Agenda - Council - 04/10/2006 - 04/10/06

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DISCUSSION REGARDING ADOPTION OF REVISED PERSONNEL POLICY By: Givonna Reed, Human Resources Manager Background Staff, including department heads and the city administrator, recently completed a comprehensive review of the City's personnel policy. Currently, some sections of the personnel policy are revised by ordinance and others are revised by resolution. Staff has combined all sections of the personnel pglicy into one document which will be adopted, and subsequently revised, by resolution, The revised personnel policy is attached for your review; however, staff would like to highlight certain sections of the policy for discussion at the April 11 Personnel Committee meeting. The sections of the policy that staff would like to discuss (or simply bring to the Committee's attention) at the upcoming meeting are as follows: o Section 4.1 O--performance evaluations--In the past, pay increases have not been withheld when employees have not met performance standards. Section 4. I 0 of the revised personnel policy proposes that any employee receiving an overall rating of "needs improvement" or "unsatisfactory" will remain at their current salary step and will only receive a cost of living adjustment. Section 7.1 --vacation accrual rates-~Currently, management staff accrue 15 days of vacation per year and wait 12 years before they begin to accrue 20 days of vacation per year. This slow accrual schedule has been a challenge to retention and recruitment efforts2 Section 7.1 of the revised personnel policy proposes an increase to 18 vacation days on the 6th anniversary and staggered increases thereafter. Ultimately, management employees will roach the maximum of 25 days of vacation one year earlier than they currently do. ° Section 7.6---extended medical leave--The City has an unwritten policy that enables employees to take extended medical leave (beyond the 12 weeks allowed by the Family and Medical Leave Act). Section 7.6 simply formalizes the policy. Extended medical leave is different from FMLA and does not guarantee job restoration. ° Section 7.7--leave of absence--Section 7.7 expounds on the City's current Leave of Absence policy. The proposed Leave of Absence policy requires employees to "cash out" any unused paid leave (vacation or sick leave, holidays and compensatory time off). Further, a leave of absence constitutes a break in service and job restoration is not guaranteed. GSAd rninistration\HumanResourcestPersonneI-Admin Policie$~ersonnel Policy~staff report re adoption of personnel policy 4-11-06.doc -253-