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City Council Work Session Meeting Monday,April 16, 2018 Page 7 Councilmember Laliberte asked about G.A.R.E. training in 2019. She thought the City's program was with the leadership group in 2018. City Manager Trudgeon responded the expectation is that in 2019, there will be some initiatives, based upon the training completed in 2018. The momentum should be continued. There are no specific proposals at this point, but it should be a placeholder in 2019 to capture the momentum. Councilmember Willmus asked about "prioritize human capital" and using best practices management for staff recruitment, retention, and onboarding. City Manager Trudgeon responded there are always changing practices and ap- proaches. The City needs to make sure it is hiring from a wider audience. Reten- tion is an issue, and it is important to ensure the City's policies are comparable to other Cities. Every department does onboarding to some degree, but some of it needs to be streamlined. Councilmember Willmus asked about deficiencies in organizational staffing needs. City Manager Trudgeon responded that the Council has already looked at the Fire Department's suggested staffing needs. City staff in general wants to organize departments and create succession plans. Also, the City has talked about an asso- ciate planner position in years past. Councilmember Willmus commented that it is important to pay attention to FTE's, in terms of doing things differently or more efficiently. He would like to see that explored, as opposed to going out and adding additional people. City Manager Trudgeon responded that one goal is to try to be more systematic in terms of staffing. Councilmember Willmus indicated it is important to know the full picture for the coming year. Recently, the Council approved new positions for the License Cen- ter. He would like to get away from doing that mid-year. He would like to focus on the existing staff rather than bring more people in. If there is a need for more people, it needs to start being talked about early in the budget calendar, with the understanding that those folks are not brought on until the next budget cycle. Mayor Roe indicated that there are strategic plans in various departments. Having that identified also helps the ability to respond to turnover in personnel and look- ing at opportunities to fill some of those needs in different ways. Councilmember Etten agreed with the comments about not having staffing re- quests pop up mid-year. In terms of best practices for staff recruitment and reten-