Ordinance & License Committee - Regular Meeting

My right screen HR meeting alderman wells and alderman Mike Anderson are absent. We will take a roll call.

I'm here. Christine Matthews here.

All right. We do have a quorum. Next is approval of minutes. Did anyone have a time to review the minutes? I did and I didn't see anything Anything worth changes?

All right.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as outlined in our packet Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

All right Are we voting on our computers tonight or does voice vote? All right, let's put it to a vote. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, that is unanimous. All right, business items. First we have item 26-04032. All right, do you have a presentation?

Good evening. No, I don't have a presentation, but I'm going to talk about the volunteer time off program that we have put together. So as part of the strategic plan, some of the directors were tasked with creating subcommittees based off of different Items from the strategic plan and Marquis had a committee where within that I am the chair of the volunteer time off subcommittee and with that we've put together a program where we can create more community engagement with employees by offering them the ability to take time off. during the workday to volunteer within the city of Waukesha at approved organizations. So that is what is before you is our proposed volunteer time off program. We've run it through Marquis and Tony to get their blessings on it and they are happy to have moved it forward and I can answer any questions that you might have.

Do you have any questions for our staff? No, I think it's a great idea. A lot of private sectors are doing this, and I'm a recipient of it. Several times I've seen Paul doing something very similar. I think it's a great idea, and I wish many profit, not-for-profit, let alone municipalities would be doing it. So I'm, as a recipient of my not-for-profit, I think it's a great idea.

Wonderful.

All right. Since there are no more questions, do we have a motion?

Motion to approve the volunteer time off program as presented.

I'll second it. All righty. We will put it to a vote. Aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. Next is 26-04033.

Thank you this is the telecommuting telecommuting work remote work policy we actually updated it last year sometime and the committee during the meeting assets to make a few more changes so we did the purpose of this policy is to allow a little more flexibility for some of our staff. it is not guaranteeing that people can work remotely but it is giving the option to departments who feel that it's appropriate and it is going to be based off of workload availability and performance if you're a poor performer in the workplace and in the building we don't want you allegedly working from home and not doing your work there so it's just updating the policy from years and years ago to more current language more specific guidelines and requirements and um

Expectation.

And we've had some newer recruits who want to work from home remotely 100%. This specifies that no city employees should be 100% remote, and it's limiting the number of days per week you can work from home, even if your manager allows. So those are the most significant changes.

All right. Thank you for the clarification on that. Do we have any questions for staff?

As far as work from home, I know that in some cases new equipment will need to be issued. How is that going to be handled? How is that budgeted for? What's the procedure for that?

If you cannot work from home with your existing equipment, we're not going to have you working from home. And most people should be able to work from home with their existing equipment.

And is IT aware of security protocols or any kind of updates that we're all set up for that and ready to go for that?

Yes, everything, when COVID hit, that's when everything was changed from an IT perspective, security measures, different touch keys, things like the FIDO key. So yeah, there are a number of security measures that by default have already taken place.

So no financial impact from working from home. Okay, thank you.

All righty. Is there any, so I see you've got it minimum three days on site. Maybe it's in a different policy, I'm just curious. Are there, do we have exceptions to this around I'll say like medical needs or something like that. If someone needs to be home, that's covered either in this policy or another?

Because if there's a medical need, that's either going to be FMLA or an ADA accommodation or something of that nature. So that's outside of this realm.

I assume so, but I just wanted to be sure.

I was going to ask a very similar question in cases of workman's comp where you could be working but you have a work restriction that you cannot perform your task. Could you work from home?

It, of course, would depend on the department. So all of those things, this is strictly from a normal schedule perspective. None of the, those are, I would consider all accommodations.

Okay. So, yeah. Thank you, because that helped me the six weeks I was off. Right, absolutely. And I still got to work.

Not to tell Kaylee's business, but she was out on leave. And she helped us out in a pinch. So, yeah, we do that, yes.

All right. With no more questions, let's put this to vote.

A motion that we approve the work from home vacation policy, or work from home policy as written. I will second.

Let's put it to vote. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, that passes unanimously. On to 04034. The vacation policy, we got,

approved a while ago, but there are a few things that did not align with the collective bargaining unit, so police and fire. So the main change here was putting in there saying the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement that govern police and fire will supersede whatever's in this policy, so we just need to follow their contract. And then the second most significant change is change to the retiree payouts. So right now we have individuals who may retire, they may have eight weeks of vacation on the books. So they might say, oh, my last day of work is July 1st. But so then they're on the books all of July, all of August, maybe even a little into September. So that means the city's still paying for their insurance, the city's still paying for their WRS contributions. So to save the city money, effective January 1st, 2027, vacation run out is a maximum of three weeks. And so if you have more than three weeks, you'll get paid out, but you just can't run it out. So you can run out three weeks and then the remaining balance, you'll get paid in a lump sum on your final check.

