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Commissioner Bell stated his opinion that the pay for staff should be market leading, be implemented this year, and at the current step. He added his belief that some goals on the UPMIC are not challenging or affected by circumstances outside of staff's control, such as a large storm causing major outages, reducing reliability statistics. Commissioner Bell shared that he thinks the UPMIC is a beneficial program but suggested creating more difficult to obtain goals while removing items out of staffs control. Commissioner Stewart noted that the goals for the UPMIC are approved by the Commission in December for the following year. Mr. Hanson offered to have staff bring options for updates to the UPMIC program in response to Commissioner Bell's comments. Ms. Karpinski noted that staff has not always achieved 100% of UPMIC goals. She also advised that the Commission could adjust the weighting of the individual goals. Ms. Karpinski shared her perspective that the program helps staff take pride in their work. Commissioner Zerwas shared that he would be open to reworking UPMIC, in particular how items are weighted. He stated his position that the plan should be slightly leading market pay with the current step implementation. He added that he was not interested in significant back pay, rather the plan would start moving forward. He shared his perspective that the Commission needed to "bite the bullet" to address the compensation issue. Commissioner Westgaard asked if variable components like benefits were factored into the study. Mr. Hanson responded that they were not. Commissioner Westgaard stated his belief that benefits should be factored in, and while longevity pay is not significant to these considerations, he asked how the UPMIC could be factored into the calculations. Mr. Hanson explained that guidance from Baker Tilly was to keep the pay plan and employee benefits as separate issues; suggesting the body approve the plan, implementation scenario, and effective date and then address changes to benefits after a set period of time had passed. Mr. Hanson added that updates to the UPMIC could be brought to the Commission before December so there was time to discuss options. Mr. Hanson sought confirmation on his understanding of the discussion at that point. He stated the consensus appeared to be selecting a market leading plan, a current step implementation scenario, and an effective date that met the budgeted amount of Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Meeting Minutes July 9, 2024 Page 6