Personnel and Compensation Committee Meeting   11/30/2022

and I will call the meeting to order and I will give brief remarks.

Thank you for coming.

And then I will ask for a motion to approve the minutes of our July 13th, 2022 meeting.

Do I have a motion?

I'm happy to move approval.

Thank you, Sharon.

Do I have a second?

Thank you, Victor.

By the way, when you have a limited number of people in a meeting, we need snappy responses on this stuff, right?

And Victor, you and Sharon could just say, well, we'll take turns, right?

One, two, one second, however you want to do it.

And Jay, you can...

I'll just watch.

You just watch.

Yeah.

I wasn't here last meeting.

We have a really efficient committee.

Hey team, I was going to tell you, for some reason, I'm the one who's getting the request to admit people, and I'm doing it, so Mr. Hall should be on in a second.

I'm the last person who should be admitting people, but to admit Rod Hall and Ms. Bulliver is my pleasure.

Hey, Rod.

Good morning, Rod.

That's why they're going to pay you the premium to be on this board.

All right.

Mary, were you able to confirm?

We are.

Okay.

All right.

So quickly, when we adopted the board meeting minutes from the last meeting, was that done while we were being broadcast publicly?

Do we know?

If we don't, let's go back and do it.

So we were sure that we do it.

That's a good idea.

Well,

So I will just, let me do this.

I will say we have had a motion by Ms. Vouleva to adopt the minutes of the last board meeting and a second by Mr. Cardwell.

And we are now in the process of a roll call vote.

Ginger Broil.

Do I, Mary Fell, I don't, what are we doing?

Sorry.

Do you not, do you not vote?

I'm so sorry.

Yeah, I don't, I don't vote.

Uh, there we go.

Mr. Cardwell?

Aye.

Okay, thank you.

Mary-Shel Rod is on the line as well.

Okay, thank you everyone.

Absolutely.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you very much for your time.

I do want to confirm that everyone can see my screen.

All right.

Very good.

For today's agenda, we're going to go over a couple of organizational updates.

We're going to provide some information around some initial conversations regarding workplace diversity.

I'm very excited to give you an update on some of the culture work that we've been doing.

Kim Coleman, as I mentioned, is our Senior Manager of Human Resources.

She is going to share some updates we are making to the employee manual.

DJ is going to walk us through our STI program and talk about our FY 23 goals.

All of this is information sharing to keep transparency and to make sure you're aware as a board where we're moving forward with these sorts of initiatives.

And then our last piece of business today is to move into closed session.

From an organizational update perspective, our staffing as of yesterday, we have 36 full-time employees, one part-time employee that is serving as an internship in procurement.

We have 10 openings currently, two offers accepted and one offer extended.

From an attrition perspective, I thought it was important to share with you that we have seen some attrition in the organization.

If you remember a few months back when I spoke at the board meeting, we had talked about the war on talent and we are seeing some of the things that we anticipated seeing.

We are also holding the organization true to making sure that we have the very best talent we can, holding the people that we currently have accountable for the work that they do and how they go about doing it.

And so the attrition, you'll see we've lost five people in the organization, a combination of both voluntary and involuntary separations.

I mentioned the war on talent.

This slide should look familiar.

It is the slide that we shared.

So that means that we had a couple of people who were let go in voluntary.

That is correct.

And that was because they seemed not to fit the profile that we wanted.

Okay.

If I can, since Sharon asked a question, I'll just ask about the involuntarily.

Okay, and I'll just ask the question.

I use the phrase with a high profile.

I assume these people were not long-termers or maybe they were long-termers, I don't even know.

I trust you completely is what I'm really saying.

I'm not trying to dive behind that.

I'm just asking how long the question is.

Yeah, they were of different tenures.

They were of varied tenures.

And I want to share the information really to make sure you recognize the fact that we're staying true to our commitment to

to have the right people in the organization.

Listen, I'm totally with you, 100%.

Good job, keep it up.

I appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

If I may add though, this is really an important part of the culture we're building and I'm going to talk a little bit about culture when it gets to be my turn and I just jumped ahead, sorry.

And then Joan's going to talk about it as well.

But we have a lot to do and the projects that we have to deliver are incredibly complex and they're going to be difficult to deliver if we're all working together.

and if we have folks on the team that are not carrying their weight or are even producing results but doing it in a way that they're burning the bridges behind them, that's just going to hurt us and we can't afford to have that happen.

