In the fall of 2002, the City Council approved revisions to the existing performance review processes for the City Manager and City Attorney. Some of the new procedures require the use of an outside consultant. The consultant would serve to facilitate a number of meetings as well as implement a 360-degree review process to obtain input from the City Manager and City Attorney staff.

For the 2002-2003 performance review cycle the Council appointed an ad-hoc subcommittee to review and make a recommendation to the entire Council for a facilitator. The ad-hoc committee is recommending that the City Council approve the proposal from Joseph Shepela for an amount not to exceed $16,000.

The revisions to the existing performance review process are intended to allow the City Council to better analyze and review the performance of its two city employees. Report to Council RTC 02-381 provides the details of the changes to the process.

As part of the review process, the Council has adopted a number of steps that either require or could benefit from the use of an independent consultant.

The process would normally call for the Director of Human Resources to submit a list of names to the Mayor and Vice-Mayor, prior to the beginning of the new review period, for review. The Mayor and Vice-Mayor would then evaluate and recommend to Council a contract with a facilitator to handle the process for the year.

Due to the late adoption of this process, the Council created a ad-hoc sub-committee to assist the Mayor and Vice-Mayor with the selection process for the 2002-2003 year. They evaluated two proposals for the review process, one from Joe Shepela and another from William Mathis. Both are management consultants who have some expertise in this type of process.

The new process adopted by the City Council includes a work-plan that has a number of steps that require or could use an outside facilitator. Those steps are:

• Use a facilitator for both of the new meetings created to establish formal goals and objectives for each employee at the beginning of the year.
• Use a facilitator for both the mid-year and year-end performance review with the City Council and its two employees.
• Provide for a 360-degree review process, under the management of a facilitator, to gather management assessments from the direct reports of the City Manager and City Attorney for the Council evaluation.
• A Management Performance questionnaire to be administered to a statistical sample of the City employees to solicit feedback concerning managerial effectiveness of the two Council employees and management processes within the City Government..

Both proposals meet the requirements for the new performance review process. Each of the principles are fully qualified as well.

Mr. Mathis has done previous work with the City of Sunnyvale as well as other cities throughout California. Mr. Mathis is located in the North Bay and, as a result, his quotation includes some travel related expenses and use of a support staff.

Mr. Shepela, while having limited municipal government experience, has extensive experience working with large corporate clients in a variety of assignments. Mr. Shepela is located in the neighboring City of Cupertino so that there would be no travel or additional expenses involved.

The subcommittee discussed and decided that the close proximity of Mr. Shepela would make him more flexible in scheduling meetings with staff as well as with the Council. This flexibility may be important as the new process is implemented and unanticipated issues arise. His lack of experience in Sunnyvale was also considered an asset in that he would not come with any preconceived thoughts or opinions and might be better able to provide a clear and objective viewpoint to the process. These factors resulted in the Subcommittee deciding to recommend Mr. Shepela’s proposal.

The two proposals are roughly the same cost. Joe Shepela’s quote is for $16,000 and William Mathis provided a quote for $20,000. William Mathis also includes some travel costs as he is not located in the immediate area. Joe Shepela is located in an adjacent city so travel costs are not involved.

There will be some incidental costs related to staff time utilized while participating in the 360-degree and the management questionnaire. As these are new processes, Council, staff, nor the two consultants can be sure about the actual time and effort needed to implement these processes. As a result, there may be future additional costs.

The sub-committee met to discuss the issue, however no members of the public were present and no public comment was solicited.

The Subcommittee recommends alternative 2.