it picks up really well all right so we'll call this uh work session to order September I'm sorry October 21st uh 2024 6:35 p.m. and this is a uh hopefully a wrap up on the Personnel phase two policy so call the meeting to order and please call roll Scott here mayor Pon present council member Angel present council member Alders here council member Brian here council member flatable anybody know I don't know the status anyway nothing okay uh project manager jenevie hbot here Deputy clerk Natalie Johnson here and your city administrator Scott lner's president rooll call is taken sir thank you we approve or amend the agenda we have an addition to it that's the addition to there isn't an agenda agenda but I just put together something there to discuss tonight since we want to have discussions with an RCA and I put a resolution with it on top of the so I would move that we include the resolution from City administrator laner in regards to uh the conclusion of the project manager's timeline the city all right with that Amendment do we have any anything else hearing that all those in favor of the uh agenda as amended sign but signify by saying I I I I opposed motion carries [Applause] all right Genevie where are we at um so if you have the packets in front of you the first item to discuss there are comments for just formatting that will be done um in the future so the first item to discuss is on page six of the policy these are exemptions to the policy so right now the ver B States volunteers accept as specifically noted for paid on call Firefighters we had discussed making it more clear that paid on call Firefighters are exempt from this policy um so I would suggest having it be volunteers as one bullet point and then a separate bullet point that says paid on call firefighter so that that's very clear they are exempt um there was discussion of reviewing the paid on call Firefighters policy to make sure that they are covered within that policy and therefore do not need to be covered within this policy um so just wanted to clarify I have not seen a copy of the paidon call Firefighters policy um so I wanted to clarify if that's something that should be reviewed either by myself or by somebody else to make sure that they are covered and therefore can be exempt from the overall Personnel policy say out scope needs to be a follower sorry what say it's out of scope for this document it needs to be a followup later date should I put is is the review of the policy to be done just not a not part of this correct okay okay next item um things that were added based on our last discussion which was in August so the next item is on page 13 um this was just clarifying um the Personnel committee agreeing on a candidate and what happens when they are not agreeing so we can either go through all of the changes that were made based on the August otherwise you guys can review those separately and you have any changes to the verbiage you can let me know whatever is best for the council Mr Mayor sir so I think I heard jevy say page 12 but I had an opportunity to went through this whole document from line item by line item and if we come across things before we get to page 12 do we want to discuss them when we go do we want to highlight them because there there's certain things that Jif you is in here didn't needs information on but there's certain things that I cut that I just need clarification from how would you like to proceed sir when we go through this I was hoping we'd get through the uh since we've already been through these things that we get through the document tonight and then obviously we have to figure out what we're going to do if genev is going to be done this week so MH and we can revisit it that time along with the the fire department policies I guess so so keep my notes separate tonight and just go through what Jen you had guys and then we'll double back at a later time to address them we have time tonight otherwise you had a later time to okay all right cuz we haven't seen what what notes you have so yeah but it would have been the same thing everybody else was looking at when he got the packet so I'm just saying if if we've already been through it m and you want to make changes to something or ask for clarifications or things that I don't believe that we agreed to that either in or in not in the policy and it'll make more sense when we come to some of them but I can hold I can hold off if uh if you want me to hold off yeah I think let's try and get through this if this is her last meeting so okay fair enough thank you so would we like to go through the new verbage that was added for the last council [Music] meeting we're on page 13 yes and that would be the items in pink or [Applause] yes so these are items that were discussed in person um just put down now in writing based on the discussion that we had well officially now we don't have have a Personnel committee we have an interview committee so that verbage is already obsolete since we didn't have a Personnel committee document as as far as responsibilities and Authority so there will be several items um maybe a dozen places that we'll just need to swap out the verbage Personnel committee does appear throughout the document so that can be a single change of anywhere that Personnel committee was although what did you did you say it was an interview there's still a hiring committee but Mr Mayor counc member guess I I thought the hiring committee was a we have one we have two people working now on the fire chief um I think we need to look at how we want to hire um staff is as far as the the interview process who's involved um at this time we don't have a A specific group of people if it's going to be a as we should be an ad hoc group each time right is that well that's sign is that a thought um we don't have we we put that out so disbanded it so that whole section as I understand it then that whole selection process section is going to have to be expanded to include an actual hiring procedure process or defer to a different document somewhere else that would be mine I would suggest updating the verbiage within the document versus having a separate policy since this entire chapter is on how somebody is hired to the city so it could so potentially it may expand Beyond selection process um so I would suggest having 233 Recruitment and selection process be reviewed and then double cheing anywhere Personnel committee is referenced within the policy to make sure hiring committee or interviewing committee would be applicable because I believe there might be one or two spots where it seemed more like a Personnel committee that references like HR related things that might not be applicable to an interview committee so those could be updated to the relevant person or persons as needed so we'll have to come back to that I will PL that so that it is noted for a future review all right the next item was a question on background checks when during the process a background check would be um needed or required um and I double checked with the league of Minnesota City they have the same verbage that naans policy has I'll find anal ists will be subject to a background check um but I did notice further in the paragraph it does say the city reserves the right to conduct either at finalist stage or after a conditional offer has been made so I think the verbiage is um open to allowing now then to choose when to do the background check it doesn't state that it has to be done at a certain stage so I think it will uh qualify um um it is open enough where now then can choose when to do the background check all right and then the credit check verbage was updated per discussion to state that certain positions such as City administrator and finance clerk will have a credit check Mr Mayor sir can we change Finance clerk to Deputy clerk please we don't have a finance clerk unless you're the title itself we have a clerk that does Finance but we don't have a finance and the other question would be and maybe that's isn't for tonight and you have to tell me Mr Mayor but um where are we where are we doing these credit checks from like when mine was done help you remember anybody know where to point us in which direction or and if we don't know figured it out but any have any do you know what I don't a call to another city would be yep I can I just wasn't sure I didn't want to recreate the wheel if we had a process and I wasn't aware of it thank you y um the next item was the CDL so we did talk about that uh quite a bit at the August meeting but there were takeaways on um what requires a CDL and what uh if now then can be part of a larger pool for the um random checks so I don't have any new information on the requirements of a one time pickup for a CDL or the larger pool um so I don't know if we have that information or if that needs to be a Mr Mayor we do have that information we do not have to have anybody with a CDL or vehicles that are driven over the CDL are 26,000 uh pound gross vehicle weight that would be your large um plow trucks um that would not be any of our smaller trucks or Chevy Ford uh unless one of those vehicles had a flat bed trailer on the back and you were pulling a total weight over 26,000 lb and it would call for that uh the conversation about one ton pickup trucks so I got this information from the state patrol i' R through Dave who Dave um T sorry I'll get his name in a minute but I know it's name uh from the state patrol who actually does this and conducted these him and I had a lengthy conversation went ran through all our scenarios with that um but basically it's anything 26,000 lb or over it does not in include our small trucks unless it's pulling a trailer you're not heavy enough when we looked at our trucks one of our trucks is 14,000 lb and other one's 19,000 lb you are not going to get over to 26,000 lb by putting a blade on the truck and putting ass salt there in the back you also do not have to deal with the do as we talked about where you're at uh where the one ton comes in with the do um there are some parameters that go around it um but right here it says a vehicle that is owned and used solely in the transaction of official business by federal government state government or political subdivisions and I asked them does political subdivisions mean uh cities like we are and he says absolutely so we are not subject to the do or the one ton so what what really is going to be is just anything over 26,000 PBS mainly high percentage of the time we're just talking about the large plow trucks good yep everything else is good excellent okay so the second question was um the pool yeah so I did reach out to the the the count hasn't given me a a for sure answer on that uh when I talked to Dave about that also he said he's heard about it but people have kind of gone away from that he says if you find somebody that um would be open to that like Ina County so I am still got phone calls in trying to talk to um Joe mcferson gave me a name there at the county that he thought might be able to give me some information and they haven't been able to provide me any information at that point if it was if it was me a beton man maybe I would say we're 50/50 at this point that we might be able to join that pool um but it's not uh a dead issue yet so I'm still working on that piece of it so all right that's direct the next item is on page 15 again for our last discussion verbage was added that Council has the right to supersede the Restriction of um employees working for the same Department next item is further down on page 15 um just clarifying the Minnesota data Practices Act determining what is private [Applause] information next change is on page 17 we just move this verbage from section two to section one and the next is on page 18 so I have a question on that so um so is that it at the discretion of our city administrator with the understanding he knows what hours he knows the best hours that people should be working uh for the service to the public may require regular shifts yeah um we didn't change that verbiage at all okay so I I don't know we just moved it because it seemed more relevant it didn't seem like it was related to scheduled breaks sorry Jen can you I was writing a note can you level set me where we're at where are you at uh yes on page 17 service to the public may require regular ships thank you we just moved that out of section two because section two refers to requirements of taking breaks and this wasn't really relevant to taking breaks so the discussion was just move it up a section but we didn't change the verbiage at all we just someone had noticed that's more related to works sched than it is to breaks thank you we add that it's at the discretion of the city administrator sh shift designations or the discuss of the city administrator is there anybody else that could be isn't that implied though I mean anybody else