Agenda - Council - 11/07/1994 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE # ~EDUCATION POLICY/TUITION REIMBURSEMENT By: Ryan Schroeder, City Administrator ~ Kay McAloney, Administrative Services Manager Backgrouffd: Attached is i~ cop3' of the City of Ramsey's Education Policy adopted by City Council on May 14, 1951. The current Education Policy states that any full-time City employee attending anal favorably completing (C or better) the continuing education will be eligible for reimbursement of the cost of tuition and materials if certain criteria are met. The reimbursement policy has not been followed for whatever reason. The following are some concerns the Personnel Committee should address: I. When funds have not been specifically identified for tuition reimbursement, where will the money come from? A chart follows stating the amount of dollars funded for training since 1990 and the amount left in the training r budget at the end of each year. Funds that have specifically been budgeted i. for continuing education are generally those getting cut in the first round of ~ the budget process. When looking at capital and personnel requests, staff has generally given up continuing education requests as an extra, rather than a necessary nero. How do you ensure that the City doesn't pay for reimbursement and then the employee leaves? Training and reimbursement should be viewed as a recruitment and retaining device. We could have a requirement stating that a full-time employee must be with the City of Ramsey one year to qualify for reimbursement. It is not legal to say that if an employee leaves within a portion of time after receiving a reimbursen,)ent, the employee must repay it. However, it also doesn't appear to be v~ritten anywhere how quickly an ~ employee must be reimbursed for training. · , What schools would be eligible for reimbursement? Would the City of Ramsey reimburse tuition costs at a private school such as Carlton or ?William Mitchell or should we base our policy on the State University : System? Would the City reimburse for non-accredited classes or at a non- i acm-edited school? Y4ar ~9~2 Butl[~eted $9,410.00 Left Over $0.00 $21,972.00 $12,660.72 $29,664.00 19~3 216,667.00 19~4 $23,065.00 $9,1'76.43 $4,529.95 $8,311.07' Balance as Cf November 1, 1994. One way to fudd our reimbursement policy would be to use the funds in excess (if an3') in the training bu~:flget as of December 31 st of each year. Training that is considered eligible for reimburs ~eJment under the Education Policy could be brought to the Personnel Committee in December of each year to allocate excess training dollars for reimbursement.