Didn't we talk about this in, I think it was April? We did.

We might have. We did.

Okay, and this is? Further correction?

Yes. Okay.

Thank you for remembering that. I remembered the month.

I wasn't the same vote as him. I wasn't even that far. I was like, I think we talked about this before.

Okay. I don't have any more questions, and I really like the streamlining. I've been on HR for around three years, and I love it how we used to focus on Departments now it's streamlining everything and not going back. Like, I wish we would have did that for cemetery or. You know, or something like that. So really thank you guys for. Stepping up your game.

Thank you.

My only question is, how do we settle on 3 weeks?

Because more than likely, you're going to still be within that same month where we already paid for WRS. We've already paid for your insurance. And even if it does take you into the next month, it's only one month versus multiple months.

Okay. I'm just curious how we arrived at three.

Somewhat random.

Fair enough. All right. I'm looking for a motion for 34. I'll make a motion to approve the C2 vacation leave policy as presented. I will second it.

All right, let's put it to a vote. Aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. On to 04035.

Now, I'll let Kaylee go over the majority of the policy. However, I do want to point out that there was a piece that was left out from last time that we needed to add. And it was just brought to my attention this morning or yesterday, I believe. And so it's not written in here, but the language we would like to add if allowed is on page two under item number four, general rules. It currently reads only city employees may operate city-owned vehicles. Non-employees may not operate city-owned vehicles under any circumstances. That's what it currently reads. After talking with our risk management insurance company, they said that we could allow non-employees to utilize the vehicle. So the language that we wanna propose adding, in addition to the other stuff, like I said, Kayla will go into detail about that. is only individuals authorized by the city may operate city-owned vehicles. Authorization is limited to city employees and approved city volunteers who have successfully completed all required background checks, motor vehicle record reviews, training, and any other requirements established by the city. All other individuals are prohibited from operating city-owned vehicles.

Thank you.

Okay.

Sorry. We got a plan up here.

What was that?

We got a good plan. We're going to listen to you.

All right. Wonderful. So like Marquis said, when updating this policy, we had worked with our liability insurance carrier to get specific language for basically helping lower the city's risk when it comes to individuals driving city vehicles for business purposes. We also worked with Attorney Running. Sorry, Kaylee.

My apologies. I was told to pull it up on the screen so they can see the language that I just read. So give me just a second, I'm sorry. Can you see it on the far right side on your screens?

Nope. No, it probably shows up there, and that was, we talked about that. Oh.

Now we have a lovely water and mountain background. Looks like Utah. Huh?

Nice. I'd like to go there.

And now it's gone.

There it is. Am I a classy guy or what?

Spin around on that one. Thank you. I mean, it's serious business what we're doing, but I mean, not that serious.

Okay, so on the right-hand side of the screen is the language that I just read aloud.

All right, do we have any questions for staff?

Kaylee, was there more you had to present, or was that it?

So yeah, you can go through the rest of it. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

So one of the main changes that we have in the policy is on the bottom of page four and the half of page five. It is a driving record conviction schedule. So we use this to determine based on the points of someone's driving record if we consider them an individual that is permitted to drive a city vehicle or not and based on the number of points based off of their driving record their variations of being permitted so nine or fewer it's allowed 10 to 19 the hr director has to approve and 20 or more it's not permitted without the city administrator or hr director approver So we've actually been using this for some time, working with our liability insurance carrier. These are recommendations that he put together for allowing individuals to drive city vehicles. And then we've removed some of the information regarding suspicion testing, drug collection, things like that, and we've moved that into different policies, We've updated the accident reporting procedures for individuals and the insurance requirements for drivers of city vehicles as well. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Does this help us with our grant from the state of Wisconsin for the pedestrian bridges?

No, this was actually updated last year.

Okay.

I brought it to the HR committee, I think, last month or the month before. I brought the wrong version, and we voted on it, and I was like, oops. So I'm bringing it back with the correct version. But yes, this was created way before we knew about that grant. Okay.

Thank you for holding accountability, because that's what our neighbors and citizens ask about. So thank you. Paul, did you have a question?

Yes. Page five, your points system. I mean, I like this overall, right? That's, I mean, I used to have a fleet vehicle at work and it was a little different, but similar, you know, risk categories. Isn't 10 to 19 and 20 or more essentially saying the same thing, just like backwards?