that could be going to say they're the ones that are responsible and accountable for their hours so I I feel like that's implied all right um the next is further down in that section we just clarified that no employee uh may work for another employer or their own business while receiving workers comp or disabil disability pay from the city so you can't um be on workers comp from now then and then working a different job that is that added or uh the wall receiving workers comper disability pay was added um the next is on page 19 there was a question on demotion um on if the city was able to reduce pay um per the league of Minnesota cities salary may be decreased due to Performance deficiencies so the question was is the city allowed to reduce someone's pay and per the league they are so um I don't know if that verbiage would like to be added in this section I think we should I mean right now otherwise it just says Frozen that could be a long time but if the performance isn't there but you want to keep them around and and try and uh improve a performance it also doesn't designate why they were demoted if it was a personal reason for going to a different position within the city or it was a city administrator decision based on performance so there's a difference there well but if they're taking a lower position whether forced to or voluntarily they're still stepping down I you know we have such a small staff it's hard to but let's say you're the supervisor in public works and you decide I just don't want that responsibility I want less responsibility I would still say you stepping down to a lower position you get the lower pay and if if the city administrator said we we don't want to lose you but you can't stay where you're at so you're going to be in a lower position we think we think this lower position would work well but I still think either way you step to a lower position voluntary or force it should be may be decreased is what the verbage says so you could add the salary may be decreased due to Performance deficiencies or a voluntary adop I don't think it matters I mean an employeed either demoted or or choosing an employee moving to a lower job class will have their wage adjusted to the top of the top of the rate for that for that salary grader however it works I mean in some cases a lot of the salary ranges overlap and the hourly wange ranges overlap so it may not matter but if you're at the top of the supervisor position we're going to move you to the top of the hourly position more but that's but if you choose it if you choose to like Jeff said if you don't want to be a supervisor anymore and you just want to plow snow it's like we're going to pay you this as much as we can in the snow plow rate but you don't have the same responsibility so um and like you said it's a small enough staff but I mean it happens routinely right well yeah and then we're you know we're updating this for the that we won always be this small but how about employees moving to a lower job class may have their salaries decreased to the pay schedule for that lower job class yeah that separates deficiencies versus volunteers yeah just because there could be several reasons why somebody chooses to right yep so Mr Mayor sir so just for clarification for everybody we do not have job classes at this time so I don't know if we should have that in there and then the second comment that's off to the side says the salary may be decreased due to Performance deficiencies so for example I'll just use me for example if the city council thinks that I'm uh deficient in a certain area or in a performance evaluation they say you need to do better in that area does that mean then uh City administrator's pay can be reduced so if we're demoting we just we just took out the performance deficiencies out of that verbiage if if they're stepping to a um lower job classification we don't have we have job classifications you've got a supervisor and you've got you've got uh Public Works employees and like I said it's a small subset here but let's say supervisor didn't want to do that anymore and he just wanted that somebody else be the supervisor and I'll step down and and run trucks um that's a lower job class than a supervisor then that would be in this case maybe decreased to that classification that in the group he's moving with so so we're not we're not saying you know you can say they're moving back because of deficiencies or they can say I choose to do less and U you know I know somebody who was a manager of a an operation and they just wanted to run the day-to-day stuff stuff they want to be a manager over multiple operations anymore so they chose to step back and take a reduction and pay accordingly so whether you choose for deficiency reasons or they choose for responsibility reasons we're just saying if they step back to a lesser responsibility if you don't want to say lower job class but lesser responsibilities the pay would be comminate with the responsibilities that they're they're handling so Mr there CC member so what if I have a title and we have more employees than we do now as we grow um and restructuring of the office takes the title I currently hold away and splits the responsibilities for to two other two other positions that are maybe at a lower class so I'm going to be have my wages reduced or am I going to be frozen until some a point where I now the the new title that I'm in is at that same level that happened to me at the City of Minneapolis I they they disbanded the job I had they split it up I went to another position that I had previously held um that was at a lower rate but I stayed at the rate that I was at um until the rate of my new position was at that rate well this does say m so it does allow for those unique situations it seems like the council could say because we're splitting this up we're not going to reduce it this verbiage is really just what came out of the last meeting was do we have the opportunity to say we can change your pay because your responsibilities have changed this verbiage will allow the city to have that option where they previously could never reduce pay due to responsibilities and if lower job class is an issue then we could get rid of the verbiage lower job class I mean you could not necessarily take you could take a different job in a different department uh new job responsibilities how about something generic like that next item is on page 20 um deductions from an exempt employees pay must be approved by the city administrator or if there will be a deduction from the city administrators pay the city council must approve that's new verbage that was added per our discussion the next is on the top of page 22 when the administrator oh I should put City to to match format when the city administrator is requesting leave it must be communicated to the city council check all right so that should be all changes based on previous discussion now we are getting into new items um because these are sections that we have not covered in previous meetings so the first item is going to be on the top of page 23 the very first sentence is um added per the league of Minnesota City's verbage all right mayor sir is that something you guys really want to do every year pull a DMV for in February check people's places every year that wasn't added H that wasn't added that's what it's always been well I don't know if it's ever been implemented then because I I'm yeah there's probably probably a few things that haven't been implemented but the only thing added was in the the gray highlight the rest that is existing that's fine but my question still stands is that something you want to do every Fe everywhere I don't see why not but we go down to every two years well they're they're driving some pretty big trucks I I we're not just talking about them we're talking about everybody that's who drive City Vehicles so it's it's going to be it's everybody or who drives personal vehicles for City business okay so who's who's driving personal vehicles for City business Natalie when she goes down to the elections and picks up Lexi does it I do it do it the post office everybody it would be everybody it would affect everybody in the office I mean i' I'd say you limit it to uh if they're driving City Vehicles so I mean the the risk we're trying to limit is say somebody gets a has a suspended license and doesn't tell their manager and they're driving a city vehicle and they involved in a accident or something and it comes out that the person doesn't even have a license and they've been driving our equipment I mean that is the risk we're trying to avoid if completely agree yeah if somebody has their own vehicle and gets stopped even if they're on City business picking it's like it's on it's not our it's not our insurance it's not our I I mean that's where I would that's where I would delineate it but I'm just going opinion seasal yeah I guess my my question would be if if I'm D if I'm a city employee and I'm driving for City business and I have an accident am I claiming that on my own personal insurance am I claiming it on C because you're claiming mileage so when you claim mileage okay yeah CLE mileage would exempt you then from the I I'm sorry Mr mayor's I would like to check with the l or with um the insurance company because I know somebody just the other day whose boss sent them to go get lunch or said hey let so and so use your car to go get lunch they got into a car accident and the boss's insurance is paying for it that that we should have that clarified who responsibility is that if we're using and I think we need to talk about seasonal folks right we do a background check on all our seasonal folks but we don't necessarily pull their DMV so if that's something we want to add then that's something we're going to have to add to our checklist when we bring F I think it's reasonable because we we did have somebody plowing for us that maybe didn't have a license at one point and uh we we weren't checking at that time and and they got in an accident I believe this is covered by the League of Minnesota City I just didn't flag anything because the verbiage was already in the policy and it wasn't at that point up for review um so the league of Minnesota City could be a good resource on what is required or what is expected of other cities because I believe the rest of the sentence is verbatim from the league and that's why we were just adding the gray sentence to match the leags so we so the action item is to check with our insurance company though I mean that's and we'll check with the DMV too and see if there's any charges for this or if there's anything that goes along with that to run the DMV I know we used to you probably run DMV or your area do probably run DMV checked on a regular basis to make sure people have upto-date licenses and all that kind we used to do that quite a bit but yeah so let's just check with them and see what the process will look like but uh knowing that you guys want to go forward and I'm hearing you guys annual seems reasonable yeah okay thank you I used to do it for the PD we used to do it every three years though we didn't do it every year and but we did have a clause in there it says if anything changed with your driver's status you need to immediately notify or could include termination right so better tell your boss if you lost your license can and we and we have that in the next paragraph if that matters so that does bring us up to the next item replacing the stricken out sentence with the League's verbage any concerns with making that change nope the next item is right below for drug tests so originally there several many months ago there was discussion um that the city may want to continue drug and alcohol testing for all employees not just do employees um I know we've talked about it a few times just briefly is the city still interested in doing drug and alcohol testing for all employees the way I see it worded it says any City employee shall be subject to a drug test either randomly or due to Reasonable Suspicion so that would mean anybody could if there's Reasonable Suspicion correct but since this policy was originally drafted the rules for drug and alcohol testing for the state have changed considerably so um if pursuing drug and alcohol testing for non do employees is um the city's policy then there are very strict requirements for what can be tested and when and what you can do with those results for example you may not um fire or um punish is not the right word uh you may not take action against an employment in employees status due to the drug and alcohol test results so the league States you're better off going with performance so if they were uh under the influence and their performance suffered to pursue the performance issue instead of the drug and alcohol testing since you may not uh terminate employment due to a failed drug or alcohol