New Britain Borough

Appointment Advisory Committee

Meeting Notes of 03/23/2017

The meeting opened at 730

Attending members were Jackie Dagastino, Lorraine Moxey, Robyne Keleman and Halsey White

Bob Bair, Derek Macmillan and Jo Schuler reported conflicting schedules

The meeting opened with discussion of concerns by Lorraine on the adoption of the decision matrix model for candidate evaluation.  Discussion of the committee's consensus adoption of the method followed.  Last summer we agreed that in order to comply with the Sunshine Law, no 'executive session' for AAC,  we needed a rational process to address the needs of Borough Commissions, Boards and Committees for qualified appointees.  In order to document our method of candidate review so that decisions would stand up to reasonable scrutiny, we devised a three step process:

There have been minor changes to this process because of the Requirement to refrain from private deliberation or 'executive sessions' of the AAC. Confidentiality of committee decisions is no longer allowed.  Decisions must be declared when made at the time of the public meeting.

 Since we cannot email our 'interview scores' to have them tallied, we will do the interviews and make use of score sheets for each candidate. After each interview the score sheets will be collected by the chair.  After all candidates have been interviewed the chair will produce the report of weighted scores for all interviewees.  The committee will then announce the recommendation for appointment.

Having concluded the process discussion we moved on to the stated agenda for this meeting; to decide on relevant attributes, questions [and weighting] pertaining to the qualifications of candidates.  Using 6 lists of attributes and questions from several sources on the web [Associations for Non-Profits, various charities and agencies using Volunteer program  support personnel , a list of attributes furnished to Sam by Mike Stanislaw last May] we prioritized those questions deemed applicable to potential appointees to the Shade Tree Commission.

The following questions and weighting were established for the interviews:

  1. What interests you about this volunteer position?
  2. What special skills will you utilize in the performance of this job?
  3. Are you willing to make a 5 year commitment to the duties of the Commission?
  4. Please briefly discuss a few of your experiences that relate to the job of Shade Tree Commissioner.
  5. Communication Skills are the number five scorable attribute.  The scoring on this attribute will be based on the presentation of all of the preceding  responses.

Attribute

Weighting

Interest

2

Performance

2

Commitment

3

Experience

1

Communication

2

Attribute weighting based on a tally of the votes for each question by the attending AAC members at this meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 830

We will meet again on the 4th Thursday of the month following notice of required AAC action.

Thanks

Addendum via email 3/27 follows on Page 2 Thanks Derek

AAC Committee Members

I did forget 4 items that should be included in the Notes

  1. The attending members were mindful of the implicit requirement for candidates to adhere to a Borough conflict of interest policy and Robyne agreed to inquire about that........I was reminded of this part of the discussion by the email from Sam today with its attachment
  2. We are all mindful of a need to encourage more volunteers to participate in borough affairs so we are inclined to behave at the interviews as welcoming and interested in their success as opposed to giving anyone the third degree.
  3. We are all aware that the number of volunteers at this time does not provide a competitive situation for evaluation of potential appointees but that does not mean that someday we won't, optimistically, have to make a choice among alternatives.  This is the reason for establishing a legitimate process of rational decision making.
  4. I should have asked, as usual, for additions, deletions, corrections while memory of the meeting is fresh.

Thanks

Halsey