DSHS Delayering Of Management

Today management met with the union to discuss delayering management. The following hand out was provided by management. This was described as how they broke out the issues.

Management Layers - Definitions

Institution - a state hospital, residential habilitation center, juvenile rehabilitation center or a total confinement facility RCW 71.09.020 operated by the department and under the control of the Secretary as specified in RCW 72.09.020 operated by the department and under the control of the Secretary as specified in RCW 72-01-050 and 72.050.010. The CEO or Superintendent directs the operations of facilities on a 24/7 basis and is responsible for the residents of the facilities. Staff assigned provide a range of direct services to the clients in residence, and oversees a broad range of support services. The Consolidated Support Services provides support services to state institutions and will be included in this group.

Regional Programs - community based service delivery offices located statewide designated to provide social and health service programs. At the forefront of regional programs are the line staff who interact directly with client and provides needed services. Community programs include community service offices, homes and community, residential care, child support, children's services, developmental disability field offices, and residential or community facilities.

Administrative Units - All central services provided to an administration or the department. To include all back office functions such as contracts, fiscal, payroll, purchasing, IT, communication, human resources, quality assurance, research, training, organizational development, and coordination, office management functions located in the Administration's headquarters or in outstations or satellite offices. Included in this group are Disability Determination Services, Fraud Investigation.

June 22, 2011

Reducing Layers of Management (De-Layering) Informal Discussion

For Management: Glen Christopherson, Peggy Pulse, Wendy Long, Autumn Sharp, Ellen Andrews

For Union: Debbie Brookman, Julianne Moore, Gayle Chamberlain-Smith, Michelle Stelovich, Kandy Kraig, Gabe Hall, Joey Ignacio, Donelle Pond, Fred Curry, Ted Olson, James Robinson, Daniel D’Haem (became ill and left)

Management information provided:

Goal is to have no more than these levels between Secretary of DSHS and first front line level:
5 in Administrative Units
6 in Regional Programs
7 in Institutions

Line level is zero. Secretary is 1 or 5 depending on how counted. Secretary is one for purposes of this discussion. We are not interested in removing line level supervisors. The questions is how do we manage and maintain oversight and not have span of control out of hand? Where we put the pressure is the question.

There will be fewer management positions. 18 million dollar reduction required in administrative overhead and other types of savings. 6.7 million have not been identified in savings. 6.7 million is savings we may achieve through this or maybe not. 80 positions need to be identified to make up the savings.

Management: We are not trying to move represented work to unrepresented positions. That’s why we want to work with you. The focus will be on middle management. We can’t say it wouldn’t impact a represented supervisor. We have not yet determined what positions we will look at. Regional consolidation will have impacts. The effort to delayer is known by the parties bargaining consolidation. Project manager Jim Hunt is coordinating. There are anomalies in HRMS and those have to be cleaned up. There were 9 levels of supervision in some places a month ago ( ADSA, CA, and ESA). Could be a data clean up issue. Management wants a more consistent approach to management across DSHS.

DSHS has no span of control standard now but may have later. ISSD now has 5 layers maximum. DSHS will have a larger span of control than other agencies. Management is working with a database rather than organizational charts. DSHS does not have a good organizational chart software program. Due to daily changes in positions, we need a database system that is more easily updated. How does management get employee input from across the agency? Management needs a mechanism to get input from workforce.

Union concerned about exempt and WMS staff bumping into the bargaining units.

On the database, employee line level is zero but may be labelled for example 7. The clean up on the database will take weeks. Maintenance is different and ongoing.

Union: We’ve identified a number of areas where we believe a work group would be able to provide the input you requested. We’d like the meetings to occur on work time. We’d also like some work time allowed to talk to co-workers about what the concerns might be.

How does the proposed maintenance consolidation work with the delayering? Specifically Mike Allen has been identified as over the project as well as CSS. The workers in temporary training positions are affected in what way? For example one of the workers is currently preparing for a post that was eliminated last year. The Union is concerned about exempt and WMS staff bumping into the bargaining units.

Management said there are 2902 fewer people working for the state as of June from 3 years ago.

The parties will meet again on June 30th.