And if we let those folks stay

to Long, all of the other members of the team are going to look and say, well, geez, how come they're getting away with that?

That doesn't make any sense.

So this is something that we preach all the time in our all staff meetings, that it's not only getting your work done well, but the way you do it.

And so we've worked very hard to ensure as we bring folks on that they are a fit for that culture.

And if they're not, we're

and find out they're gone.

We give them coaching, we work with them, we point out clear examples of where they are not aligning with the culture we're looking for.

So none of the folks should be surprised when that happens.

Good dialogue.

So I was talking about the War on Talent slide.

We made some predictions and said we were anticipating the attraction of candidates and the retention of candidates.

And so what we anticipated is showing up in the market.

We do have recruitment activity where we're competing with other offers.

There are people who are looking to join our organization, but their salary expectations

are vastly different than what we're offering for the position.

And that expectation we talked about at the board meeting around remote work is really pervasive in the marketplace.

We're also finding that we're being very deliberate about the retention as well.

We want to make sure, and we talk very frequently about the balance.

We want people to have a manageable workload.

While we have a lot to do, we don't want people to get burnt out.

And that's very, very important to us.

So we've been filling these supporting positions.

The growth that we've seen and the hiring that we've seen, we've done a really good job.

The more people we can get on board, the more we can put the work where it belongs and the fewer people we have doing double or triple duty from a workload perspective.

And we're also staying true to our commitment to investing in the individual development of our employees.

We're never going to be a large organization.

And so promotion opportunities will be somewhat limited.

And so that individual development, making sure that people feel like we're investing in them and their professional development matters a lot.

And we're seeing increased activity around that individual development as well.

From a workforce perspective, you're used to seeing this slide in the monthly report.

We've got information here around gender, age, and race.

And actually this is, again, you're familiar with this.

The data is as of the 10th of November.

We did not have any new people join us the 25th of November.

We have our next wave of new hires joining us on the 10th of December.

But this is just a refresher.

You're used to seeing this and this takes us to workplace diversity.

Thanks Joan.

Diversity, we've talked about a lot in board meetings and in other conversations, and it's just a critical part to building this team.

When we first got here, there were a handful of us, Mike McLaughlin and Steve Pittard came with me.

They came over from DRPT and we said, we need to make sure that we are building a team that is diverse.

And by diversity, we don't just mean the standard things we always talk about, race and gender.

All of that is important.

Getting a team around the table that thinks differently, that have different experiences, different points of view is something that we're always striving for.

And the benefits are here.

I'm not going to read you the benefits.

But we are confident that we have really done a good job of getting a diverse team in place.

That being said, we need to continue to work towards it.

It's important to us as we sit in meetings that we have differences of opinion around the table and more importantly that those folks around the table feel comfortable raising those differences of opinion.

We all have different backgrounds.

When we're looking to solve problems or when we're looking to develop plans, we need to ensure that we have a good set of knowledge, experience, and really aptitude around the table and that those folks feel comfortable stepping forward and saying, wait a second, I tried this once in an old agency and here's what happened.

It didn't really work well.

If we don't have folks feeling that comfort level, it's going to be a problem for us.

It's going to enter our success rate.

So that's really what we focus on as we build a diverse organization.

Knock on wood, we're confident we've done well so far, but we need to always be mindful of that because the second we find somebody that feels like they don't have comfort speaking up, we're in a lot of trouble.

So if you go to the next slide, please.

We know that we have got to track this and we track it in the executive director's report every month.

We've set for ourselves a racial diversity goal.

As you see on the slide, we currently have 36 folks.

Non-Caucasians comprise 19% of that or seven of those.

We're looking over the next year to hire a couple dozen folks and we've set a target in the short term to have that number go up to 25%.

35% is really where we feel we need to be, but we think that doing that over the next year is a little too aggressive.

What we don't want to do is set a goal that forces people to hire based on something other than best fit.

So our short-term goal is $75.25.

As you see, our long-term goal goes to $65.35.

We'll continue to look at this.

If we find that perhaps it's not aggressive enough, we will change it.

But this puts a goal out there so we can hold ourselves accountable, make sure that racial diversity is always front of mind.

It's important when we hire folks that we are ensuring that not only the candidate pool is diverse, but also that the interview pool is diverse.

