The Haines Borough website has a new green button. With one click, community members can now find the Borough Manager’s Report. At Tuesday’s Government Affairs and Services committee meeting, members worked on creating a template for future reports that can be found on the homepage’s main tab.
The first order of business for the Haines Government Affairs and Services or GAS committee was to create a template for the Manager’s Report. At every Borough Assembly meeting, the manager gives an update on the status of borough business, projects and relationships, in the form of a Manager’s report.
“Our planner has submitted his resignation,” said Kreitzer.
That was Borough Manager Annette Kreitzer delivering the manager’s report at last week’s Brough Assembly meeting. In January, a manager’s performance evaluation concluded that several assembly members found communications between Krietzer and the Assembly to be unsatisfactory. The GAS committee was then tasked with creating a template for regular updates.
The template draft that committee members revised on Tuesday was similar to the report provided by Kreitzer to last week’s assembly meeting. Committee Chair Kevin Forster started the conversation by praising Kreitzer for taking the initiative on creating a thorough report on her own.
“It feels like she took everything that we talked about a last meeting and just did it,” said Forster. “And, to me anyway, it felt really like I understood what happened in the community. And I hope that community members do.”
Forster displayed a template draft and asked other committee members for comments. The committee will recommend that the template be adopted as policy at the next Borough Assembly meeting for review.
Legislative issues, legal issues, and special project updates were among the ten bullet points that the committee wanted included in each Manager’s report. Assembly member Debra Schnabel said that one bullet point was missing. She asked the committee to add a “Kudos” section to the template, where the manager could praise employees or any member of the community. The committee unanimously agreed to add the section.
The committee also decided to add a “training” section, where the manager will report on any certifications or trainings that are required of Borough employees. One example mentioned later in the meeting was an AI training that many borough employees are currently required to complete.
After the committee was satisfied with the draft, Kreitzer chimed in and asked that the Human Resources section of the template be revised. The draft originally said that the manager should report on all “hirings, dismissals and promotions” within the Borough.
“I struggle with dismissal,” said Kreitzer. “I suppose it is a public record, when someone gets dismissed. But, boy, it’s just one of those traps.”
The committee agreed to change the language from “dismissal” to “departure”. Committee members said this language would not only inform the community of all job openings but, as assembly member Debra Schnabel pointed out, the new language was easier on the stomach.
“There’s no cake with terminations,” said Schnabel.
“There’s cake with departures,” said Forster.
Forster reached out during the meeting to Kreitzer. He asked if the template, as it was presented, would add too much to her workload. Kreitzer said that the report was time-consuming, but if the Borough hires her an assistant to the manager, it is a task she could delegate. But she said she would still have to have the last look on any document that had her name on it.
The assembly will have a second hearing at next Tuesday’s assembly meeting on whether to create a manager’s assistant position in the Borough.
