and again it's a if it's like if you said how many how many Eskimo Alaskan Eskimo people do we have here you know you're really separating something out there that I don't know and while we separate that out and can I start off to answer just to
067clarify for the demographic information that's only included in the organization-wide reporting we don't split that out for the division reporting so the divisions aren't receiving demographic information and those smaller reports that's only lumped into those organization-wide results and then secondly that's included in the fehb survey and that's the reason that we've kept that same format for the demographic information to include those same categories that the Fed's survey uses beyond that I know Don's got some some insight on that that she can share as well if the demographic information moves and dong can probably speak to that he's asking about the global satisfaction in to see yeah uh-huh if that's driven at all and so yeah I'm not allowing me to see that that there if he's acting so again there with me the global satisfaction
068for LGBTQ employers is lower fairly substantially so and that is the Julie's comment it is still the number of respondents was sufficiently large who made the comparison and people were still comfortable sharing that information is automatically and with an aggregate account level versus being broken out it is a if you want to call it contemporary addition to Climate Survey as a way to figure out whether people are bringing their best selves to work and themselves to work because we know that engaged employees feel like they can bring their whole selves to work and so my sense would be that you would get you wouldn't have people being honest about it if they didn't know they could share that with the county the orientation and I'm sorry I don't perhaps early can text me the whole
069question if I'm in it but it is something that's usually used and included in these surveys it is just not broken out to a very low level because I think there have some question so the identity may become known when they just want it to be but at the Union County level it efficiently appeared and so we're not asking that on hiring documents no thank you any other questions or comments thank you dr. Chandler Thank You Julie thank you excellent work Thank You Don thank you to everybody that solutions and congratulate them on a win when when it's night that win take care mr. manager mr. chairman I have three things to share with the board this afternoon one a reminder that we have a budget workshop scheduled for this Wednesday May the 20th beginning
070at 9:00 a.m. it's scheduled to last until noon and the human resource training room we have a number of items to update the board on regarding the budget the budget development and what you can look forward to in the managers recommendation secondly this week we have experienced some concerns on the part of some of our public works customers in the that are supplied by Catawba River water and those concerns mainly are generated around the taste and odor issues that they haven't experienced in the past our staff immediately upon learning upon learning that they were these issues began additional water sampling to determine if we could determine if it was a distribution related issue we found that it was not a distribution system related issue we also determined that there was nothing no unhealthy factors in
071the water it did have an odor and it did have a different taste after taking several samples many samples in fact at our water plant we determined that the the cause of the odor and the taste issues were coming from the water plant specifically the new water reservoir which has experienced a an algae bloom which we have we just as you remember we just opened the reservoir this is the first warm weather season that we would be using that reservoir and we've had this algae bloom that to occur which causes the the taste and odor issues we're very well aware of the concerns and the community amongst the customers many of them called our customer service department and customer service lines we heard from many of them online we certainly understand the the the level
072of concern staff made every effort to communicate what steps we were taking in order to determine the cause and this past Friday we were able to produce a letter an email and online responses to our customers to let them know the exact cause and what was going on with with the water and what steps we were taking in order to mitigate the algae bloom the number of phone calls has significantly decreased today and along with the the number of emails etc that we've been getting so we've made every effort to get the word out with factual information the only thing that prohibited us from doing that in the first day or two was the fact that we the the water samples had to be made and it took time to culture those and get those
073reports back so let you know what was going on there the third thing I'd like to mention that tonight on the consent agenda I thought was a very important item a milestone if you will because it was about this time last year that the board was discussing the short line extension program in the county had just made some fairly significant funding changes to the short line extension program and we're learning of several concerns that specific areas of our specific well specific areas in our County had specific residents but on the agenda tonight was the approval of the construction contract for the Pinewood forest project the engineer's estimate was that that project would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars the bid came in and was awarded at two hundred and
074sixty thousand one hundred ninety thousand dollar difference between what was projected and what came in on bids I think that's good news all the way around that project construction will start very soon and with that I wish y'all all of a good evening sir mr. Helms yes I I like to congratulate staff on the improvement custom employee satisfaction it takes significant work to make that kind of improvements and you'll do a good job thank you also I'd like to express my appreciation for Crimestoppers starting this morning at about 9:30 Crimestoppers board of directors and myself handed out over 400 meals to law enforcement all the law enforcement officers in Union County were included this afternoon between 4:00 and 6:00 expect another 150 meals to be handed out and when in particular I'd like to recognize
075Reed Helms for his organization and push for this and also sparrows hilltop for their contribution making it happen it was interesting we had some time in 15 minutes we'd have a hundred hundred people show up or 100 meals were taken so we appreciate Crimestoppers and what they do for our community and especially thank our law-enforcement community for all they do 365 days a year thank you Mark sort of stole one of my thunders but on the Pinewood Forest Drive in plain view Road I certainly hope that's an indicator of what's to come that's about $65 a foot to put line in and of course that's we've designated so much money per year if it comes in under estimates we'll be able to do more lines and that's one been one of the big commitments of
076this board and another thing that wasn't on the agenda but I did hear it and I think it was merits talking about I heard that our Register of Deeds krystal geared had had a big more than normal influx of business and I realized when revenue goes up it takes more work to do that and we appreciate all you're doing you know you're one of those things when everything goes right nobody really hears anything about it so and a lot of departments so that way if everything goes right so certainly appreciate all y'all do down to hear mr. Issa Thank You mr. chairman we'll just ask everybody to be in I've been your thoughts and prayers all the families affected by the pandemic and the business owners this is a trying time for families we saw
077this weekend we're part of governor Cooper's stay at home order and prohibition of churches meeting was struck down so hopefully that governor Cooper will see fit to follow the leads of governor and other states surrounding North Carolina and and let those folks get back to work and let our economy get flowing again Thank You mr. chairman mr. aegon's I would just echo what commissioner rushing said I'm glad to see our County offices back open and certainly not operating quite the way they were in the past but starting to see some semblance of normalcy so proud of that and I hope that like Commissioner rushing said governor Cooper will take notice of the state's surrounding us I can tell you I was in South Carolina over the weekend and they are certainly open for business folks
078are certainly exhibiting social distancing and acting appropriately and so I hope that we have the opportunity as as our license plate says we were first and freedom but I think right now South Carolina's got us beat I have no further comments I'll offer a motion to adjourn all in favor say aye you