If you've got a pool of all white men doing the interview, your candidates are going to have a very different reaction to that.

So we're really mindful and diligent about ensuring that our interview panels are as diverse as the candidates and the organization that we're looking to build.

Go ahead.

Real quickly, and listen, I think that's fantastic.

And you're probably going to get to it, and I'm sorry to even ask.

The question I would always ask is where are we getting the, where are we seeking applicants from, right?

And what are our resources there?

You know, one great thing about being in Richmond and being in Commonwealth of Virginia is we have a great resource of HBCUs that are close by producing some talent.

And so whether we ever get them or not,

And if we're doing it, great.

And if we're not doing it, let them know that we exist.

Let them know we're looking for good young talent or alums who may be looking for new opportunities.

And I may be preaching to a choir that already knows, so I'll just be quiet.

But that's always the question.

Where are we letting people know we're available?

That's all.

VEC is great, but there are other opportunities, too.

We could talk about those Black churches or Hispanic churches.

It's amazing how many people you can find who tell you about their son, their great grandson, their boyfriend's girlfriend.

You never know.

That's actually great.

And so I was going to say, yes, yes, we're doing that until you got to the church's part, because we're not reaching out that far.

But you're not wrong.

I mean, when I go to church, people approach and say, hey, I'm here in the railroad.

I've got the perfect person for you.

And, you know, having to have those conversations is important.

But to your earlier point, we are working with the historically Black colleges and universities.

We're advertising in periodicals that attract a more diverse crowd.

I don't know, Joan, if you want to add more context around that, but it's something that we are very cognizant about, not only in our recruiting, but also as we have interns coming in.

I mean, the intern program is intended to boost our bench strength and kind of be a pipeline for talent.

So we're focused on diversity in that as well.

DJ, I actually think you hit on all the right points.

Yeah, absolutely.

We're never comfortable with where we are.

And that's kind of the common theme with VPRA is that we don't want to take too long celebrating because there's a lot more to do.

So we're comfortable

that we've got a lot more to do and it's something that is always front of mind.

To that point, gender diversity, very similar approach.

We've got a short-term goal and a long-term goal.

The executive team sits together and we decided that this is the right goal.

As we recruit, we are cognizant of all types of diversity.

Same conversation just around gender.

Yeah, just to comment on these two slides, because I think your intentions, the organization's intentions are the most important part in how you're then reaching out to do that as Victor brought up, just trying to expand the pool that you look at.

over the next 12 months.

So we're looking to hire, again, I think it's on the slide, 24 people.

It is 24 people.

And we know that we're not going to go from where we are now.

I mean, gender, we're in a little different place because we're actually ahead of the goal now, and we just want to maintain that.

But short term is 12 months to answer your question.

DJ, and these are both, these are two issues that I think

I'm not sure they're completely applicable to the small organization you're building, but there are things that I know bigger companies are looking at.

One is making sure, you know, a lot of times when you look for applicants for positions, one of the requirements is a college degree, but it's not really a requirement for the particular job you're hiring for.

And that's worth thinking about.

and the other is that more and more people are talking about, you know, people who have been convicted of a felony, but the felony is some fairly minor drug conviction of possession some time ago, and as you know, in the railroad,

You have a huge problem with issues like that around the T&E workforce and things like that.

But I just bring that up because it's something else that a lot of people are looking at because there are a lot of people that are disqualified by a lot of organizations in the workforce today or something that doesn't seem that where you can say, I understand why it happened.

So the first point, I think you know me well enough to know that experience in the workplace is much more valuable than that piece of paper of four years of keg parties.

So we very rarely, if ever, require college degrees.

I mean, it's an important piece of your resume, but it is not a place where if you don't have a degree, you will be disqualified.

Absolutely not.

We always say experience matters as much, if not more.

To the other point, it's an interesting point that we've actually talked about.

You were right.

Not all felonies are created equal, and I'm going to go down a bad path.

If Mr. Westerman was next to me, he'd kick me.

But looking for staff and looking for leaders, I think you've got to look at that a little bit differently.

But yes, you're right.

Everybody deserves a second chance, and we should not have a, if you check this box, we will never consider you, which is an incredible segue.

Thank you, sir, for reading ahead to the next slide.

What we decided to do a couple months ago is at the end of every posting, I guess it's not the end, it's in the middle, we have the narrative on the right that says if you don't meet every single requirement, we will still consider you, maybe not for this role, but for other roles.