So 10 to 19 is saying the HR director can have approval. the 20 or more maybe should say city administrator and HR director. Yes, so that's the technical.

I was thinking, I was like, well, it's basically just HR director for both.

Right, no, no, no, that should be and.

Okay, make a note of that. And so we crossed out, A bunch of the. Testing. Stuff. You said that goes to it. That's in a different policy now or?

Yeah, we have a drug screen testing policy and we also within our. We have a drug screen testing policy and also within our CDL policy there are rules and requirements regarding drug testing.

OK. And so I assume if if you're in an accident that requires a test. At that point.

Currently no, that's never been in place.

However, the revisions that I'm making to that policy require that.

Even if they hold a CDL that we didn't have that policy?

So it requires, so let me rephrase that. It's not a requirement at all right now. It requires it, if I'm not mistaken, because again, there are a ton of policies, if there's a reason to suspect that there was alcohol involved. And... There's a back story to that. But there have been accidents where, even though it was not in the policy, I said, do we feel that this person is under the influence? And I've asked those questions, and they would answer. And we've acted accordingly, but now we just want it in the policy to align with what we actually have done.

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, too. We just adjusted the substance policy as well, too, just a few months ago, or we added some language for this, which is why this was removed here and it was included in the substance policy.

Because oftentimes things are repeated in multiple policies and you update one and forget that it's in that one, so we're just trying to keep subject by subject in the various policies so it's not all over the place.

The only other... I guess change I'd ask for, and I'll do a motion to approve this, but section, I guess it's 10A, accident reporting procedure. And you got it highlighted there. As soon as possible, I guess I'd ask that we quantify that, whether that's next business day or whatever it is. Right it's it's just 1 of those things where, like. What is as soon as possible right? And I mean, obviously, if someone's in a bad accident and in the hospital, like, okay, we're not going to hold them accountable to tell us the next day if they're in a hospital or something terrible. But. We should set the expectation that if you're in a fender bender, like, by the next day, you tell your. You know, as soon as possible isn't like, oh, well, I was really busy and I didn't get to it for 2 weeks.

Right right.

Because, you know, we're going to hear it.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely going to hear that. Right.

So, by the next day is sufficient.

My recommendation would be to say contact supervisor after accident has occurred to report accident or something to that effect where the individual is contacting their supervisor like literally right after it happened. Because I'd be a little apprehensive if it was the next day and then in between that period of time, something happen that otherwise may become a problem that we have to address as a result. Yeah, that's fine.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, change it to contact supervisor to report accident and follow any instructions provided. Is that what you guys support? I guess as... All I did was took out the as soon as possible.

Immediately, but like what he was saying is if they're in a coma I Mean I think it's one of those where kind of timely we need to set the expectation They're calling as soon as they're able right right and I guess now that I'm saying it you have it in there as soon as possible safe to do so Because immediately Right. Yeah. Okay, maybe it's okay the way it is. I guess, let's leave it. As soon as I started talking about it, it is fine. I just, again, when I had a fleet vehicle, there was a, and I should have looked up the policy before I came in, but there was like a, hey, if you, whatever.

Don't worry about it. We're good. In a not only a fleet vehicle, but if something is a commercial vehicle, some with a CDL ABC. It it's there's different levels of timely fashion because there are rules that the state makes you follow. So that's why I would like. Something. You know, I don't know as soon as possible, but better worded as Paul said, but that's why in a commercial side of thing, CDL holders. Federally required to do it a little faster.

It's up to us if you got an idea, let me know because I'll make a motion to approve this, but if you want, you could put something like contact supervisor as soon as possible after accident occurs to report and follow any instructions provided. no i did not that's that sounds like it i'll repeat that again contact supervisor as soon as possible after accident occurs to report and follow any instructions provided

There is a line in there that says employees operating with the CDL will abide by this policy along with all relevant CDL policies. So that is.

Because they are harsher or more stringent. More stringent, correct. Yes. So that line is in there.

Thank you. Okay, so that being said, I'm going to try and get this as right as I can. I'll make a motion to approve the changes to the E2 motor vehicle use policy with the following changes. to who is able to drive the vehicles, revising it from only city employees to only individuals authorized by the city may operate city-owned vehicles as presented by the staff. I'm not going to read this whole thing because that's just going to screw something up. With the additional change to section, oh shoot, it's 8B for driving record where any points 20 or more is city administrator and HR director and the wording as provided by Tony to section 10A around reporting accidents.