test but you could terminate employment due to any other reason actually you could um because of their performance suffered or the fact that we're in at will state Mr Mayor Scott any you had the laws changed since the last time we talked about it no no because wasn't the conversation we had prior to this that you guys wanted to take a look at the the do or the guys run the CDLs but we talked about not doing it for the rest of the employees I don't remember we had talked about that um in the preemployment testing um with the um knowing that we would get to this section here so now that we're at this section I know that it seemed last time we talked about it that testing for non doot um was not the preference so just want to confirm now that we're at that section should drug testing just be for do that's its own separate policy with its own separate rules it would be my opinion if the league is recommending or the state law recommends something different that I'd have to see that before I could say yes leave this this way or no go with this other wording so I would propose we flag this for for a future review Mr Mayor rille well also to his in who was involved in an accident while at work for the city so what's an accident you know I remember years back when we had talked about this um the insurance company was you can't do it every time because if somebody cuts their finger while they're pruned in trees that's an accident but do you want to do drug testing that people will stop stop reporting things and we we don't want that so I think we need also and when we relook at it after we have the state verbes what is an accident um I mean it's underneath the motor vehicle piece of it but it's it doesn't designate that it's just in a in a motor vehicle I it does it does later it does say involves the use of a city vehicle or equipment but what at at what point do we start doing a drug test um for some of the cust finger or their finger termin Tre so our policy was if it required medical attention so if you get a paper cut or you do something and but if you severely injure yourself and you have to go off and get stitches or you get your you know broken bone mended or you're out of work for a while those are accidents but if so if it you know it needs to be defined but but if it needs medical attention I think that would seem to be an accident Mr Mayor Mary's I think Mary's is probably uh from a um from a correctness standpoint like you you can't do a drug test if somebody has a oer recordable I mean that's not that's not align to like like a like a corporate in the corporate world you can't do that now I don't know if it's if you're involved in a vehicle accident that might be different but like somebody gets hurt at work we can't automatically say well you're you need to go to get a drug or alcohol test it's cuz these Genna be is right when there's been a lot of updates to the drug and alcohol policy in terms of what you can and can't do over the last couple years so I'm not 100% sure I'm saying we don't do that that doesn't mean you can't but I'm just saying a lot of companies don't do a mandatory I'll say drug or alcohol screening if they have an orer recordable not 100% sure on a vehicle incident if it's different but we cuz our old policy was if you had property damage of more than 500 bucks or vehicle axent or an ocean recordable it was on automatic drug test and that was all changed that needs work all right the next um change is on the top of page 24 unauthorized absences from work for a period of three consecutive days may be considered resignation without proper notice um this is just added per the LMC policy um this is mentioned several other places which are flagged as well now then's previous policy had two business days um the league has three so this entire sentence is plag to be added but also in future Po in future sections updating two to three days all right any question with that okay the next one is further down on the page and this is a um choice so there are two different options options for layoff um one has those on a probationary period um being the first to be laid off and the alternative wording is um seniority is not the first decision maker so the leagues the League's thought on this is with the 2025 work work force having this alternative verbiage is very appealing to the workforce because they know if the first person that will be laid off at any given job is the first person the last person that was hired last in first out um that's discouraging because they know that they'll be the first person laid off so the alternative verbiage says it's based on needs performance Knowledge and Skills instead of purely seniority so there's two different options um but one of them should be chosen just to clarify um how the city will review layoffs if needed so the comments from the league there if we choose the alternative which I I agree in the 2025 Workforce um you know shops I've been in before you could tell when when things were happening certain people felt pretty secure because they were well up the seniority list um their comment there is if we choose the alternative we need to be prepared to implement A system that can be defended in possible lawsuit or legal proceeding again with the side Workforce we have here it's it's not going to be a major thing at this point but as we grow this will be significant do does the league tell you how to prepare to implement a system they do not they just advise you to be prepared so you better have some logic in what you're doing and it's it's not uh doesn't look biased in any way because I could see that age discrimination will jump in there pretty quick veterans veterans age and gender gend so should we stay with what we have until we are able to come to a decision on what that's going to be with the alternative and what's our plan if we were to go to the alternative there isn't one right now so you could go with the top option for now um and then design the the system and then switch over to the alternative 2025 Workforce once that's in place that would be my preference Scott what do you think on that one I think it could go either way to be honest with you if I take a look at the second one I I think until we have something in place until we decide I I do agree that with the conversations that the uh we go with the first one but you could use that second one you could use a performance evaluation a good performance evaluation just can distinguish between top candidates and not top candidates if you will right in addition to anything else that the council would like to add to it you know if there's a document or something on it but but I I think you could get there uh through a performance evaluation Mr Mayor sir I mean why wouldn't we want to be more flexible instead of locking oursel into just seniority I mean seniority is secondary but if there's some other if we only have one person that can run the motor grader and he's got 5 years of experience and I'm not saying that's the case but it's like you only have one guy that can run the motor grader and the person with 20 years can't and you need a motor grader operator it would seem crazy that we would back ourselves into we're only going to base oursel off 20 years and if everybody's got the same skills and ability and their performance is all good okay then we'll go down to the second tier but it gives Scott some more ability to say I've got a person that if I look at my skills Matrix or um my cross trainining Matrix I've got one person that's cross trained on everything and I've got another guy that's cross trained on half of stuff why would I choose B over a just because he's been here for a year longer or two years longer I think it also motivates people to get cross train you know I I mean I would think we'd want to be as flexible as possible and it's like the way we're currently staffed I I mean it seems like this would be the last conversation we're having because we've been having the other one for the last two years but I'm just like I would think we'd want to keep ourselves open to be as flexible as possible and I almost guarantee the next time we go over this thing it's going to be a while so I'm hearing choose the alternative wording um and use performance evaluations in as part of or as the basis for choosing which employees to say and which employees to lay off what's that plus the cross training well it says in there um performance knowledge skills and abilities so that I think that's cross training you know a performance Matrix however you want to set it up but that's in there yep got you Mr Mayor mem I guess I I would like if to keep us out of the lawsuit what does the City attorney say if you're going to do this alternative you've got the the three things four things noted performance knowledge skills and abilities but then is there an age discrimination issue is there a veterans discrimination issue those things should be addressed also so that because we we don't want to get ourselves in trouble by not having that part of of whatever we use if we go with the alternative that's fine but we just need to make sure that when that decision is made it is made in a way that we're not violating anybody's uh rights based on age or gender or veteran status and I don't I don't know those rules so Mr Mayor so just for clarification Council May Rangel are you saying if we get ourselves into a situation like this the contact the attorney at that point or are you wanting something now from the attorney to address it I Mr Mayor right Scott I would like something now because then we would know that yes so if you're using these four other things but then how do these other issues that'ss age gender how does that play into it so that we can when a decision is made it's made with all of the information and what what if we put it in there because right now we're not even close to this put in there at the time because we don't know what's going to change in the inter room but have the attorney should be consulted at that time to make sure we aren't discriminating because there's all manner of of of protected classes now which can only likely grow and so I think it's Germaine when it comes to that we say um say administrator will um contact the um the attorney to verify protected classes so if you're looking at this you can say here's what we're looking at doing and say well here's what you have to be considered of before recommending to the council because then it's then it's current to whatever the exactly okay the legislation is at the time if you find out something now case law and all these things could change and by the time we actually use it and all the information we have now might not be relevant anymore so I think we just we add a clause in there that they will contact the attorney of advice of the attorney I like it it sounds good yep all right so be with that Clause so is 2285 being replaced in its entirety with an alternative wording no just the highlighted paragraph above the sentence that says or use alternative verbage so this sentence here will be stricken I don't have a strikeout right now that will go away and then just the bottom seus um the next item in for retirement just the next paragraph there are um two sentences that the league has that now then did not so just clarifying what the Public Employee retirements Association um benefits are and the contributions um so those two are added per the league of mina cities the last line uh is not referenced in the league of Minnesota cities it does also say that a retiring employee is one that resigns and meets par eligibility but from my research you don't have to resign from the city um in order to reach par requirements so um my suggestion would be to just remove that last sentence since it may not be accurate all right okay with the removal mhm and okay with adding yep all right so page 25 looks like we kind of duplicate yes and you clar attendance so this would be where um now then had attendance of two days of absence for three and um the League's attendance verbiage is just more specific than what now then had so suggest removing the stricken out language and replacing it with the leagues language highlighted any questions or concerns oh the next section is severe weather conditions so two sentences added that City facilities will generally be open during adverse weather individuals may determine um evaluate the weather and road conditions before deciding whether to report to work or leave early and clarifying that Public Works maintenance employees will genuinely still be required to report to work regardless of weather conditions questions all right next changes are per the 2024 State Legislature changes to esst they changed um sorry we are on page 29 they changed hourly rate to base rate and they changed seasonal part-time and seasonal employees from having to have performed 