‘Nonexistent’ Policies on Merit Pay Surface as CEO’s Trickery Reaches New Level
– “There is no confusion on the matter of how N/A (Not Applicable) fields were computed.” – Albany City Manager Alfred Lott in a March 31 e-mail to City employee Simit Patel, who earned a performance bonus but still has not received it.
– “(Mr. Lott) referenced an e-mail communication from Mayor Pro Tem (Bob) Langstaff (regarding ‘Not Applicable’ ratings penalizing employees’ ability to receive bonuses) and stated that he misunderstood his question, which caused a miscommunication and he and Mayor Pro Tem Langstaff have discussed this issue and resolved the miscommunication. Mr. Lott stated that this type of miscommunication will not happen again as he will take time to read and understand communications in the future.” – Minutes, April 18 Albany City Commission meeting.
– “With the Fiscal Year 2006 pay for performance merit budget item previously passed, the attached policy is provided for guidance and direction as supervisors complete performance appraisals for all applicable employees. This policy is administrative in nature and I expect complete adherence.” – Mr. Lott to city employees on October 17, 2005.
– “I was surprised and a little disappointed to find out that the City had no (pay-for-performance) policy.” – Mr. Lott at the April 18 City Commission meeting.
– “The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters.” – Mr. Lott, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, in a March 16 interview with WALB-TV, saying that police made a mistake when they did not alert the public that a criminal suspect escaped from the Albany Law Enforcement Center.
At some point, everyone must stop blaming Mr. Lott for all that’s wrong on the west side of the Government Center’s fifth floor. Unlike many others who applied for the job last year, but were passed over, administering a municipality is brand new to him.
Mr. Lott says he didn’t see the criticism coming – or else he wouldn’t have implemented a pay-for-performance program that systematically victimizes the lowest-paid City workers. That unfathomable defense of actions ranging from cover-ups to dishonesty begs the questions, among others: Since when is it okay for the CEO to make leadership decisions based on the anticipated popularity – or lack thereof – of the decisions? Why not be fair and equitable in the first place? But now the prevailing question is, Why are the Mayor and City Commissioners refusing to demonstrate any leadership moxie and force the City’s administration to be fair, honest and otherwise trusted stewards of the taxpayer’s money? (On the other hand, we’ve had plenty of signs, including the Mayor and City Commission’s refusal to take action against consultant who over-billed the City – and collected — more than $11,000, even after the consultant’s close relationship with Mayor Willie Adams was revealed.)
Sure, some people – including many of the poorest of the poor among City employees — want Mr. Lott’s head. But all public employees – including Mr. Lott, a newcomer to big-city administration — have bosses to whom they are accountable. Regrettably, though, Mr. Lott’s absurd, albeit three-months-late explanation of the bonus program has not only been accepted, it effectively has been applauded by the Mayor and City Commission as demonstrated by the deaf ear given to the dozens of Public Works Department employees who bravely stood face-to-face to the City’s top leaders on April 18.
A review of the public record – the minutes of the April 18 commission meeting – reveals that the Mayor and City Commission have let the bonus program debacle come and go without anyone being held responsible. That’s right: Policies and laws were violated and cover-ups occurred, and no one received so much as a reprimand. Indeed, the Mayor and City Commission ignored the valiant Public Works employees – laborers and other lower-level employees who symbolized the segment of the workforce that was victimized by being subjected to different standards than their higher-paid peers to be eligible for a bonus. Instead, the City’s elected officials all but gave Mr. Lott a standing evaluation when he reluctantly announced that some employees who were penalized in their performance appraisals for categories of work that didn’t apply to them may get the $1,100 bonus after all.
NONEXISTENT POLICIES EXIST AFTER ALL
In his self-described “Gettysburg Address” on April 18, Mr. Lott’s cited the “absence of a merit pay policy” as being the reason he ultimately used a “completely subjective, non-quantitative” performance-pay plan. Mr. Lott stated that he “was surprised and a little disappointed to find out that the City had no policy of merit increases and that there was no plan in place to affect the merit increase.”
A couple of things jump out here.
No. 1: Why would it be acceptable, under any circumstances, for the City to implement a merit pay system without a policy governing performance management – which is exactly what he says he did?
No. 2 (Yep, just one more itsy-bitsy, little-bitty thing): THERE IS A POLICY.
Mr. Lott implemented a Performance Management Policy on October 17, 2005 and discussed merit pay in detail with all of the City’s mid- and senior-level managers during mandatory performance management training. Lott told the managers: “… With the Fiscal Year 2006 pay for performance merit budget item previously passed, the attached policy is provided for guidance and direction as supervisors complete performance appraisals for all applicable employees. This policy is administrative in nature and I expect complete adherence.”