Do we have a second? I will second. OK, let's put it to vote. I I. Hey. Alright, that's a two to three. We will move on to. The 03. On five that six we can't be on six already. Um, yeah, you're on. 0, 3, 5, 0, 4, 0, 3, 5.

That's the 1 we just did.

Okay, I didn't keep up on outside. All right. Thank you. We are on to 26 dash 0, 4, 0, 3, 6. We'll do Haley or Marquise.

Actually, there aren't many changes to this one. We cleaned up some of the language a little bit, just the summary changed the summary. And this is another one of those policies where I mentioned there was language in one policy and so I moved it over to this one. gave some more clear direction on what happens if there's a positive test results or refusal to test and return to work conditions. So those were the most significant changes. And we're also presenting, requesting that supervisors make sure that everybody is All the supervisors are trained and there are some trainings Within different systems we have so the know before training and also some training that we have from our risk management So there are different trainings that we can use to present on this topic All right, do I have any questions for staff

We might have questions. We wanna get this right. Not for me, I'm good.

All right, I'm looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve HR policy E8A as presented.

I'll second it.

All right, let's put it to vote. Aye. Aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. All right, on to 04037.

This, again, another policy that we're updating to align with current practices. The old policy talked about us having 19 salary grades. Since the comp study, we now have 16. I've also added language. I've taken it out of the D3 policy and added it here, talking about what merit pay is, COLA, and bonus payment programs are. And also, We adjusted the promotion language a bit because historically promotions, people received a 5% promotion or to the bottom of the new range, whichever is, Greater, thank you. But what's been happening because of compression and other things within the city, that 5% isn't always enough. So it says five to 10%, that was the biggest change there. And then we also added language that anyone who's promoted to a leadership role, so whether that's supervisor, manager, or director, or newly hired, will be required to go through leadership training, management training. because oftentimes you might be good as a technical employee, but you don't have the management skills needed to be successful, and we want all of our staff to be successful.

What is that management training? Is that something we do in-house?

Right now, and it was approved through council, we go through an agency called Soulful Leadership.

Okay.

So it's an external provider, and we just finished up our first round with them today.

All right. Just curious.

And I didn't put that specifically in the policy because next year we might say, hey, let's go with someone else.

Yeah, no, like I said, I mean, it wasn't just for my information.

I have a question about the COLA. Is that new or is that a current policy? Is that following through? Do we have a cost of living increase?

So it's not new, but it was not written in the policy like that. So what has happened probably... three, four out of the past six years, most people were given colas more so than merit-based. There were some that were merit-based, but there were some issues, you know, since COVID. And so we just wanted to have that definition in there. So it means that, you know, some people who are in the steps in the new ranges, they're going to get a step. Some people will get colas. So this is just defining what those different things are. But no, it's not new.

Okay, so it's not necessarily a guarantee either, this is just a definition?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Under nine part D, which you were reading, three sentences ago, the achieve a 5% to 10% increase over their current base salary. Is that to help get them in that new role job classification? Is that what that is going to achieve? Correct. Okay.

Yeah, just to touch on that a little bit more. What we had found a number of times was that, and Marquis alluded to this with the compression piece, is that we would end up promoting somebody but because of the policy, it would restrict it to that 5%, and they would actually be making less than people they were going to supervise. So what this does is it allows us to have greater flexibility to make sure that individuals who are promoted are making more than the people that they will be supervising.

Thank you for answering that question. With the clarification, Tony.

Any instance where 10% might not be enough? I know that's subjective and it's all, there could be different variables on there, but.

That is a fair, it's a good question, right? Because I think there are probably instances where that could potentially become an issue. But we kind of play this, I guess, a little conservative in the sense that we wanted to put something in here that was reasonable. However, if there's an interest in providing some type of discretion that we're able to use, That certainly is helpful. In saying that though, if that is something that you guys are interested in, I think it's probably important too to say that when we're looking at these requests, We're thinking about it from an organizational standpoint and really reflecting on how does this fit into the wider scheme of the salary plan and the sense of employees within that grade, the compression or lack thereof in a department, and a lot of other factors. So we are very conservative as we're looking at kind of what would be a reasonable amount to increase that person's salary as a result of a promotion.

I personally wouldn't have any objections to adding language that says or a reasonable adjustment per person. you know, both of you's discretion or the city administrator and the HR director at that point. My concern is that we want to get the right people in the right place, right? And it might be two jumps, two steps, and two steps, you know, might not fall into that. It's probably not going to happen every single promotion, but I wouldn't be opposed to putting the language in that would give you a little bit more leeway to get them at that current or at the reasonable pay scale, in my opinion. Could happen. We hope it happens, right? That's just my thoughts.

