Austin City Council has change of heart concerning a statement for work with Assessments International for employee 360 evaluations at Monday meeting
The Austin City Council addressed a resolution approving a statement for work with Assessments International for employee 360 evaluations at their regularly scheduled meeting Monday evening.
The council moved at a work session following their November 7th meeting to switch from the company Employee Strategies to Assessments International to conduct the 360 evaluations of executive level employees and mid-level managers who work for the city of Austin, citing mainly 33 individual evaluations, including 10 executive one-on-ones, 23 mid-level manager one-on-ones and a two-hour recap with consultants that would be provided by Assessments International for a cost of $52,840, or approximately $1,600 per person on average, compared to 10 evaluations to be performed by Employee Solutions at $4,500 per individual or $45,000. Some council members, though, stated that they had had a change of heart concerning the proposed switch after further analyzing the proposal from Employee Solutions, and they also cited backlash from city employees after the council’s actions at their last meeting, with some of those concerns being read to the council in a letter at the meeting by Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Chad Heard, who cited employees trust in Employee Solutions in airing certain grievances in working for the city of Austin to them, only to have that trust broken with the proposed switch to Assessments International. The employees respectfully requested in the letter that the council table the issue to explore other options available, and the council moved unanimously to do just that.
In other business at their meeting Monday evening, the Austin City Council approved grant amendment Number 3 to the Community Flood Risk Reduction Grant with the Minnesota DNR, as Public Works Director Steven Lang stated to the council that an additional $4 million would be allocated toward the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant Flood Mitigation project, and the expiration date of the grant would be extended to December 31st, 2027. Lang stated that those dollars, coupled with local option sales tax proceeds will fund a two-phase levee project at the Wastewater Treatment Plant planned for construction in 2025 and 2027.
In other business, the council approved a voter operations, technology and election resources, or VOTER agreement, and they also moved to set polling locations for city elections in 2024, which will include the City Council chambers at City Hall and Hastings Gym at Austin High School in the First Ward, Southgate School and Banfield Elementary in the Second Ward, and the Mower County Senior Center and Ellis Middle School in the Third Ward.
The next regularly scheduled meeting for the Austin City Council will be held on Monday, December 4th at 5:30 p.m. at the City Council chambers.