80 hours to anticipated to work 80 hours so if you know somebody will be working working 80 hours um they don't have to hit the 80 hours before they're subject to ESS new changes were made on when you can use ESS which is to make arrangements for a funeral um and then they changed weather related so if your pre-assigned work duties um are to respond to weather you cannot use ESS if you're a snowcloud driver you can't use SST because it snowed some sanity Mr Mayor Scott jenevie can you go back to page 28 please this is a big one that needs to be addressed please I said I was going to do but I think we need to clear it if you keep going so the first paragraph underneath the Box you got there that is that what we agreed to 40 and 40 we have the resolution that was approved that that was 200 hours in there so I think it's key that we get that cleaned up depending upon how long it takes us to get back to this Personnel policy that is isn't something that is first all we didn't agree to that that wasn't the verbage that came out of the meeting so we need to get that cleared up with the council is so see so this these boxes don't match what we alignx are paragraph under says at the end of fiscal December 31st employees May roll over we discussed that but that's not what we agreed to at the end okay and we went back and looked at the resolution just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind and uh we that is where we'll allow to carry over the 200 PTO 200 hours so that piece will need to uh clean up ASAP if we could please so what to the verage uh the employee May roll over up to 200 hours of PTO and then how many were days left this I think the exact one that the the the Personnel policy that we talked about prior to this one when we were doing that it says at the end of fiscal year December 31st plays may roll over up to 200 hours 25 days any additional unused hours are lost that that that would replace that verbage would replace what is stated in here what was the second how was the second sentence right then I'm Mr Mayor Scott CC I quite so so you you read what the first sentence unless I'm missing yeah the first sentence ends at the $200 25 days then how how did that affect this what did we agree on the second sentence so the PTO shell not AC during a period of unpaid leave of that that one no the second sentence of the of the first paragraph of the first paragraph there was no additional what I read to you is the total okay so so for example SN administrator May approve additional 40 hours I think that was still in there uh we talked about but the verbiage that actually was talked about is what I just read there was only one sentence in there all right so we the resolution did not have the other two sentences or we just left them as they were it was any un additional used hours were lost is that okay okay so if there any additional you got 200 hours anything over 200 is is lost okay yes that the my understand all right there was flexibility if we needed to because of snow plowing and all that that you guys left that as administrators recommend yeah but that's not in here that was just what we talked about if for some reason you're not able to take the time at the end of the year administrator had the flexibility to be able to Wiggle all that U and we strictly were talking about snow ping so should we leave that sentence in if there are extenuating circumstances yeah cuz cuz that would affect elections also right yeah with or like or well Lexi's not there yet Lexi's got a little ways to go yet we don't I don't have time to take anything off so would it say if there are extenuating circumstances for example snow during previously scheduled PTO the administrator May approve payout of an additional 40 hours or payout are we saying that they can pay out over 200 hours or I'm not looking for a pay out necessarily in Council you can stop me wherever but I'm looking at if for some reason we get to the end of December and we're plowing snow like we did two years ago what we ended up doing was getting that work down as soon as we could right getting it back down um not continuing to add to it because then it gets to be a Snowball Effect you can't get that that PTO down but to have the flexibility because of this year's elections and what's going out now or what what the forecast is calling for was snow like two years ago again they have the flexibility to not not force them to be able to take take the time you know how are you going to do that and that'll boil into another conversation we need to have about PTO and when they can take PTO when they can have overtime and all that's for another day because we already went past it in here but all we do is create a bigger problem by not having the flexibility if we're going to tell them they need to take their PTO by the end of the year and we're in snowplow season and if they take a day off during the week and then they have to go out on Saturday and not pay them overtime to go out on Saturday that's a whole another discussion we still need to have at some point but I think having the flexibility in there for the city administrator with a couple of those exemptions snow plowing or or elections I think uh would be helpful so so do we want to allow roll over of more than 200 hours that's the requ instead of the payout the request would be allowed to roll over addition with insinuating circumstances not the payoff use not the not not that the city has to pay them but that would be that's just my opin so knowing that the goal always is try to get everybody down to 200 and we've did we've done a good job with that over the course of time um but having the flexibility I'm really worried about the person to my right here um with the amount of time that's being put in and the elections and everything like that to be able to get down and quite honestly I'm in the same boat so but we'll work we'll work the best we can to get to it but I'm not necessarily saying we should pay out just have some flexibility when it comes to the end of the year to be able to get that down so instead of pay out there in the bottom something she'd like roll over that how how much you going to roll over got into that question oh ultimately I think the rollover is to not have any rollover but if we are into November and December and they're acre PTO time and I I can't cut them out because they're we're plowing snow like we were two years ago it was tough but we uh we did a pretty good job of it even two years ago I'm just asking for the flexibility to be able to I don't want to send someone home because the PTO hours when I got it's no PL for them to do you know Mr Mayor I know that previously that if there are extenuating circumstances due to snow that was because we had a 40-hour cap if the new cap is 200 hours they're that the planning for that needs to take place many months before it snows the week of the last week of the year um so I mean I think there should be it should be defined extenuating circumstances should be defined in here and it should be capped we did have the 40 hours which would make sense if it does snow for one week in December you would have a week that you had planned to take off and now you can't take it off but um you know there shouldn't be 25 days 25 days that you couldn't take off in December because there aren't 25 work days in allowing us to carry over 200 hours is we've done a we've either not staffed correctly or we've done a poor job of managing it as a individual because we should encourage our team members to take some days off it's like if we can't figure out how to take if we roll into the end of the year and we've got five weeks of vacation that we couldn't figure out to take the first 10 months of the year and we couldn't free them up that that I I like 200 hours of like if you can't figure out how to whatever you have over that you lose it so Mr Mayor I would like to address cult member alers on that please okay uh so would you like me to take next week off with elections I'm just saying we in this situation with what we've had with Staffing there is no way I could take a week off so I'm just we don't think think we could free up Natalie a day a week for January until November for her to take a mental health day or do something not in the last year so I mean that feels crazy to me you haven't been able to take real no I took two days off last week because I was to the max so I mean I feel like we should be encouraging Natalie to take a couple of days off here and there it's like go is it we want you to take three weeks to go to Jamaica yeah that would be great is that in the cards right now I that depends on your needs I'm just saying that allowing us to let people carry over 5 weeks vacation plus what they're going to get the next year is my vote is200 hour in cap it at that everybody else can have their opinion as well but I'm saying cap it at 200 and we need to tell our team figure out how to use it or you're going to lose it Mr Mayor Brian I think in the context of this meeting that that's going to involve a longer discussion if we're going to revisit that to clarify and change it you Mr Mayor cman rain and I would hope hopefully this next year we can get staffed appropriately and it that won't happen I mean Natalie took 2 days off I went in and volunteered two days yeah because there was still work that needed to be done and um you know elections that president presidential is a big election it's only four years thank god um but every two years you have elections and there's um much more work associated with that and longer the late nights the but we have to be open in the evening we have to be open on Saturdays and Sundays Satur and Sunday yeah so those are days that um and and I'm surprised at how many people are walking in and vote I you know I that's never been a thing in now that everybody's wanted to go and vote that day so uh people are taking advantage of it which then as you had said earlier with Lexia takes her away from her work so um so I would say go with the 200 the 25 days flexibility allowed to the administrator and then let's look at that again once we are hopefully 25 we are fully staffed and and we're we're working well that would be and things are getting done that would be my thought and Mr Mayor Dan just to be case oh I'm sorry go ahead that was me yeah um just in case you guys were wondering we had just over I think I might have told a couple of you over a 100 absentee in the envelopes and we had 39 today for direct balloting already it's crazy which was Lexi's entire day and I what what are we doing since we're I've been getting calls people want to vote on Wednesdays and Fridays and they can't they'll have to go to the county so why can't why can't you take Fridays off cuz I still have all the stuff that for deadlines that's why we took it off or we closed it so that we could get some work done cuz it's the 21st and I don't have third quarter done yet and I still have to do pay everything I do has a deadline yeah like I mean we're not going to sell them tonight if we want to put it as in open up the flexibility I I mean I'm I think we should leave it at 200 but if we' got a ton of other stuff cooking right now and we don't have it staffed right and we're going to it's we can come back to it later I think it'll tie into another conversation at that point too so so what should I put TBD so but we we previously agreed to the 00 hours so so leave it as employees May roll over up to 200 hours 25 days any additional unused hours are lost no we Barry said any additional or there's some discretionary statement in there yeah flexibility allowed for what should the ver I go back to the EXT if there are extenda circumstances for example snow removal um I would also put in their elections CU that's a big one um the the administrator May approve additional rollover and leave it as the 40 hours no 40 hours I'm I'm sorry I had said 40 yet if somebody wants to say something different oh we need to have the 200 back in there I think yeah here it if it's a comment to have it be changed oh I'm sorry you're over the side I was reading what your type it okay do you want to do rollover or payout because the reason that we had done payout was because now people will be starting next year with 30 days already accured and then they'll be continuing to acre and the discussion previously was that's not feasible to even take that many days off you're going to take 10 weeks off in in all the holidays yeah you had 12 holidays in there so then do pay out yeah because that's all liabilities on our books that was the discussion that we had before about not that and about not doing a payout understanding that it's on our books and understanding that we're probably one of the cities that lets people carry over the least amount of days so I just don't think we're going to solve that this three sentences