PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE MINUTES

OCTOBER 18, 2006

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Sellers at 5:00 p.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT: Leah Sellers, David Burke Excused: John Marshall

OTHERS PRESENT: Brian Dostanko

AGENDA:

Section 4 (Pay Policies) and Section 5 (Benefits Policies) of the City of Marysville Policies and Procedures Manual

Mr. Dostanko gave some background on how and why the Policy Manual was created. This project was manned by the City Planner, as well as an outside contractor at a cost of approximately $15,000 prior to Mr. Dostanko’s employment with the City. Existing information was collected. An ordinance was already in existence which covered pay and benefits. That ordinance became Chapters 400 and 500. Once Mr. Dostanko started with the City, he reviewed the Policy and noted numerous issues with it. A complete revision was done and became effective on January 1, 2003. On January 1, 2005, a second revision was completed. A revision is being presented to Council once again. It is not HR’s intent to change this every year.

There are no major changes in 400 and 500. However, there are significant areas in the manual that need to be addressed. A policy for job reference interviews was implemented. There can be liability issues if people just respond in kind about an employee. All job references, by policy, are now referred to HR.

Changes were also made to the following policies:

Policy for Work Status during Level 3’s.

Policy for Internal investigations

Policy for Off-duty Behavior

Changes in Sections 4 and 5.

400 – No changes.

405 – Deleted some commas.

Ms. Sellers asked for clarification on comp time. Mr. Dostanko explained that comp time was eliminated in the 2005 revision. The Mayor felt it was an unfunded requirement on the books that would have to be paid at a later date. Comp time was bargained out of the Fire Contract with the stipulation that they would only keep it out if the City would go to reconciliation and win in the Police Contract. City went to reconciliation and lost in Fact Finding to Police because they wanted to hang on to comp time. Because the Police got it back, Fire resorted back to comp time as well. That meant that Police and Fire received comp time, but the rest of the City did not. At that point, Mr. Dostanko approached Administration and recommended giving comp time back to all employees. It was agreed to do so.

410 - Only time longevity pay is paid when an employee leaves the City is retirement.

415 – “The City will conduct wage and classification studies for that purpose on an as-needed basis.” Moved this statement from “Policy” to “Procedures”, 2a.

2a - “either an independent external or” – This does not need to be included, however, it can still be done.

2b – Establishing Wage and Salary Rates. Add: The City sets compensation rates annually by updating the local pay ordinance.

c. Initial Compensation for New Hires: The City will normally hire new employees based on their first step or low end, however, at times we may have to go a little higher as a recruitment tool.

2.c.2. Eliminated Step C as a maximum you can advance in a range. Steps used to mean an 8 or 9%. Mr. Dostanko increased steps to 9 steps from 5 steps, which means an employee is eligible for 4% based on merit: A “Satisfactory” gets 1 step, “Excellent” gets 2 steps and “Outstanding” gets 3 steps.

420 – Promotion

The words “Range” and “Step” have been changed to lower case.

Added: 2d. Range Promotion. “correlates to the same current salary or produces a marginal increase in wages:” This change gives the City the ability to move someone from one range to another without giving them an automatic pay raise for a position they may not even know how to do.

425 – Demotion

Add: The supervisor will document the demotion using the process Action Form (PAF). This will ensure that the supervisor will do the proper paperwork.

430 – 2b2 Lower Range process. Add …. that also produces “no wage increase or” ……..

435 – No change.

440 – Re-employment and Reinstatement. Add: The service break is not considered service time for any benefit accruement.

445 – PERS has been changed to OPERS. Added other part-time employees which are eligible for OPERS, which didn’t make it to the table in years past.

4. Pension Pick-up. Have been doing business this way; it just was not written correctly in the Policy.

450 – table added.

455 – No significant changes.

460 – No significant changes.

500 –

An issue throughout the policy manual. Employee categories of seasonal part-time, part-time, permanent part time and full time. There is a slight difference between part-time and permanent part-time. The difference between permanent part-time and full time is that permanent part-time do not get medical benefits, which equates to about $12,000 per year. Permanent part-time will accrue most of the major benefits that full-time employees receive except for medical at 50% rate. This language is reflected throughout the Policy Manual.

Table 500-1. Added: (or nearest regular workday)

Table 505. 2. Added: Police and Fire personnel earn vacation per their applicable contract.

4a. Prior Service Credit. Used as a recruitment tool. It was put in the previous Policy Manual, but no definition, no timeframe or when or why City would look at it. Because of that, when the next Fire Contract came along, Fire wanted Prior Service Credit. They were told it was a recruitment tool, but because the old policy manual didn’t specifically state that and other individuals in the city were granted that credit, City had to pay 4 firefighters and 5 police officers a variety of prior service credit for public service for vacation. That door was closed on that about a year and half ago. Added: Prior service credit must be granted no later than 30 days following the start date.

505 – Changed to 30 minute increments. HR will monitor closely.

510 – Personal Leave – Added permanent part-time and gave them half rate. Added 30 minute increments.

515 – Sick Leave – 30 minute increments. Added the table. Sick Leave Buy-out Incentive. Previously there was a Sick-Leave Bonus. If you didn’t use any sick leave up to 32 hours, the City would pay employee what they make an hour up to 32 hours. That was an incentive not to get sick. Mr. Dostanko had a problem with that benefit because the employee would get paid for 32 hours, but it would not be deducted from their amount of sick leave. The last revision refers to this as a Sick-Leave Buyout. If you don’t use it, you sell it back to the City. You must have at least 240 hours remaining after you can sell it.

520 – Court Leave – Added: Union County. The employee must be a witness for a government entity, the City or County, in order to receive Court Leave. This pertains mostly to Police and Fire personnel.

525 – Military Leave – No significant change.

530 - Injured on the Job - Added: Regular full-time employee pay is based on a 40-hour week, permanent part-time employees are based on regularly scheduled days and hours. A part-time employee on injury leave would not be paid a 40-hour work week.

535 - Family and Medical Leave. FMLA is a Federal Act. The Act doesn’t state a designated year that is used for usage. Federal government uses fiscal year, many cities use the calendar year, which is what the City of Marysville is going to use, and some use rolling years. Rolling years benefit the employer, but is very hard to manage, especially with the City’s antiquated system. City does not have much of a problem with FMLA.

545 – Bereavement Leave. Policy previously stated additional leave could be given by a supervisor at their discretion. The policy manual laid out all the guidelines, but then said the supervisors could do whatever they want. This was changed to extraneous circumstances. In circumstances beyond the 5 working days, if there is some type of issue that would qualify as sick leave, mental stress, family stress, they will be given additional leave, however, it will be treated as sick leave and be counted against the sick-leave buyout incentive.

555 – CDL & EPA Certification Reimbursement. Added the word “driver’s” license to clearly define that with respect to CDL.

560 – Insurance & Short-term Disability.

4. Short-term Disability. This existed in contract and policy manual prior to Mr. Dostanko working for the City. Short-term disability is very seldom offered. City provides 13 weeks to employees at 67% of their pay if they don’t have a history of abuse and have no other time to use. The FMLA paperwork must be completed. Mr. Dostanko stated the City allows donation of sick time from other employees. FMLA still needs to be completed. In other words, the employee would get FMLA but paid.

Meeting adjourned at 5:53 p.m.