So we strongly encourage folks to apply.

We found that a lot of folks will read something, and this applies more so to gender

or to gender and race, really, but a lot of times people will read that and say, I can't do that.

That doesn't fit me, when really it does.

And getting the folks in the door, looking at their resume, talking to them about what they do well and what they want to do,

will quite often lead us to say, well, you know what?

You probably aren't going to be a good fit for the accountant role.

However, we've got an analyst on the data side tracking ridership and revenue that we really think you'd be a great fit for.

So what we're looking to do with this narrative, and we've gotten great feedback on it, is to get as many folks in the door as possible.

Joan talked earlier about the war for talent.

We are in a war for talent.

Jen DeBruhl and I talk about it every week.

We've got to

Great.

I got one quick comment or question and that's just the life of the application and I'll leave that to Joan again but one of the great things about this is you keep an application on file so you remember Victor Cardwell from you know six months ago or other position and DJ that's exactly what you want to do.

One of the drawbacks this kind of thing is

It could sort of put a burden on you to make sure you go back through your old applications and consider those people, right?

So that if I see a job got filled, I'm like, wait, wait, I applied six months ago.

We are welcoming someone to the organization on December 10th who applied for a position eight months ago.

Yeah.

And in fact, the person, I believe this is the same story, but the person was our second highest leading candidate for a different job.

And then when this new opening came up, we reached out and said, hey, we think you're a good fit for this.

And they happily came on board and said, yes, I'll take it.

So that is critical.

And we watch that every day.

Yes, absolutely.

Wanted to talk for a couple of minutes about culture, resharing the mission, vision, and the employee value proposition.

But knowing the interests that you had in this previously, wanted to more importantly share with you what we've done since the initial rollout.

We had

at an all-staff meeting not too long ago, a brainstorming session, and we picked one of the values, and the values we selected was safety and reliability.

And we brainstormed as an organization at our all-staff meeting around what does this mean to us and what would we want safety for us to start to look like.

And you'll see the ideas that came from the group, and you'll see we've already implemented a number of them.

We recently had 16 people in the organization get CPR and first aid certified.

In the new facility, we identified a couple of dangerous corners, so we installed mirrors to prevent kind of those corner collisions, if you will.

And so, again, just a lot of great activity.

And much like the initial feedback around establishing these values, this was very collaborative in nature.

We will continue to use future meetings to brainstorm other of our values and get kind of deeper into this.

But there's a number of things that we are doing already as we continue to grow and enhance the work that we do and how we do it.

And so we're already, with the activities that we're doing, touching on our values.

One of the things that I will highlight that's being very well received organizationally, and DJ is probably too humble to bring this up, but we are having coffees with DJ.

with everyone in the organization.

And so he's spending 30 to 60 minutes with each individual person in the organization to get to know them, to learn about what's working well, to learn about what we could be doing better or differently.

And those have been very, very well received.

Great.

Yeah, I've actually been really pleased, and thanks Joan for bringing that up, you know I enjoy talking about that.

All right, I'm actually going to turn it over to Kim Coleman.

I had mentioned Kim is our Senior Manager of Human Resources.

So as Joan mentioned, we've been doing some work with our, updating our policies and our employee manual.

Some of those changes include pre and post-employment

activities.

And with that, we're implementing to conduct criminal history background checks on all employees.

Also, we are implementing credit checks for certain positions, those positions that have financial influence, as well as drug testing for all employees.

Now, for the drug testing, our safety sensitive positions will require

the five panel drug testing, just to ensure that, and that includes the testing for marijuana to ensure that we are compliant and not at risk, not putting the organization at risk.

We'll also be implementing random drug testing on an annual basis for those safety sensitive positions, as well as with reasonable suspicion.

Checks will also be conducted on an annual basis.

In terms of performance management, we've updated our rating scale.

So previously we only had three ratings, exceptional, solid, and two new to rate.

With that, we have kind of expanded the solid performance to differentiate.

We now have successful developing and unsuccessful performance.

So that will kind of

gives managers some leeway and leverage in terms of differentiating the more so the high achievers versus those who are just performing.

And Kim, if I can just add to this.

I mean, this was important to us because with only three ratings, we had the exceptional, we had the solid, and then we had the unsuccessful.

We want to hold a very high bar for exceptional.

We think it will be atypical for an employee to be exceptional year after year after year.

