Los Alamos HR manager announces retirement; board hears wide-ranging HR update

Mary, the county HR manager, told the Los Alamos County Personnel Board that her retirement will take effect on June 1, with her last day in the office on Nov. 14.

Her announcement came during an HR managers report that the board heard at its meeting. The report summarized staffing changes, recruitment metrics, training and safety work, and several policy revisions under development, including an updated compensation policy, a new implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and a reworked drug- and alcohol-testing policy.

The report said HR has reduced vacancies from about 80 to single digits during the manager's tenure and that the department currently has one open HR analyst position to support training and development. Promotions and new hires named in the report included Victoria Pacheco promoted to benefits and pension manager (Feb. 16), Krystle Roybal promoted to HR analyst (Feb. 16), Cassandra Purdy hired June 23 as an HR analyst, Jennifer Rogers hired May 27 as training and development manager, and Elias Isaacson hired May 12 as community development director.

The board heard numbers and program details: the county employed an average of about 892 workers between January and August, including roughly 230 casual employees and two temporaries; the report said the organization has a 10% year-to-date turnover rate. HR said it hired 25 students for an eight-week summer internship program that ran June 9–Aug. 1 and noted continued recruitment work for several senior positions, including fire chief, HR manager and public information officer using an external recruiter.

On scheduling and telework, HR described an alternate work schedule pilot that took effect May 11 and will be evaluated on Nov. 2. The pilot allows compressed schedules such as four 10-hour days; employees on alternate schedules may not participate in the county telework program, which entitles eligible staff to one set remote day per week. The report said most participants selected four 10-hour days.

Policy work under way includes a comprehensive revision of the county compensation policy, which HR described as lengthy and legally complex; the manager said it has required repeated legal review to avoid harming current employees. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act implementation was described as “almost finalized” and the manager characterized it as a federal law that provides pregnancy-related accommodations in addition to existing FMLA protections. HR also described plans to split the county's 62-page drug- and alcohol-testing document into multiple policies tailored to different regulatory regimes (for example, FMCSA-covered positions and other safety-sensitive roles) and to move procedures out of the policy into stand-alone procedure documents.

Training and safety work cited by HR included a new multi-day new-employee orientation that bundles mandatory trainings into the first week, a new HAZCOM requirement and a respirator program. Risk and safety staff have begun site inspections aimed at OSHA compliance and the report said those efforts have helped reduce insurance premiums by identifying coverage gaps and correcting asset lists for renewals with New Mexico Self Insurers Fund and other carriers.

On benefits, HR said open enrollment will run roughly mid-November through Dec. 15, beginning with a health fair in November (HR provided an approximate date of Nov. 7). The benefits team is working to put enrollment online for the upcoming open enrollment. The report also noted a pre-retirement seminar held April 24.

The manager said the department has been tracking exit interviews to capture reasons for departures and that labor negotiations are complete for the firefighters' collective bargaining agreement, signed June 30 and effective July 1, 2024 (through June 30, 2029), while negotiations with the plumbers and pipefitters are expected to begin ahead of a June 30 contract expiration.

Votes at a glance: the board unanimously approved the nomination of James Wernicke as vice chair. The meeting transcript records a voice vote in which members responded “aye” and the nomination was declared passed unanimously.

No other formal board decisions or ordinance votes were recorded in the HR report portion of the meeting. Several board members thanked Mary for her years of service; one said, “You've left the department in very good condition,” and the HR manager closed by noting two mottos that guided her career: “leave things better than you found them, and be kind.”

The board agreed to meet again in October to complete an annual work plan and to consider any policies ready for formal review.