Welcome to the March 2016 Q&A.
This is our monthly installment addressing questions and suggestions received through the online suggestion box (top menu bar on the intranet). We respond to questions with agency-wide relevance , and we cannot answer questions that may affect client or staff/personnel confidentiality protections.
Some questions/suggestions are summarized or simplified in the interest of clarity, brevity or to address tone.
Some questions require more time to answer than is available or are received after we started drafting this Q&A, so missed this installment. We’ll work to address them in later installments.
Suggestions/Questions list
• Changing gross pay
• “All other staff” pay schedule
• Titles on business cards
• Website directory information incorrect
• BBO annual registration
Suggestion/Question: Changing gross pay
Why does my gross pay amount vary so much from pay period to pay period? I understand why my net pay varies – different deductions are taken at different times of the month. But it seems to me that my gross pay amount should be consistent every pay period. Please explain why this happens. Thanks.
Response:
For all payroll questions, please contact SSTA directly at 617-979-8500. Gross pay should be the same bi-weekly since the 1/29/16 (after the January increase).
Division: HR – Donna Leete
Suggestion/Question: “All other staff” pay schedule
Why is the pay schedule for “all other staff” (i.e., HR, management, and IT) not listed on the intranet alongside the attorneys, SS, Attorney managers, and investigators pay schedules?
Response:
We do not presently have pay schedules in place for these groups. They will be established following the completion of the job classification process.
Division: HR – Donna Leete
Suggestion/Question: Titles on business cards
Recently it came time to replenish my business card supply, and I gave our office administrator one of my cards to duplicate. Specifically, I wanted my title to read “public defender,” rather than the sterile and bureaucratic “staff attorney.”
Lo and behold, when my cards came back, the title read “staff attorney.” It’s not bad enough that many of our clients already believe we are part of the state machinery created to move them efficiently and smoothly into the prison or probation chutes, or that our cards bear the imprint and seal of the “Commonwealth” that is the purportedly opposing party in our case. But now, my cards don’t even contradict that appearance with my title. (To be fair, “public defenders” is contained in the agency banner at the top of the card, but it’s in a font that takes a jeweler’s loupe to detect.)
Was my case a fluke, and will my next batch say “public defender” if I’m careful to note it on the request form, or is this a decision that has been made in the agency as a final order? Thanks.
Response:
At present time, a need has been identified to standardize job titles used on all CPCS business cards. We have found a wide variety of different, non-official job titles now in use by CPCS attorneys, which may cause confusion. We are now using the approved official job title for each position to ensure accurate, consistent representation. With your suggestion, however, we will explore with the Senior Management Team and others the potential to standardize functional job titles for each position to offer a second choice of job title to be used for future CPCS business cards.
Division: HR – Donna Leete
Suggestion/Question: Website directory incorrect
Why are some of the names and many of the phone numbers on the directory page on the internet site (https://www.publiccounsel.net/dir/) different from the Staff Directory-2016-02191.pdf?
Response:
When the new website was rolled out at the beginning of 2015, besides the new technology and design, there was also a new process decided where the divisions (PD, MH, CAFL, YAD) and departments (IT, HR, Finance, A&O, etc.) would be responsible for maintaining the data in their respective portions of the website. This includes the directory information posted. All divisions and departments have people trained and with permission to update the directories (and other content) as they change.
If you find an error that needs to be corrected, you can identify whom to contact by clicking the “CPCS Web and Intranet Contacts” link at the bottom of each web page. This listing shows the respective editors for each division or department responsible for these updates.
Division: IT – Daniel Saroff
Suggestion/Question: BBO annual registration
As new systems are being put into place within the agency, it would be helpful if the Finance Department could put something on their intranet page about how BBO Registration forms should submitted to them for payment or reimbursement, so that each attorney new to the agency will know how to accomplish their annual registration.
Response:
The Finance Division has posted step-by-step instructions for staff attorneys on how to renew their annual BBO registration. Instructions may be found on the intranet at http://intranet.publiccounsel.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BBO-Renewal.pdf. This, and other answers to frequently asked questions (including how to order office supplies, how to request reimbursement of job-related expenses, etc.), may be found on the Finance Division’s intranet page.
Division: Finance – Lincoln Heineman