I mean, that's what we should always strive for.

But we want that really to be a special year.

I mean, if you really knock it out of the park, you're going to be exceptional.

And we didn't want it to be as commonplace.

So what happened was is that most of the folks fell in the middle into solid.

And there is still some differentiation between a really high performing solid person

and some other solid people.

Thank you, DJ.

We're also adding religious compensatory time for those who observe religious holidays that are not included in our holiday schedule.

So with that, the employees can build a bank of time.

They can work extra hours and build a bank of time to be used for those religious observances that they celebrate.

For parental leave, we're extending our parental leave time to 12 weeks, which is pretty customary nowadays.

So we're currently at eight weeks and effective January 1, we're moving into 12 weeks of parental leave, extending

12 weeks of parental leave.

Bereavement, we're carving bereavement out of our PTO plan and having that as a separate leave option for if anyone experiences the death of an immediate family member.

And we have defined the immediate family members in our bereavement policy that's included in the employee manual.

We're also adding or introducing a commuter reimbursement program that's going to offer employees a monthly reimbursement for using public transportation or van pooling for their regular commute.

This is Jay.

I know in Arlington County, and I think some of the other localities around, there is a stipend if you bike or walk to work.

Do you get that?

I can look into that.

No ma'am, it wasn't.

I did not.

I used several different other agencies templates and that was not in there, but we can absolutely look at that.

Yeah, I think it's been like almost 25 or more years, so it's a, you know, way of promoting

Not driving alone and public transit is great, also included as well in many places.

There was a federal benefit for that at some point.

I don't know if it still exists.

But even better yet, you don't want to discourage someone from that can do it multiple times a week if they live within a certain radius of walking or biking.

Jay, we'll take that as an action item and look into that.

It's a great point.

All right.

Thank you, Kim.

Sure, so we talked at the last board meeting and at the last P&C committee meetings about establishing a short-term incentive program.

We finalized the details around that program and we have them here.

This is, interestingly, when we interview folks specifically at higher levels in the organization, their first question is, do you have a bonus program?

And when we compare ourselves to like entities, not only in the industry, consultants that are looking for the same talent we are, other railroads, public transit, the other Virginia, the Space Authority and the Port Authority, they all have bonus programs that are very attractive.

We modeled this.

This is definitely not as attractive as the railroad performance incentive program.

It's less attractive than some of the others that we've looked at.

However, we find that this is, based on our conversations and the conversations with staff, this is a good, exciting thing that we're offering to our employees at all levels.

One thing we do have going for us and saying this so employees can hear it gets me a little bit of trouble is that our mission is exciting and folks coming to VPRA don't always come here for money.

We've had a number of people take pretty significant pay cuts to be here, but they're coming because they can see seven years from now, hey, the things we're working on can make a huge difference for Virginia and for passenger rail.

And that's really something that draws people here.

That being said,

coming to a lower compensation, we wanted to ensure that there was incentive program in place to reward the organization for performance.

So that's just what this is.

This is an annual bonus program that rewards the entire organization based on hitting organizational goals.

And we'll talk about the goals in a minute.

But there are four goals.

And if all four of those goals, which include some sub-goals,

If all four of those are met at the end of the performance year, then the payouts you see on the right-hand side, you'll see will be made.

If we only hit two of the goals, if we hit three of the goals, then proportional payouts will be made, again, based on the levels that you see on the side.

It'll be a lump sum payment at the end of the performance year.

It's not added to base, so in a good year, it will

It will be a payout in a less high performing year.

We could end up paying out nothing.

We've been very clear with employees.

It's not a promise.

It's not a slam dunk.

We worked very hard with employees to collaboratively come up with goals that are stretch goals, that are goals that, if met, will significantly further the organization, which is what we're looking for.

And folks are excited to do it.

The other thing is, and I want to say this before we go to the goals,

We've made it clear to folks that we should be focused on what's best for the organization.

So what we don't want to do is if it's September 15th and there's two weeks left in the performance year and somebody can approve a design, for example, that maybe we're not happy with, but if they approve it, it will get a bonus payout.

That's not the behavior that we're looking to incentivize here.

We've been very clear that we need to continue to make good business decisions, regardless of what these bonuses work out to be.

So, this is the range going from the bottom up.

Employees would be eligible for a 5% to a 20% bonus.

