5.2. ERMUSR 09-09-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Wage and Benefits Committee: John Dietz—Chair John Dietz—Chair Al Nadeau—Vice Chair Troy Adams—General Manager Daryl Thompson—Trustee Mark Fuchs—Electric Superintendent Theresa Slominski—Office and Finance Manager MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: September 9, 2014 5.2 SUBJECT: Wage and Benefit Committee Update—Proposed Position Changes BACKGROUND: On August 11th the Wage and Benefits Committee met to review personnel projections relating to planned organizational growth. The Committee also discussed anticipated changes to positions relating to the National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) software conversion. A number of the changes discussed are expected to happen after the Customer Care and Billing (CC&B)module of the software go live in February 2015. There were also a number of changes that could be required immediately that relate to the Accounting and Business Solutions (ABS) module that went live in August. The Committee had consensus on the need for these discussed changes and gave direction to management to further analyze the specific details of the changes and the expected changes to labor costs. The Committee gave consensus to bring back the position changes with details and costs to the Commission for consideration. DISCUSSION: Of the changes discussed,three changes have recently developed as critical and time sensitive: Billing Specialist The first is the Billing Specialist position which has been vacant since mid-June. This position is responsible for the preparation of the monthly billing statements, processing of automatic bank pay files, and other customer service and general offices duties. With the NISC CC&B conversion scheduled to go live in February 2015, the majority of this position's duties go away. Because of these major changes, the position was not filled after it became vacant in June. All of this position's duties have been absorbed by the Customer Service Manager and other office personnel as the CC&B module is implemented. Temporary accounting staff has been brought in to the office for supplemental assistant with the conversion and have helped to complete some of the displaced job duties relating to the shift in work load. Even though the job duties for the Billing Specialist are going away in 2015, the need for the position does not. There will be significant need for additional accounting support. The Committee discussed backfilling the vacancy for this position in 2015 with an accountant. This accountant would then fill an additional and absolutely critical role of backing up the Purchasing r0111EREI 11 r<,W . -1-1:1 Page 1 of 3 NATURE Reliable Public Power Provider P O W E R E D T o S v E 28