4.4. SR 05-28-2002MEMORANDUM
Item 4.4.
TO:
FROM:
DATE:
SUBJECT:
Mayor and City Council
Pat Klaers, City ~d~/~,t~r
May 28, 2002
Snow Plowing Policy Change
On December 6, 1999, the City Council discussed about twelve city personnel policy changes.
One of the issues discussed related to vacation and sick time no longer counting towards
"hours worked" for the purposes of overtime. On December 20, 1999, the City Council
approved this hours worked and other personnel policy changes and amended the personnel
ordinance. (Compensation time was not part of this discussion as the city, for at least the past
ten years, has netted out comp hours on a weekly basis.)
Of all the city departments, this hours worked policy change impacts the Street/Park
employees the most and the activity that has brought this issue forward for more discussion is
snow plowing and specifically snow plowing on weekends. In a recent meeting with the
Street/Park employees it was clearly stated that this group has a strong desire and preference
to have this policy changed back to the pre December 20, 1999, status. This pre December 29,
1999, status was that all hours - regardless if it was vacation time taken, a holiday, or sick time
taken - be counted as hours worked for the purposes of overtime.
The Street/Park employees stated to me at our meeting that they believed their feelings
regarding the hours worked and overtime policy are citywide and does not just pertain to their
department. I have heard concerns from other employees regarding this policy but the impact
to other departments is not a common occurrence.
The city changed its hours worked policy for a number of reasons. One reason was that the
new policy was more consistent with federal law. The city can be more lenient or generous
than federal law but we can't be more stringent and provide fewer benefits. (We were more
generous than federal law before December 20, 1999, and still are more generous, as we count
holidays as hours worked and this is not required by law.) With this policy change Elk River
was following the lead of other metropolitan cities and the larger Elk River's work force gets,
then the larger the financial impact is due to this policy.
The Street/Park Department employees discussed numerous other economic issues in their
meeting with me including decreasing the number of steps to the top of the pay plan,
increasing starting pay, allowing on call employees to work two hours of overtime each day, an
early start bonus, plus other financial requests. They also wanted to know if they had any
appeal process available to them if I didn't support their requests or present them to the City
Council.
At this time, I am prepared to recommend that all snow plowing activity on Saturday and
Sunday receive overtime pay and that this policy be for the 2002-03 snow season and that this
policy be evaluated within one year. This won't give the street employees what they requested,
but it will go a long ways toward providing fair compensation for hours worked under difficult
situations. This department is the only one where most of the employees need to be available
on weekends in the winter in case of a storm. They all understand that snow plowing is part of
the job but to be essentially on call during weekends without always being compensated at
time and one-half pay when actually called out does not seem fair. A section of the city policy
manual does allow for emergency call out hours (as determined by the department head) to be
compensated as overtime hours and an argument could be made that any snow plowing on
the weekend is an emergency call out.
With this proposed change for snow plowing hours on weekends, the economic impact to the
city for having vacation hours and sick hours not count towards hours worked is less
significant. If the City Council wants to consider any changes, it should be noted that the City
Council can move one or both of these type of work hours back to its pre December 20,
1999, status and have them count as hours worked for overtime purposes. Of the two types of
hours, sick hours would seem like the best candidate for consideration.
An informal survey was conducted by the Street/Park Department and the results indicate
that Elk River is in the minority of the sampled cities in not having vacation hours or sick
hours count towards hours worked. However, when looking at an employee pay and benefit
issue the entire package needs to be examined and not just one part of the package being
isolated and compared. Overall, I believe Elk River is in the normal range when it comes to
total pay and benefits when looking at similar communities.
The city had an insurance benefits committee that put forward a recommendation to the City
Council a year ago but this committee dealt only with insurance issues. The street employees
requested a committee to deal with wage and benefit concerns but this does not seem
appropriate, as wages and benefits is a management issue. The city personnel committee
(mainly deals with comparable worth issues) uses the Metro Area Stanton Report for data and
information when evaluating any Elk River employee wage and benefit issue. The DCA
Stanton Group report (the 2001 report was the 3Yd annual survey) contains data from 137
governmental units on 106 different employee positions. A city staff conducted
comprehensive employee wage and benefit comparison would be a significant undertaking
and is not recommended at this time.
Recommendation
It is recommended that on a one-year trial basis that all employees working on snow removal
duties on Saturdays and Sundays be paid at overtime rates (time and one-half pay) and that
this policy be evaluated within one year.
s:\council\snowplowpolicychange.doc