The 20% would be at the E2 level, which would be the direct reports, the chief operating officer, chief financial officer, chief legal counsel, and then chief administrative officer, and then it cascades down from there.

DJ, I have one question.

Do you have

That's a good point.

We don't have the individual discretion to reduce, but if they do not have a performance rating of at least solid or above, then they're not eligible for one.

So, if someone's low performing, they don't get it.

And also, if they come on at different places through the year, you can't be hired on August 1st, work here for two months to get a full bonus.

There are rules that we've got to be here at least.

But no, we do not yet, and we've actually talked about that.

We don't have the individual discretion for me to say, hey, I've got two direct reports, they're both chiefs, but I'm going to give one 10%, even if they were eligible for 20 and the other one the full amount.

For this first year, we just wanted to make it set in stone.

This is the way the program works and work it through the year.

Okay, thanks.

Jay, what is the performance year?

So let's go to the next slide.

That's correct.

So we put dates in place and you're looking at the third goal.

The third goal is achieve 30% design of Franconia bypass by June 30th.

So yes, if it's July 15th, then that one's off the table.

Now we do have the discretion and we wouldn't do this without talking to the board, obviously.

If for some reason we miss a goal by a day or two,

I think we've got the discretion to say, hey, we were making good decisions.

We missed it by a day.

We can adjust that.

We don't intend to, but we don't want folks again to say, well, I'm going to sign it.

There's one detail that's not finalized, but it's June 26th.

I want that share of my bonus.

We're just going to sign it.

We have the ability to be flexible there.

Again, we don't intend to, but we can if we have to.

To your point, though, September 30th is the end of the year, but these goals, the contract for Long Bridge project support has to be done by February 28th.

So I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I can get it for you.

We are putting it in the budget, though, to that point.

If we don't need it, then it just becomes a budget surplus.

So the budget assumes worst case or best case scenario.

Best case, we hit it.

Worst case, we spend a lot of money.

I don't.

I do know it's budgeted for.

The only other question I would have is sort of, without a bonus system, you're looking at your annual performance review and what people, what increase people are eligible for.

Sure, so there are a couple of different things.

We also have programs in place where if people do one-time projects above and beyond, we can give them spot cash bonuses or just-in-time bonuses.

We have part of our annual review.

We can give an annual increase to salary.

The difference with this, though, is that this is a one-time payment, so it doesn't compound the annual increase.

And Joan, if you want to talk about that, that's based purely on performance for individual employees.

So DJ mentioned there are other ways to reward performance, right?

The spot bonuses that he mentioned.

And if someone's taken on additional responsibilities as well, remember we do market pricing.

So if their role has changed substantially, we can revisit the market pricing.

Perhaps they are not compensated for the role that they're doing today, which is different than when we did the initial pricing.

So

Absolutely.

And if you remember our commitment when we rolled out the initial compensation structure is we would revisit our pay scales at least every other year, but our goal is to do it annually.

Jay, it occurs to me that we had, the committee before you were on it, had a long conversation about all of this and about how

all of the levers interact, this idea of a high performer achieving a higher than the norm raised and how that system interacts with then what is essentially kind of the COLA piece of compensation every year and then how that ties into readjustment of the midpoints and the ranges of the salaries.

And I don't know if it would be useful to you, but I know Joan and the team

That makes a lot of sense because I'm probably the newbie on the block.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

These are the four goals.

As I said, they are four that we feel as an organization really will move us forward in this performance here.

The first one, and I'm proud of this, the first one is all about ridership because that's why we're here.

And yes, we've got to deliver these complex capital projects, but at the end of the day, we're only doing that to increase the ridership.

So, the first goal is to increase the ridership by 10%.

State ridership based on the pre-COVID numbers while achieving that cost recovery goal of 60%.

The budget that we had adopted had a goal of 49% cost recovery.

We felt that because we had such a great summer of ridership and because our cost recovery has been higher that we should boost that up.

Again, we want them to be stretch goals.

So, that's our first goal and that's either you hit it or you don't mean it.

All four of these, there's not going to be any half goal where there's no 12% payout, for example.

So that's the first goal.

Second goal is all about Long Bridge, and it's meeting those three deliverable dates on Long Bridge.

Again, not September 30th, but February 28th for the contract for the project support, May 1st for 30% design, and then getting both of the RFQs out for the north package and the south package by July 1st, June 30th.