Yeah, I'm with you, Dick, right? I think you should have the discretion to do what you need to do. It shouldn't be kind of... limited to a policy. There's always the risk of, you know, you're going to frustrate people. But, I mean, it's pace. You're going to frustrate people no matter what, right? Whether you define it or not, you're going to make somebody mad. But, yeah, I'd be okay with just giving you guys discretion to do it, right?

Yeah, thank you. I think the concern, too, is you will have some managers who will say, hey, we have to give this person a 40% increase or they're not going to take it. And so that has been an issue even lately. And we're like, that is not the practice. That's far beyond the practice. So you run into, when they feel you have discretion, they push the envelope a little. And I'm not saying that the employees are not worth it, but we have to have some consistency within the organization.

I do like a hard number just to give you guys some, you know, in the employee handbook or whatever ultimately this is going into, some kind of tool or something with some teeth. Well, we can't do that because the three people sitting here said you can't versus, well, you did it for her, why not him? Well, we shouldn't have done it for horror and we're not doing it for him because now it's in your your handbook. So I guess a number. You know, we've gone, we've doubled it. You know, would that be helpful to have rather than something arbitrary a number? Could you say between 10 and 12%?

You can laugh at this, but laughing at it.

Oh, it's because it's I'm trying to give you the tools, you know, it's in the world of not for profit. It's it's it's totally different. And then tools like this would be helpful because we don't have them. So that's just only where I'm coming from.

yeah i mean i i would be probably because that is one of the things that that would be a reality is we'd get requests where people are trying to go well in excess of 10 percent um so if we if there is some type of boundaries put on this i think i'd be comfortable with five to twenty twenty five percent

I may have talked myself out of this or talked through this by reading it even more and reading it in detail. Because the whole goal, like you had said, Dr., is to get them to the next range. And that might be the bottom of the range out through there. And it does have language on that. It says 5% to 10% increase over their current base salary or placement at the minimum of the new pay range. So that might be the autonomy. That might give you the... Um, flexibility that you need if somebody is going to jump to pay ranges and that's more than 10%, you do have language in here that says it gets them to at least the minimum of that range. Now, if they come back at 40%, that's. Negotiating in that that would be on you guys, but I, after reading this, I think it might be written well enough that you do have the autonomy to possibly go above 10% or wherever it takes to get to that minimum level.

So we're going to keep it as written.

I believe I talked myself out of it.

I mean, I'm okay with it as it is, if this is what you think is best, I would be fine to say, you know, exceptions can be made with both of your approval, right? With the approval. So I'd be happy to add that in if, if that is going to help you all. It's up to you, but I'm not going to force you to it, because you're going to have to explain it. If someone comes and says, I want 40, and you say no, then you're the bad guy. If we just say the max is 10%, then okay. I'll be the bad guy.

I always prefer flexibility and discretion, so I'd be okay with something like that.

Okay. I'd be good with that. Okay. Is there any other questions from anybody? The mic's beating. I'll make a motion if you want.

Make a motion, 037.

All right. I will make a motion to approve, hold on, the F2 salary plan and administration as presented with the minor change to section 9D to include an exception when approved by both the HR director and city administrator.

I will second it.

All right. Let's put it to a vote. Aye. Sorry. I forgot we weren't using computers. Aye. All right. That passes unanimously. That is at the end of our action items. Is there any other discussions? If not, I'll be looking for...

I just would like to go through. We didn't get the opportunity to discuss after the motions were made before we voted on a vehicle policy. For the record, I'm okay with the vehicle policy. My biggest thing is I would like to make sure we have assurances that that language, that's very important language, just written into the policy. That was my only objection to the policy is having it verbally or having it written into the policy. I'm okay with everything, but just for the record.

I think the way it goes is either way it would be on the next common council. And it'll be pulled off the agenda, and then I'll discuss it since I was here this day. Or if you say I, well, whatever you want to do, but if you want to just describe why you were the sending vote on that, and then I'm sure it'll pass without any problems then.

That was my only objection for the record.

All right, is there anything else? All right, looking for a motion to adjourn.

I don't think we have to, but motion to adjourn.

Okay. Some meetings we do, some we don't. All right. We are adjourned. You're the chair. You can do whatever you want. Okay. Thank you, Kaylee. Thank you, Mark Weiss. And thank you, Tony.

I saw the look. I could feel it on there. That's why. We have to adjourn.

She turned her microphone off already.

No, I would have asked you anyway, right?

That's all I would say.