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Beverly Retirement Board 3-21-2024 Part 1 The Beverly Retirement Board held a Special Meeting as a teleconference meeting on meet.goggle.com/oob-ehau-tcf on Thursday March 21, 2024 at 2,00 p.m. Call in number was 1-312- 586-0802 with a PI-N##412-379-089#. Board Members present:were Bryant Ayles, D. Wesley Slate, Jr., Kevin Smith,Carol Augulewicz and the Administrator Barbara Wells. The,meeting was called.to order at 200 p.m. Chairman Ayles stated that he wanted to thank the board member for being available for these special meetings that are necessary to keep the ball rolling through the hiring process. Chairman Ayles wanted to give the board an update from Kevin and himself as the screening committee that has been designated by the board, The first update is apparently the preliminary screening committee constitutes a public body and as a result anytime Kevin and I meet to deliberating; review, interview and any thing related to the candidates with the two of us together it needs to be a publicly posted meeting but given the kind of nature of the interview process and the preliminary.screening that can be done.and will be done in an Executive Session of a public meeting to protect the applicants identifies. And we feel it will be detrimental to the process if it were done in a public setting and so the rules require us to convene in Executive Session and perform a lot of that in Executive Session and as a result of it being an Executive Session everything discussed really can't be shared with anyone outside of Executive Session. Chairman Ayles said this because you other board members will have some questions and Kevin and I may not be able to answer because we had the conversations.in Executive Session. So what Kevin and I did so far is that Bryant did the preliminary screening of the resumes independent of Kevin and gave Kevin access to them but based on what 1 reviewed there were a few candidates l reached out to whohad qualifying criteria within their resume: Chairman Ayles stated that they were able to interview two and of the two we could present to the board one candidate.that would fall within the confines we were authorized in terms of the job description,how it is structured and the compensation. Only being able to present one eligible applicant Kevin and I, and feel free to chime in Kevin and Kevin stated no your are doing perfect,we felt it would be in the best interest of the board and frankly we feltIt was our charge to present multiple candidates that fell within that structure. Part of the limitations We think with the structure that was authorized, meaning the job description and the compensation package, is the compensation_piece of it and so we feel that if we could get authorization and if the board is willing to increase the upper end of the_compensation as it would likely allow the committee to consider at least one additional applicant who has already applied and it would also provide opportunity for others that may have been discouraged by the compensation range to potentially apply. Ideally the committee would like to resent three candidates to the board. At vrhich p Y PP y� Y p point there would be another interview/meeting process in a public setting with the three recommended candidates.and then it would be the boards decision on who they would like to hire, Kevin.Smith agreed with everything that Chairman Ayles stated and he further stated that we are required to put forth two candidates and we felt that.opening that up and maybe attracting a couple of more candidates for interviewing gives us a better sort of pool to.pick from and a better representation of where the current candidates that the committee has already looked at would stand as.well. Chairman Ayles stared that Kevin and himself Have had some.thoughts about some ranges and after looking at the salary range when they adjusted the administrators salary and I think in Girder to entice other system Executive Directors to apply here:we may want to look to the higher end of that scale. Chairman Ayles asked.Carol Augulewicz or D.Wesley Slate,jr.if.they had any questions or thoughts that hopefully they can answer. 1 Special Meeting 3M/24 Page Two Chairman Ayles stated that the committees recommendation would be to increase the salary range to $140,000.00 and asked Kevin smith if he thought that was right and Kevin agreed that it was. And the committee would like the authorization.to repost the opening for a minirnum of two weeks in,hopes that other candidates may decide to apply and then obviously we have another candidate who we think would be a strong candidate that would fit within that kind of compensation. Carol Augulewicz asked the Chairman if he sees this as any changes in job duties to get it to $1.40,000.00 or simply increasing the range to$140,000.00 to simply attract more people. Chairman. . Ayles thinks we are looking to attract people and Kevin stated he would.agree with that. Carol Augulewicz asked the administrator who in the salary survey was it the$140,000.00 and the administrator stated no one was that highest closest salary.was Wakefield at$126,460.00 and Chairman Ayles stated Wake€ield,Woburn and Salem were on the higher end but they,still weren't in the $140,000.00. Carol stated that Beverly would be top of the range and Bryant stated up to. D.Wesley Slate, Jr. asked the administrator if she had the salary:for Gloucester and.Bryant stated that it is not on the survey and stated it was a different structure, Chairman Ayles just wanted to add that with all of our time on this board, this is probably the most important decision that we have been involved with because it is not only about hiring a good Executive Director because this is going to last beyond us so the policies creed tobe right as he wants the best in this position and if it means.in my mind an extra $10,000 a year to.get a good applicant pool than that is money well spent. Kevin Smith stated that just to add to that like Bryant stated we would like to present the best and.have a number of candidates that the board can look et .and he thinks that opening the upper end of the salary range will attract a few more people,and maybe someone who overlooked it because they says yeah that looks okay but I am making a bit more where 7 am at so I am not going to make a move or i won't.pdt in the application. Kevin also stated that just because the.board moves the level of salary up to a high amount doesn't mean we are beholden to hire someone at that level but it might attract a few more applicants and I think that mainly what we were looking for and to open it up for a couple more weeks to give some folks some time and maybe attract a few more of those Executive Director type applicants. Carol Augulewicz asked that if.she were someone looking at this position a month ago and I reviewed it and it was not really enough money I'm not going to apply. Carol asked what is going to change that person's mind with this new posting so you know I think so if we are going to try to attract another group of people or even the same group of people that turn it away that the board is doing something different now and how do we advertise to get this out to people who may have already seen it. Kevin Smith stated that maybe it is just a highlighting as an.extended application period and that it is still an open period. Carolasked it if would be inappropriate to highlight the new salary range and D. Wesley Slate,Jr. agreed With Carol and.stated he was going to say the same thing. All of the board,members agreed that the new.salary range should be highlighted. Carol's second questions was how quickly can we get all of this pasted and Chairman Ayles.stated tomorrow. If the board votes and approves an adjustment to the salary the posting will get out. Carol asked even to the PERA.0 website.and the administrator stated yes. Kevin Smith asked the Chairman just to highlight the process again that as Applications come is taking a look at those, maybe getting together to screen what we have,you and I will do initial interviews and then there would be a final recommendation,to the board with the hope that we get.a minimum of two or maybe three to the full body for review. Chairman Ayles stated yes and he would suggest that they reach out to the candidates.that they already talked to and explain to them the process and any new candidates that we screen in will need to be in executive session and do the interview the same way we did the others.