COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

Employee and Public Services

DATE:

March 11, 2002

BOARD MEETING DATE:

March 26, 2002

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

Mary Welch, Director of Employee and Public Services

SUBJECT:

Revenue Services Incentive Pay Program

Recommendation

Adopt a resolution implementing a pay incentive program to monetarily reward Revenue Collection staff if they exceed individual and division collection targets.

Background

The Revenue Services Division provides collection services for County departments for a variety of accounts. The staff of the Division is funded through the commission paid on each dollar collected. All funds in excess of the commission are returned to the department that referred the accounts.

Each year collection targets are established for all account types and for individual collectors. The purpose is to provide both goals for the collectors to achieve as well as budgetary numbers that departments can use in projecting revenues.

Discussion

The Employee and Public Services Department has developed and reviewed with the employee organization (SEIU) a collection incentive program to provide annual bonuses to collections staff if they exceeded their individual and group targets.

For fiscal year 2001-02 the basic collection target has been set at $15,500,000. This is 5% higher than the actual amount collected in 2000-01.

In summary, the proposal provides the following:

Overall performance

· If the total divisional goal is reached ($15,500,000) each of the divisional staff will receive an annual bonus of $350.

Unit performance

There are two units in Revenue Services: one for hospital collections and one for court collections. The hospital collectors have a unit goal of $6,000,000 and the Court unit has a goal of $9,500,000.

· If the collectors in the unit achieve their unit goal each unit member will receive an annual bonus of $250.

· If one unit achieves its goal then the support staff will receive an annual bonus of $125. If both units achieve their goals, the support staff will receive an annual $250 bonus.

Individual performance

· If collectors exceed their individual targets they will receive an additional bonus of $100 for every $100,000 collected in excess of the target, up to a maximum of $1000.

All bonuses are contingent on the division achieving the overall goal of $15,500,000. If the goal is not reached, no bonuses are awarded.

The maximum annual bonus that an employee could receive is as follows:

$350 - division goal

$250 - unit goal

$1000 - individual goal

Total $1600

Vision Alignment

This item keeps the commitment of responsive, effective and collaborative government through goal number 20: Government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain in that staff are directly recognized for outstanding performance and County resources to provide services are increased.

Fiscal Impact

The maximum cost of the incentive program will be $39,800. The cost will be fully offset by the commission from the additional collections. Additionally, if the targets are met and exceeded, the departments that refer accounts will receive more revenue in their collectable accounts than anticipated.