tonight I also know that the PTO is used as an individual short-term disability at least that's what was brought up in the past so no but we we offer short-term disability now but in the past that was part of the reason why that was there and people would pref refer it because short-term didn't cover short-term disability I don't remember the exact wording of the conversation but it didn't cover the whole like if it was 25 days it shortterm didn't cover an entire month or it would didn't pay out at 100% And I don't remember the exact verbiage but it was something along that line so there is a blackout period short-term disability that you have to cover until it kicks in but yeah so there was a whole lot of things wrapped around the discussion of what to do with unused PTO so if we want to go into that tonight we can but I think we're that's going to be a long conversation I just let's keep moving so so leave it at 200 and then leave it at City administrators um extenuating circumstances comment and then I would leave it at can roll over up to an additional 40 hours roll over not pay out just let's do we had it at rollover so let's do an additional 40 hours of roll over and then if we want to come back to it we come back to it I I mean otherwise we're going to sit here all night it's 750 we're going to be spinning on this one for the next hour Dan that's what I was saying Mary yeah I do it Jeff yep Scott yeah Mr Mayor Scott yeah and just know that you know I'll I'll still do everything we can to get that down to it's not it's not like it's a free-for-all right it's just the the flexibility if we can the guy all my staff knows this is the goal and this is what we're driving towards this is just something outside of the norm just know that I'm still trying to manage that to 200 I'll take I can when you roll into the next year it's just a steeper Hill becomes a bigger problem no I totally get it later yep but if we're staff correctly it won be 100% it's yeah it's going to if you go so you come into the year you got five weeks starting get another five weeks in the year at the end of the year you still only get five weeks you can't burn 10 weeks and we can't manage the city right because we have to be closed because everybody's gone then right it it will catch us eventually yep all right so now we're on page 29 yes changes to ESS there are no options but if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them these are pro the 2024 State Legislature changes so you can use it for an employee you can use it for care of family memb you can use it for family members includes and employees okay all right the next one comes on page 31 so previously it was called injury on duty pay the league calls it job related injury and illness um now then just had to do solely with paying somebody who was injured on duty the League clarifies what to do if you are injured on duty how to report it and then what will um uh and then just has a summary statement of workers comp benefits will be applied according to state and federal laws all right the next one clarifies that if an employee is out on military leave they receive City compensation in addition to their military pay for those 15 days uh then it is clarifying the verbiage that said vacation leave and sick leave um updating that to be PTO to match now then's [Applause] policy and then military leave for family members is a new le type it is not paid but it is required all right military leave for family member injured or killed in active duty is another type of leave 10 days unpaid and Civil Air Patrol is another type of leave as well unpaid but employees may use p all right um the next one um for jury duty just referenced the finance department and so having that updated to deputy the next one is further down the page for court appearances if an employee needs to testify in court on City related business they will be paid I'm just going to keep going unless I hear otherwise yep victim or witness Leaf is another type of leaf all right the next change is again the unauthorized leave now then previously had two business day or two days and the update would be to three okay just rading the new victim or witness leave it doesn't say anything about paid or unpaid in there unless I'm missing it it just says time off from work so I would assume unpaid unless they want to use PTO but we could add the verbiage from the other types of leave to make it consistent I would suggest that so it's clear so there's no question okay yep would that be covering yesd yes so it is paid if they have ESS but not all employees do all right the next is on page 34 this is optional verbage um so when somebody is going on um a leave without pay normally they must take all of their paid leave first but there is an option if somebody is going on Parental leave that they may save 40 hours of their PTO so that when they come back from parental leave they do have PTO available to them so again it is optional but it is something nice to offer to employees since parental leave is usually scheduled in advance to not make them use all of their PT is there a specific wording on parenting or parental leave uh yes I think we are getting to Parenting leave I think it is called parenting leave so that that first sentence there all eligible paid leaves must normally be exhausted before unpaid Le is taking so that's just if you've got ESS or PTO is that what that's ESS you can't necessarily make them exhaust since es has specific roles so if what they're want to take unpaid leave for you know they couldn't necessarily take ESS if they weren't I mean is pretty broad but if I was taking unpaid leave to I don't know what I could be doing that wouldn't be covered by es but but um they can't ask yeah and you can't ask so what they're yeah what they're saying is if you had vacation or other types of leave you would need to exhaust it all so the sentence as it was was all eligible paid leaves must be exhausted before any unpaid leave is taken that's what now then statement said before so the change would be say to add normally with the exception of if you're going on parenting leave you can keep 40 hours saved with approval of the city administrator in advance so any exceptions to this policy must be approved by the city administrator so are you saying the parenting leave or any exception to using up all their Leave paid leave before going to unpaid uh the way I'm reading it would be any exceptions to retaining some PTO while going on leave so if you were going on an unpaid leave and it wasn't parenting but you wanted to save PTO that would have to be approved by the city administ when would they deny that I don't know does it make sense to include the Council on that as again checks and balance is just saying yeah because otherwise there's no policy you don't have a policy if it's subject if it's and that sentence in Gray was from the league as well so that sentence doesn't have to be adopted it could just say if the leave is parenting you may retain 40 hours when going on unpaid parenting leave yeah because that's what the exception is for that sentence is for that yeah exception so we could strike I would strike the last sentence okay okay the next sentence was I believe council member Brian's suggestion um because the verbiage was a little weird um holiday leave shall not acre uh so the League's verbage is if an employee is on leave without pay they shall not acrew or be paid holidays ESS or PTO it's just a more suin way of stating it um this next section is new to now then employees on leave without pay in excess of 30 days unless parenting leave are not guaranteed to return to their original position and that's for LMC so that's legal yes I mean we we'll find out with this new state leave when that's coming up that'll be a whole another that will all probably change all of this okay what's that so it's not a given that they're not going to get their position back I C the administrator and Council come y it's like what's that now the third paragraph employees that's a new thing added for the leag B policy that if they're gone for more than 30 days the next section so the employees may continue on insurance while on unpaid leave but they are responsible for the payment then section after is just the league clarifying if you are on unpaid leave you're not getting a paycheck therefore you must pay the city to continue on their insurance but if employer receiving leave without pay and in in excess of 30 calendar days well our pay without leave is a Max maximum of one month so that falls into if they're gone 33 days they just went 3 days without reporting to worker calling in so they're fired and so that that is from the league so the league may allow without pay in excess of 30 days just saying so that may not even do we even need that cuz we're we're saying our cap is 30 days and if they don't show up after 30 days theyve got three days to show up after 30 days or they're absent without authorization for three days they're terminated so should we just not add that I'd strike it but y did this come from statute defining unpaid Le leave or not I it can be researched further I know that at my previous employer we were small enough that we didn't qualify for FMLA so if I took unpaid leave of any amount of time I was not guaranteed to have my position when I came back so the statute could be re reviewed but this isn't FMLA I understand it I understand it's not okay correct FMLA says you can take unpaid leave and you're guaranteed your job if you're not covered by that but if this came from some League model policy was the League's model policy based on some statute that was passed regarding Le most likely but that's what I'm trying to get at because if State Statute is saying they can have more than 30 days but we're saying no is there a conflict and can we override that without getting in trouble gotcha um I will flag it for for the review could I think you're wrong I think prob I think you can strike it cuz what you're trying to avoid is somebody that's just on the payroll for the break in health benefits that never shows up to work so why don't we strike it and then if we have to put it back as a statute we that's do it that way strike it okay I just um so if an employee is on unpaid leave but wants to continue their insurance they will need to pay the city by the first day of each month to make sure that the insurance coverage continues so if they go on unpaid leave for 30 days they have to pay their insurance during to have unpaid lead yes them having to pay the insurance was already part of the policy um the league just clarifies how that works since you can't deduct it from their pay this the employee needs to pay this Fe yeah that's a confusing if payment is more than 30 days late and you're only allowed 30 days anyway so so the coverage may be terminated for the remainder of the leave well we only get him 30 days so that could be removed as well and just leave it that I if I think it's you might have to review it though because if they they go on leave 15th of the month they go over do you guys get paid weekly or monthly every other week or every other week every other week mhm so you would miss two two pay periods mhm and then if they come back in and then they don't ever send a check in they'll start picking it up and covering when they start getting paid again but it's going to be more than 30 days late Mr Mayor right yeah I just looking at the line if payment is more than 30 days late the health and other coverage may be terminated for the remainder of the leave yeah this is for a long yeah I'm just saying like when they come back if they didn't make the payment during their leave Natalie is going to have to be on them to make the payment so that it's not more than if unless they get you know Mays is different but that's the yeah Mr Mayor we currently collect from the employees and then we pay so when we pay the bill we're paying for the next month so realistically they would have already paid for the 30 days that they're out and if they paid on the first for the following month then they would have enough paid or we would the difference here is it's 100% you're you're collecting a portion but it's already paid for it because we pay a month ahead we collect from them before but yes I understand that we could do it but it's already paid for at the partial so we could collect a difference out of their checks if that what you want yeah so ad verbage the city May reduce May deduct health care costs do we care I mean it's like if they're going to go on leave here's what you're going to owe I mean because they may not want their they may not want they may not want their paycheck deducted I I don't know so just remove it and have it just saying it's going to be a it's going to be an administrative issue for you if you have someone can't be gone that day I can't okay