Minutes - Council Work Session - 06/15/2021 - Special

Home

Councilmember Musgrove commented that in terms of the equipment, there should also be a column for the employee costs/equipment. Councilmember Specht stated that he agrees that there should be an equipment section that outlines the different needs and that employees should be responsible for any other equipment that they would need in order to complete their job from home. He stated that the needs would be different for different employees and what they need to effectively complete their job from home. Councilmember Woestehoff asked if the City currently provides a stipend to employees for home internet. Administrative Services Director Lasher replied that the City does not. Councilmember Woestehoff asked if legal counsel has been engaged to determine if there would be risk to having a telecommuting policy that relies on an employee providing their own internet service. He stated that he would imagine that many of these things are covered in other policies. Councilmember Musgrove asked if reference should be made to those other policies. Councilmember Specht stated that perhaps providing a stipend for internet service could be part of negotiations to persuade people to work from home. Councilmember Riley stated that would be an incentive if the City were asking people to work from home, but this policy is providing an allowance for something the employees are asking for. Councilmember Heineman asked if there was a cost to transitioning to virtual work during the past year. Deputy City Administrator Gladhill confirmed that there were some expenses to making that transition to allow people to work from home during COVID, but those costs were covered by the CARES Act. He stated that any future costs would be much less because not all employees would request to telecommute and different decisions could be made, noting that perhaps an employee that telecommutes uses just a laptop instead of a laptop and desktop. Councilmember Heineman commented that he would believe the decision should be left to the discretion of the manager as to whether an employee could work remotely based on their scope of work. He stated that he would suggest equipment being part of union negotiations. He stated that if an employee has the equipment, he would fine with allowing someone to work remotely if the manager agreed. Councilmember Woestehoff stated that in terms of data practice and security, he would highly recommend that the City provide the equipment. He stated that there are a lot of bad things going around in terms of cyber security and therefore would want to ensure the City remains as protected as possible. He stated that perhaps the IT policy encourages a laptop first policy as that equipment is portable. City Council Special Work Session / June 15, 2021 Page 4 of 10