(This communication demonstrates that Mr. Lott again was dishonest with the Mayor and City Commission when, on April 18, he said to them, “In a November staff meeting he was informed by the HR Director and Finance Director that merit increases of approximately $295,000 were designated in the FY-06 budget.”
There also are other City policies regarding pay-for-performance that Mr. Lott claims don’t exist, including a circa 1970s rule that states, among other things that, “To be considered for a merit increase, an employee must … be below the maximum (Step S) on the pay scale for his/her pay level.” Whoops. As it turns out, some of the City’s highest-paid employees who received the bonus while their subordinates were left out in the cold should haven’t have received a bonus at all.
The October 2005 policy has a category titled “Instructions for Completing the Evaluation Instrument” – the very appraisal tool that Mr. Lott described to the City Commission last week, more than six months after its adoption, as being “completely subjective” and “non-quantitative.” The policy also incorporates the same point system the City ultimately used – 1 point for ineffective performance; 2 points for marginally effective performance; 3 points for effective performance (described as “consistently satisfactory performance); 4 points for very effective performance; and 5 points for outstanding performance (described as “a level reserved for the few individuals whose performance has been consistently excellent).
And yes, the policy – the very guiding principle adopted by Lott and powerfully reinforced to the City’s management team – addresses “Not Applicable” ratings as “No basis for appraising the employee on this factor. Duties used to define the factor are not part of the job or no opportunity for the supervisor to observe the employee’s performance in this area.” Of course, the public record demonstrates that the opposite occurred, despite strong objections by some of Lott’s trusted associates.
The October 2005 policy’s stated purpose is to, among other things “establish clear goals and expectations,” “reinforce good performance,” “foster a spirit of cooperation,” and “serve as a systematic guide to determine … compensation adjustments.” Mr. Lott now concedes he blatantly and consciously violated this policy – which he instituted and reinforced, but now claims does not exist.
The October 2005 policy also states:
· Performance evaluations may not be appealed. Employees are encouraged to provide a written statement attesting to any rating they believe is not an accurate assessment of their performance. This statement shall be limited to the rating(s) disputed and provide substantiation of why an employee believes he/she should/should not receive such rating. At the end of the year if there are disagreements, appeals go to department directors or himself and will give them an opportunity to work through the appeals as a contract, goals/objectives have been established to look at to evaluate. Whoops. Somebody has got to make a decision here. Mr. Lott now claims — after refusing to hear any appeals, and then changing his mind, and then changing his mind again, and then again — that employees who were victimized by, as Mr. Lott describes it, a “completely subjective, non-quantitative” appraisal system, could have appealed after all. Confused? Join the club. (Also during his Lincoln moment, Mr. Lott naively and mistakenly said that employees who were wronged in the evaluation process had a right to file a grievance, which is a process for employees who have been subjected to discipline — not those who have been victimized by a subjective, non-quantitative appraisal system.)
· Performance appraisals shall not be conducted without a prior supervisor/employee review of the employee’s job description. Mr. Lott concedes this was not done in the case of fired Civic Center Director Matty Goddard and in other appraisals he performed.
· Action in the form of a Performance Plan shall be taken at any time during the rating period if the supervisor determines an employee’s performance to be below the acceptable level. In these situations the employee must be notified of the following: the specific job requirements or performance expectations the employee is failing to perform satisfactorily; what the employee must do to bring the employee to a satisfactory level; what management will do to help the employee improve, such as providing additional training, regular feedback or written guidance; the frequency at which the employee can expect to receive interim feedback; a date by which the employee must raise his/her performance to a satisfactory level; and the consequences of failing to improve overall performance to a satisfactory level such as reassignment, demotion or dismissal. Ms. Goddard may not have been a victim of discrimination, but the public record shows that this policy was obliterated when she was fired.
· One final doozy: Failure of any supervisor to evaluate employees in accordance with this policy shall be subject to administrative or disciplinary action. Whoops. Somebody’s in a whole lot of trouble. Right? RIGHT?
So, what now? Thus far, the City’s board of directors – who are elected by the citizens of Albany – support the ineptness, dishonesty and policy-breaking that continue to prevail at the Government Center. They also seem to have no problem with what the Georgia Attorney General’s office has described as violations of the law. And now that Mr. Lott has played the Mayor and City Commission members as fools by detailing the bonus program while failing to disclose the details of the City’s existing performance management policy, it’s the voting public that is being manipulated by their city hall representatives.
Absent of a long-overdue epiphany, good government seems to now be in the City of Albany electorate’s hands.
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