so I will remove it it does it does state that the employee is responsible for paying it yeah and then I leave it at that micromanage that s yeah it's I'm trying to picture what this looks like anyway you got you got uh 50 days of vacation and 12 holidays and you're taking unpaid leave it's a serious situation already yeah well I mean the only time I think in a the only time I can see this is if you're a new employee where we had it is new employee you only get 2 weeks and you're getting married on a island vacation and you're going to be gone 10 days so you have literally nothing left I mean that's where we've seen it in the office and on our hourly team people blow through because you can take it on ours you can take it a day at a time or two days at a time and Mr it would go in effect too with pregnancy you know that's a huge one because if they have trouble I mean not that we have a lot of staff that could but later down the road we might when we hire some more Administrative Assistant um if they want extra month if they want extra time and I think um that leave currently is at 12 weeks with the FMLA and if the baby's only 3 months they might say you know can I have another 30 days that would be the only situations I can think of either like I'm sure sure we've seen that too but I mean that's where we've seen it some with relatively low tenur employees that just don't have a lot of days that all right so what did we end up with uh we are removing the sentence on uh paying for the coverage we are leaving what now that already had premium costs shall be the responsibility of the employee okay the next section now then had as voting leave but the league adds elections and um because it covers more than just voting leave um it goes into detail on taking time off from work for voting and as well as Ser serving as an election judge so there is um additional verbage on an employee serving as an election judge so they can get so an employee could get paid time off to go vote at the county on other than election day Mr Mayor wouldn't another example of that be Lex Scott going her own precincts to go pay or to go vote I know we were discussing that we would probably go over one morning before work to go do it but is that what that's kind of addressing because yes most of them all they could just do it the day of and it won't be any big deal if they lived here all right so so City could reduce the wages of an employee serving as an election judge by the amount paid to the election judge so we could pay them but don't don't necessarily have to pay them in the full amount just but they're not correct if they're getting paid $50 a day to be an election judge you could pay them the difference but previously nin's policy said they will be allowed time off without pay to serve as an election judge but her Minnesota State Statute um do anymore it is paid time away not unpaid okayy hey time away but we could ask for their election judge pay kind of like kind of like jury do any questions on those nope all right the next is on page 35 as well the city may require the employee to be examined by the city's designated physician at the city's expense before returning to work wait a minute go back we got the delegates dep party conventions oh sorry delegates dep party conventions is new so basically you give them time but it it's unpaid or they can use PTO vacation PTO or potentially SST who knows correct I think a lot of a lot of the unpaid leaves are just job protection so if somebody ran out of PTO you couldn't deny them time away from work if that convention goes more than 30 days they have to pay their own yeah pay their benefits before they going they better be back in day 33 yeah they want to be at that I don't want to be at that way it's a deadlock convention yeah all right so now the city may require employee to be examined um so if the city from my understanding the city does not have a designated position so either one could be chosen or the statement could be removed there is already a requirement that the employees physan provides a statement that they are eligible to return to what was that there is already a statement that the employees physician needs to provide a statement that they are capable of working so this would be in addition to their doctor's note having our doctor clear them for work I would just strike it I'd strike it we'll trust that not everybody has a relative it's a doctor willing to write okay I'll turn to work notice that they really want to come back to work that badly they're going to forge it I think that's probably get the other other side of that coin first all right we are down to page 36 pregnancy and parenting leave um this is the current unpaid leave of absence for pregnancy and parenting again this will all probably change when Minnesota's paid leave uh goes into effect but this specifically for pregnancy and parenting is 12 weeks of unpaid um it mentions it a little bit here but it we'll touch on it more later for the birth or adoption of a child so there is additional uh just clarifying that adoptive parents have the same rights as um birth parents is a separate section but it's mentioned here can it been case that the child must remain in the hospital longer than the mother the leave must begin within 12 months after the child leaves the hospital yes so um if if you give birth but your child stays in the hospital you don't have to take the leave right then so you could choose to take the leave when the child is six months old but they're just coming home from the hospital that day you can so so within 12 months you could trigger that 12 weeks at some point one second I got you okay okay yeah you don't have to take it right after you go bir okay gotcha so all employees are entitled to to take the unpaid leave of absence female employees for prenatal care incapacity to pregnancy child birth related health conditions as well it's biologic adoptive parents so male or female you can take 12 weeks MH MH where I'm y I don't read biolog yeah I read it as two separate sentences that they merged female employees for prenatal pregnancy child birth or health related conditions period biological or adoptive parents in conjunction with birth or adoption oh okay that's how I read it and so that's that makesense that's probably why the further 12 months happens as well because a lot of parents one will take off the first and the second parent will take off 3 to six so that second sentence of that paragraph 29 um employees are required to use AC crude leave I vacation so we just switch that to PTO yes and you could remove anything related to FMLA okay um knowing that that all will be replaced with Minnesota's FMLA and right now now doesn't qualify for FMLA so so in a case like this you have a a the parents um you have two parents and one of them works here and one of them Works somewhere else they can each take 12 weeks yes mhm either concurrently or at different times so employees are required to use AC crude leave during parental leave is that period should be period yeah it I would think there should be a period there no so is that that that's not the I don't think that's the that's not the law right because we're not saying if you're on the UN if you're taking the 12 weeks unpaid we're not going to force someone to use all their sick time during that 12 weeks it it almost cont go back to page 34 it says if the league qualifies under parenting believe the employee May retain a balance of 40 hours that one says that they need to use all paid leave before going on unpaid so that does match up with this so this is saying you can well this is saying you have to do it at the same time yeah I that that seems like we need to clarification there cuz the expectation is if they're if someone as a child we're not going to make them burn up all of their vacation during during this 12we period That's supposed to be unpaid they can use that to extend the 12 weeks but it shouldn't be you get 12 weeks but you've got four weeks vacation so you're four paid weeks and eight unpaid weeks that doesn't make sense it should be the PO someone's having a child they can they get 12 weeks unpaid that's a benefit and whatever you choose to do with vacation or PTO ahead of that is on you if you choose to take another 30 days unpaid on top of this 12 weeks then we may ask you to then you can retain up to 40 hours but this 12 weeks is people should not have to burn all their vacation during that 12 weeks unless they choose to use some of it unless they choose to right we don't require them to do it right so change employees are required to to employees may use PTO during parenting week because you want to allow them to if they want to yeah you can if they want yeah because it is unpaid and if they need the money yeah I just 100% if they want to if they want to use their vacation if they want to get paid out correct if they want to they can but we shouldn't force them to burn all of their vacation and PTO during that 12 weeks oh they FMLA what's that while they're an FMLA well FMLA is separate from uh this parenting lead right and what what is the city's policy is it do we have any paid time off for pregnancy no I don't think so we haven't had one in I don't think we ever had one they they can use their 200 hours of real yeah so I so I have a question so back to page 34 regular regular leave without pay should we because of the parameters of the pregnancy and parenting leave should we designate that should we say something in here that says this is not this this regular leave without pay this is I want to just go out someplace for 45 days and do nothing you know um it's not a pregnancy or parenting leave should there be something that says 292 you know it does not have this 29 whatever the number is going to be I I think after looking at the parenting and pregnancy and the discussion of using or not using PTO I think the if leave qualifies under parenting leave they may retain a balance that whole section should be removed and 2912 should be regularly without paying a reg and then we can put a clarifying um this does not include any of the specified unpaid Le because they're Civil Air there's 10 other unpaid so this could be if leave does not qualify for one of the other specified leave requirements regularly yeah yeah I got it okay so we we're going to remove I almost think um 2912 should be the last leave category so be move to the end so if you do not qualify for any of the above leaves this is what you get left you can't make it through 1 through 30 you can got miscellaneous bucket come up with a better imagination oh my it it also appears based on statute that if they wanted to take the pregnancy and parenting leave they could use their PTO for two weeks then start the 12 weeks MH so I that's the way I mean if you want to if you want to extend your leave by up to up to 12 weeks you have that block let say you're going to take the first four weeks vacation BR the 12 then you're 12 weeks then you could potentially take a month at the end if you wanted to but I think the May allows them to get a pay it should yeah we should I mean I don't we shouldn't force them to burn up their vacation inside of that because we can't yeah we can't I mean after because after 12 weeks there's going to be followup visits there's going to be sick kids there's going to be a time where they need that anyway okay so 2912 we'll remove the extra we'll move it to the end whatever number that will be once we're done with all types and so then the 29 X's the pregnancy and parenting leave and the adopted will all be y um so adoptive parents similar as parenting um bone marrow so on on that 36 that last the lead must be for the purpose of it arranging the child's placement or caring for the child after placement so what does that mean such leave must begin before child placement so you're saying if if you're if you're the one placing a child somewhere else you get leave also I think this would be in the case of if you need to fly to a different state or country or country and you have to be there for a certain number of weeks while that everything so the child is not in your care but you are actively working so arranging so you go to China to arrange or go to another country and arrange yes for a child that's part of it yes yes and then once you get them home caring for them yes okay y because it could be weeks before the child's in your care but you're try you're actively working towards that goal yep clarify um bone marrow and organ don is paid so that's a new one how much time do I get for a kidney if you asked James not enough not enough no they're both gone they both been cled play's working average of 20 or more hours per week may take paid Le not to exceed 40 hours so this is just addition it's one of the only paid leaves above and beyond anything else I've seen um the next one is light modified