The north package, just a reminder, that's everything on the project from the DC River's Edge north

and then the south package, the actual bridge is over the river to include the path.

It's completed by June 30th.

And then the fourth goal is more organizational, getting our office space in Northern Virginia, which right now is a big challenge.

We're squatting with DRPT.

Thank you, Mr. Burrell, for giving us space there.

Getting our ERP in place, our systems, as we've talked about, our accounting system is in QuickBooks, which most homeowners associations use.

Nothing gets QuickBooks, but we've got to get something a little more robust in place that talks to our project management software.

And then finally, establish those benefits projects, contracts, excuse me, for finance, engineering and planning no later than the end of March.

That allows us to have resources at our fingertips to bring in for quick lower dollar amount jobs.

We think these are aggressive, but achievable.

Some of them are a little more aggressive than others.

But at the end of the day, we think these four goals are the right ones for the first year, and they're the ones that we're going to be gauging ourselves on.

Question.

So the increase in ridership, I assume that's on Amtrak?

That's correct.

That's a good point.

Just the Amtrak state supported ridership.

And it's just state supported.

Well, we can work with Amtrak on pricing.

We can work with Amtrak on ensuring that they keep the customer service on trains at a high level.

We work with Amtrak and the freights to ensure that they're on time.

Those station projects that we're doing as well makes the stations more attractive, so it's a better experience.

So other than, but really under the marketing, I mean, I applaud this goal, but I think it's a, it's,

It's the one that we have the least control over.

You can argue that the Franconia bypass, well, and the Long Bridge designs, they've got a say in, but you're right.

Yeah.

Great.

And it's also the one that's most important to really why we're here.

Again, these are the four goals, so if we hit one of the four, then folks will be eligible for 25% of those levels that we talked about before.

If we hit all four, then they'll be eligible for the full bonus level.

And so I started to say, we have all staff meetings on a regular basis pretty much every other month.

And then we each have our own individual staff meetings.

We update our progress on each of these goals to all of the employees.

It's a unique thing with a small organization.

Really, all 36 of us have an impact on each of these goals so we can see where our contributions matter.

And the legal team knows that if they don't do design review quickly enough, it could put things at risk.

Everybody really is a part of this and I think it's a good way to keep folks excited about moving the mission forward while ensuring we're able to retain the high talent we've got.

Okay, I yield my time.

So, nice work, everyone.

Now, since we're finished,

I now, if you will give me one minute, my script expired.

So there it is again.

I know it keeps timing out.

And Joan rightly so, let me just say that.

And while I'm looking this up, when we go back to the hiring conversation, I can't help but think that if we need a really good part-time office cat, Sharon has a great... She can't resist the screen.

Yeah.

If you think you need a Bichon Frise, I'll bring ours to demonstrate too.

Okay.

Let me ask for a motion.

I move that the Personnel and Compensation Committee convene in a closed session pursuant to section 2.2-3711A1 of the Code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing the performance of a specific public officer and his employment contract

and that legal counsel and the VPRA chief administrative officer attend the closed session because their presence is deemed necessary and will aid the committee in its consideration of these matters.

Can we have a second?

Victor, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Villeva?

Aye.

Thank you, everyone.

We'll now move to closed session.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, DJ.

Yes, we'll stay on this link.

Thank you, Derek.

You guys are all ready for that?

I think you can go ahead, Sharon.

Okay.

Okay, we're now going to take a roll call vote and I ask that each member indicate their agreement with the following.

To the best of my knowledge during the closed meeting, the only matters heard discussed or considered were those matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and only those public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed session was convened and

I so move, and then we have a roll call vote.

Sharon, I actually think we need a second for your motion.

Victor is seconding the motion.

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Belova.

Aye.

And we don't have our chairman with us.

No.

Yes, we do.

Yes, we do.

Here briefly, but here nonetheless.

I just say we're going back, right?

Just say thank you, yes.

We're good.

We do not, we went through all of our information.

We just approved everything.

Might I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Victor, good job.

Sharon, do I take that as a second?

Yes.

Thank you.

Jay, this is all informational on what the things you, you know, where you really got to kind of step up at times to do these things.

So I think it's within the chairmen's powers to adjourn unilaterally.

I don't think that takes us.

So I think, Mr. Mormon, you can just say we're adjourned and we're magically adjourned.

We're adjourned.

Your power.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Great to see you, DJ.