back to the bone marrow so okay per it it it's soot requirement for cities with more than 20 employees refresh my memory are our firefighters included in our employees so we are over 20 okay and it seems like sometimes it could be 19 sometimes it could be 21 so I asked the league very specifically about now then and they said if you're going to fluctuate write your policy as 20 because okay all right so employees working an average of 20 or more hours per week but ours that work 20 hours don't get other than EST so my understanding is this is an exception so even if you have a part-time employee who doesn't get PTO okay they'll get these 40 hours in addition to their ESS okay so if they're working 20 hours a week they get there 20 hours we're going to have to pay them 40 hours no no they can take 40 hours which would be two weeks okay yeah you don't yes correct you don't have to pay them 40 hours for the the doctor not saying educating knock out yeah I'm going to work on that okay um the next is light duty modified duty assignment um it's just saying that if you're unable to perform your essential requirements due to a temporary disability we may modify your requirements for a time frame okay any questions concerns yeah Mr Mayor so hang on a second so the second to last paragraph that City offers light duty assignment to an employee who is out on workers compensation leave the employee may be subject to penalties if they refuse do such work City will not however require an employee who is otherwise qualified for protection under FMLA to accept light D so you can offer light duty to somebody out on workers's comp that's what it sounds like okay natal oh I just wanted to know if you're all going to volunteer to cross train because if all these people are going to be gone I won't be better bump that up to 270 hours yeah you are are you going to be well I'll save my comment for two seconds now no I get it just wait keep going I would like to move this one closer to the parenting that's I was just going to recommend yeah it's out of order here um but accommodations for an employee for health conditions relating to pregnancy so this is similar their duties Maybe modifi depending on their health conditions absolutely the last type of leave of absence we have is athletic but not least this one's great so don't even think this is Jason signing up for this 2028 Olympics Bob SL or skeleton skeleton Jason's going to sign up for that one my daughter was trying to figure out what Olympic event she could sign up for skeleton because there are people that just like look at some of the random stuff they have at the Olympics and are like break dancing doesn't seem like it's the bar is too high so yeah well well not based on the last Olympics it's not that high that's that's what I'm saying I'm pretty sure your daughter can make it in break dancing I did have one of them look at it and say you get paid paid to be in the Olympics but you don't get paid to have a baby it doesn't make sense well don't worry now that doesn't pay for you to be in the Olympics but we let you to be unpaid it's going shall be granted leave of absence without loss of PID for the purpose of preparing for us that is paid mhm all read that's how we read it oh so I go to the Olympics to get paid but Natalie's point I have a baby don't get paid than so that loss of pay so well it does say in no event shall the paid leave exceed 90 calendar days it's the loss of pay wording yeah absence with shall be granted a leave of absence without loss of pay or other benefits so we could take if they win the gold we can take the prize money hang the hang the metal in the office so they can be off 90 days 90 calendar days and we pay them for the work days yep care vot for Mr Mayor it is now 8:36 did you want to continue I do how on well halfway through I think we keep going and um take a look at nine and see what we got next item is on page 39 the there's a section about Cobra this is not mentioned in the League's policy I do have a question out to them um asking how they recommend informing and employees about Cobra benefits since they don't have any verbage um I also wanted to see what their verbiage is when they inform an employee I'm still waiting to hear back from them um so I have that as a strike through it should really just be what a uh comment or a future clarification on COBRA because there are a lot of statutes mentioned in there as well so Mr Mayor h I had a note on that one because um our benefits administrator actually takes care of all of that for us I would just have to call them up and say this person left and they'll take care of all the notifications and everything as far as the Cobra is concerned yeah I think we still have to notify them yeah I would recommend not taking that out Cobra is going to be something that needs to be address we leave it in for now or yes I would recommend leaving it in just um when the league replies the verbiage may be updated whatever their updated verbiage is you throw that back in yes but I would leave it in as it is right now but update it if needed the next is on page 40 under perect professional organizations um professional organizations and the first paragraph was already in now's policy the second two were added per the league so just clarifying um the Professional Organization must be related to the betterment of the services of the city and when you leave service the membership remains with the city and will be transferred to someone else um the next again professional development was already in the policy only the highlighted section is added um the city will pay for the costs of participation provided that attendance is approved in advance under the following criteria next one is further down the page now then verbage just said these opportunities are subject to department head approval um the league has more specific uh requirements for reimbursement it's not um subjective it's if you meet these requirements they will pay for licenses certifications and coursework so just to CL I mean we're not saying we're going to pay for a fouryear degree does state in there all requests for tuition reimbursement will be considered on a Case by casee basis by the administrator and final approval city council to be if the school that's what you're talking about is the next is on page 41 or travel expenses um now then previously had meal expenditures will be reimbursed according to the federal reimbursement rates for employees um the league has meal expenses up to x amount per day will be allowed I would prefer to keep it with the federal reimbursement it's a standard amount based on the city that you travel to the meals are more expensive here if you go to duth or you go to St Cloud you know it's based that's what we always have is the federal reimbursement so you recommend going back to what we had M Council okay debating because that adds more time to have to go look it up and see what is or isn't going to be reimbursed and how often are the pum rates Changed by the GSA we just had a a case where there's a small cities is having their annual conference and normally the meals were $15 but the city they picked they're $ 30 to $8 for an entree and smaller towns actually more EXP expensive than the bigger cities right now so the Minnesota rate is $86 a day for for meals and incidentals and 161 a day for lodging 153 a day for loding and yeah it all depends from there so 86 a day $86 a day based on the federalpay.org site that I'm looking at for the 2025 Federal perdm rates yeah that's what we used Mr Mayor that's total day I mean that's breakfast lunch and dinner yeah and your hotel is 150 153 yeah that's that's L the LMC conference was double that per day that's F that's for 25 for 24 is $74 a day and $150 but yeah so leave meals as Federal reimbursement but not add that to lodging I would just just leave the yellow or the red out that's fine and just come up with a meal expenses oh 35 bucks I mean per meal per meal meal well this is per day yeah yeah they're talking for day yeah know I'm just saying 35 bucks a meal and to be totally honest I could care less if you have a beer with your dinner or not it's just liability most do do because of liability but you can have the beer you just can't get the city pay you back for it oh yeah you can have the beer but I'm Mr Mayor here J the paragraph right before lodging and then it talks about 75 mile radius is that the recommendation of Le or is that just our policy that we had there for the 75 miles that's now's policy I we discussed that cuz I thought we yeah I thought we talked about that too and that we maybe that's something we to BR back then I thought we said uh was it cuz if I send someone to St Cloud they may not make it or when we went down to the clerk's conference in Minneapolis that wasn't but we we did stay overnight down there for a multitude of different reasons but it didn't meet the 75 M radius so well also says unless it's determined to be financially feasible and approved by the council prior to travel so we can change it so I was just thinking because I think remember when Shanny went down and it took her two and a half hours or whatever to get home and she would have been better off to probably stay down there because of the weather mhm I thought that we had a discussion about that and just said to use use discretion but we do have it yeah the catch all determined financially feasable improved by the council cuz I always used to do the north I used to always go to the St Cloud stuff because for me to get to Bloomington from here in the winter it was faster to GP to St Cloud Thanks Jen I just wondering if that was from the league or if that was just us here no we haven't made any changes to that that was just already in the poliy okay um so for meals Federal reimbursement or dollar cap that's to a dollar what doll amount would be like um 35 bucks per meal how much up to $35 per meal what if I want a Starbucks in the middle of the day is that a meal you're only going to get add it to your meal that's breakfast if you had a $25 meal and $10 Starbucks you stayed underneath the 35 35 per or that's a reimbursement so so okay so one of the so so say 35 meal Diner is going to be twice that tender's easy going to be 35 bucks MH MH yeah I spent 35 for breakfast yesterday at North 35 yeah you stay at the hotel and for two the 2025 General rate is 68 bucks per day the the thing about doing the federal reimbursement is then you don't have to do um you don't have to Prov ride your your statements your billing so if you only do a $12 lunch you're only get get paid a $12 lunch on on um if you know if if you go there you're just going to get what they tell you you're going to get for the day oh so you don't have to provide receipts you just get $86 you just get that means something completely different I I'm what I'm saying is that if if you do that we didn't have to do receipts no but they when we when I was doing our travel when you did it yeah yeah I right and so and then if you didn't if you if your flight didn't get in and we had to change it because they may just start to go to flights earlier if your flight didn't leave by a certain time you didn't get a breakfast and so I think it's better to go up per meal price because if you're getting up and you're driving to some place and you got to do a breakfast on the road or whatever so but you can still do $68 a day and you have to turn in your receipts whether you get it or not and that can be used as a benchmark and it's not you don't get a stipend of $68 to spend on meals whether you go to the grocery store and buy a box of Cheerios for breakfast which is $20 I'm kidding or have a you're getting a small box so so what' you say 68 National General rate is $68 a day for meals and you still have to turn in your receipts and you still have to turn in your receipts so you're reimbursed up to that much eat breakfast at the hotel Starbucks for lunch and get a nice dinner that's what I did all right um so I don't no okay yeah so we there's a blanket statement at the end that says original receipts and I would assume that covers the entire section above food lodging taxis parking Etc that's not there is like if you end up taking it Uber to the airport say taxi Subways bus spars or miscellaneous re miscellaneous okay all right we could we could add Ubers just to clarify that's tax so do we want to do we want to say the the 2025 Workforce doesn't know what a tax is hey that's true I'm not kidding we probably don't know what a tax is um sorry Mr Mayor so the what was the decision on the verbage Dan were you were you saying the federal reimbursement was 68 what what were you quoting I was quoting the average from looking up the Federal reimbursement of $68 a day now so I think if if you keep if you keep that verbage in there we don't have to change this every time so you could you could do up to the federal reimbursement cap so that you still need receipts you're not just giving people $6 per day without receipts but then you would have them determine what the C that was your $86 though that day 86 or 6886 is Minnesota 68 is General but yeah do 86 you're going to be in you're going to be in Minnesota mainly so it's it would be the Minnesota you get 8 but I think you don't want to put a number in there you put the Minnesota or put the federal because that's going to change every year if we put a number in there in three years it's going to be outdated so so you put the Minnesota Federal per DM rate y yes up to up two so Min wait Minnesota Federal yes the federal prdm rate lists out every state mhm and then they have a general one but the general one seems really low but it's the Minnesota pum ratees pum on the federal chart yeah yeah I think that's what you okay I hate to be the devil's advoc here but what if they go to Wisconsin or something you only get 80 so should we leave Minnesota out Bring Back chees courage again so we're just you're going to use the Minnesota r i mean it's I would think that's perfect I'm just Devil's advoc mayor 9:00 I'm getting so if we're going to say this that does or does not apply to Lo lodging the 86 does not apply no the federal reimbursement I I don't just wanted to make sure that yeah the lodging was still going to be just the same what's there yeah and there's a there's a federal on lodging as well there is there is but we're not doing it we're just saying don't pick the luxury place no usually the conferences tell you where you're going yeah correct they gave you Choice Hotels unless it's of the event it says right in there unless it's location and we're asking for pre-approval from the Council before we go to those so right or they are for their I'm just think or they are conferences yeah so let's take the case of Shanny take case of we're we're currently saying unless it's determined to be financially feasible and approved by the city council prior to travel so then we just need to make sure that when we talk about getting approvals that if the weather's terrible you it's okay to get a hotel so you're not driving for 3 hours to come home thanks for forgiveness and and and with the um request the reimbursement request going to council that certainly can be discussed to that point that's fine after the fact right yeah so then the prior to travel mat where where possible prior to travel where possible so then if you CAU in the snow storm you you've been in in the conference all day and you come out and there's a blizzard raging or an ice storm or well Mr Mayor when we're doing those conferences a lot of times you get the discount if you book your room but a lot of times you can still cancel them up to the day before or the night before um and then you could do it dependent upon we but I don't know that you necessarily want to leave it up until the day of and then and say oh now you got to find a hotel no because the rooms may be probably full either full cuz the conferences are full I just think you need to think about that a little bit while we're talking about it so the so back under rental car again I I us have to make Transportation stuff for 600 people um rental cars should be midsize unless pre-approved so I had officers that couldn't get into to a midsize so um so I'm just glad that we have that pre-approved so that all right last one in this section the last sentence says in order to receive reimbursement employee must complete the appropriate claim form attached receipts and submit to finance department for consideration and approval um my understanding is they're not is not currently a claim form so what should the reimbursement process be dated to J there is yeah we have them okay and finance department needs to be changed again too please that is an update [Applause] all right the next is on that same page under conduct Mr Mayor it's 9:00 this is a big section I say this is a good stopping point all right all right call it again Mr Mayor rain the RCA that was submitted by the city administrator um I would move that we approve the request for Council action which is the staff recommendation and to ensure we don't get ourselves into a situation where we run out of time to end the project manager andl with the city that it would be uh last day would be Friday October 25th second a motion second any uh further discussion Brian so then we'll just wrap up whatever we have by Friday with the changes that we we put through tonight that basically my understanding this is the first I'm hearing of it so previously my last day was November 2nd so I don't know if I'll have time to wrap up everything by the 25th if that's the new date we don't care so I don't I don't understand we've never done this before but again I don't want to be seen as lobbying for somebody that I'm related to so if this makes sense to the council I mean I don't understand the extra week um to wrap things up because you need that person to wrap things up so what are you wrapping up the employment ends it it it ends and I'm not sure what else you have to wrap up so Mr Mayor sir so the reason this is brought up it's no different than when she when we had the project manager that uh the requirement is 30 days and we did 35 days to make sure that we don't overlap uh the comment was made about November 2nd um the project manager was able to come back on May um I think the council's made up their mind Scott so you've made a request the council has made up their mind explain and I I understand that it the I I guess the consideration that nobody reached out to the project manager and say what do you need to do we canceled the September you know this is supposedly one of the most important things we've got to do and we've canceled repeatedly and we had this this all set up and we had another month and a half to go to finish it and and and we canceled that or it was cancelled and and as saying this is the first she's hearing about it and I don't know what your plans were for the rest of the week but we've got to wrap up everything in in a few days here to make sure we get a good handoff but if that's what the council wants to do I'm not going to make a big deal out of it I just I I think it's it's poor planning uh we've had probably opportunity to get this done and um and now we'll just pick up with somebody new later so so just so I understand Mr Mayor um from what I heard said my last day will be this Friday um so I would say my last day would be tonight and I will just turn in my equipment after the meeting tonight as I stated previously my it had already been decided that the last day would be November 1st which is 180 days from when I came back so that was what I had been planning on is wrapping up everything getting the formatting ready typing up the notes from tonight and making any changes for today's discussion but if the last day will be Friday then per my schedule I won't have time to drive back up to now then and turn in my laptop by Friday so Mr Mayor Scott I understand that the project manager that jev was talking about the first but we in the in the resolution that was approved when she came back for phase two her final day was October 30th so really what I'm doing is changing it by 3 days having trying to get everything I asked for it to be formatted because we we've been talking about getting it formatted and trying to get tonight's updates in there by Friday to turn in the equipment we're really talking about three days she was due to come back 180 we at 180 days we don't really have wiggle room with that 180 days is 180 days from May 3rd okay she didn't start till the 6 but she was able to come back after 35 days on that Friday the 3rd made the determination she was going to start on Monday the 6th 180 days from the 6th would be the date she's talking about but in the resolution that I looked at 180 days was October 30th so we're talking about three days okay and and and and again I don't want to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be but and you can you know Grumble all you want if you knew that it just seemed professional to say oh by the way MH we want you to format all this we want you to do all this but your last day is Friday so you need to do that all and to not have any proactive communication and say Here's what we're thinking here's when we're going to ER wrote an RCA so there's some thought put into it that if this was the deadline you wanted it just would have seemed to be more professionally proactive to communicate to the person who you're asking to format and everything and do this all and see what their schedule was to see if this was a reasonable thing but that being said Mr Mayor may I speak yes I have to say I'm very disappointed that this is how I'm hearing about this in the first that I'm hearing about this because I would have loved to have this formatted but I had no idea that that was the plan I did start proactively formatting it so there is a small section that is done but I am I am very I'm very sad because I wanted to do a great job on this project and and now I feel like I don't have the opportunity to finish what I started and what I was hired to do and so that is very disappointing and and I am sorry to the council that you will not get my quality work because of what I feel like is is a little bit of a bombshell um and I really really wish I would have had advanced notice of this this and so I do want to State I apologize that the work that you were going to be getting from me is not polished because I know to you it might be three business days but what work I can do in three business days is the polishing work that needed to be done to hand in a quality product Oh we have a motion in a second Mr Mr mayor council Brian so if if if your last date is the 30th Genevie would the changes that we've done tonight be incorporated into the document yes and what about the formatting yes seems like a reasonable investment to me but if we're gonna pay somebody a couple hundred dollars an hour to do this what we're paying $35 an hour for now we can make that decision too so support that what's i' I mean if it's three more days it's like we didn't get through the whole thing and it's not it's because we've delayed this thing so it's let's get it to a point where or we can wrap it up if that takes three more days PL give it three days and be done let's give it to a good stopping point and move from there does that make sense Mary so so Jen just to confirm that you could have all of that done by the 30th with the information as of tonight's me yes would have to be prepped for the same day then we got no buffer and that that would give us enough time not to go over well the the the actual Mr Mayor City administrator so our initial our original date based on when the resolution was pass was the end date of October 30th correct so and you have until November 1st so the 30th gives you a three-day bom what do you mean you have what do you mean by that I came back on May 6th and so 180 days from you chose to come back on May 6th you were due back on the third that's what the resolution that's why the resolution stated the third and then you came back the following Monday the 6th so the resolution my start goes from the start date that I came back it's it's which was third on the resolution which the council approved but for purposes of perah which is the point of this is to avoid perah May 3rd is Friday so you're counting Saturday and and Sunday obviously but I I think the agreement was the sixth okay so let's move forward here that's what I just say okay so do we having a um so Mary do you want to amend your motion no I will pull my motion okay and so we have a motion to uh continue through the 30th and to to make the changes we agreed to tonight and the formatting uh to this point we have a motion to that effect so move counc second that and we have a motion a second any other discussion seeing and hearing none all those in favor they're signified by saying I I I opposed motion carries and then Mr Mayor what I would like to do is provide a policy of everything that has been approved to date in one draft to policy and then a separate document of all remaining items that had did not get a chance to be discussed so that they are very clear and it is very um it is laid out what did not get to be discussed yet and does that include the the sub policies like technology and they will be listed out on there yes okay anything that did not receive Council approval will be listed out on the document all right Mr Mayor Scott is that to include the formatting also and then when is the equipment going to be turned in city city property going to be turned in if she work until the 30th the city property will be turned in on the 30th okay hey to Jour second we journ we need tape we need like 16 don't no way