2017-03-24 Minutes I MINUTES
2 City Council Employee Leave Ad Hoc Committee
3 March 24, 2017
4
5 After determining that a quorum was present, the City of Denton City Council Employee Leave Ad
6 Hoc Committee, Texas convened in a work session meeting, Friday, March 24, 2017 at 9:00 a.m. in
7 the City Manager's Conference Room, at City Hall,215 E. McKinney Street,Denton,Texas.
8
9 PRESENT: Councilmember Kathleen Wazny ("Wazny"), Councilmember Keely Briggs
10 ("Briggs"), and Councilmember Sara Bagheri ("Bagheri") were present. City Manager Todd
11 Hileman ("Hileman"), Deputy City Manager Bryan Langley ("Langley"), Risk Manager Scott
12 Payne("Payne"), and Director of Human Resources Carla Romine("Romine)were also present.
13
14 Langley called the meeting to order at 9:01 a.m.
15
16 1. Select a chair for the City Council Leave Ad-hoc Committee.
17
18 Bagheri moved that Wazny be selected as chair for the ad hoc committee. Keely
19 seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.
20
21 2. Review, discuss, and give staff direction on the vacation and sick leave benefits/policies
22 for City of Denton employees.
23
24 Romine distributed a summary chart of the vacation and sick benefits for non-civil
25 service and Police and Fire civil service employees. She noted that anything highlighted
26 in yellow on the chart was mandated by Chapter 143 of the Texas Local Government
27 Code. She also distributed a chart that summarized the number of employees by years of
28 service.
29
30 Wazny started with the vacation benefits for full-time, non-civil service employees.
31 Bagheri suggested lowering the vacation accrual but increase the sick leave accrual.
32 Langley distributed two handouts which showed two different options for vacation
33 changes:
34
35 Option 1
36 • No change to monthly accruals
37 • Cap bonus time at 20 years
38 • No change in carryover
39
40 Option 2
41 • Eliminate bonus time and have a graduated plan(1 — 10 years = 3 weeks; 10+ - 20
42 years =4 weeks; 20+years = 5 weeks)
43 • No change in carryover
44
45 When considering accruals, Wazny stated she liked Option 1; Bagheri stated she liked
46 Option 2. She stated it cleans things up. Wazny and Briggs agreed and had no concerns
47 with the accruals outlined in Option 2. However, Briggs suggested proposing vacation
48 accrual to start at 1 year instead of 6 months.
49
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I Wazny referenced the FY 15/16 Personnel Services tab in the Benefits Comparison
2 Report that was provided to Council on March 3, 2017, and asked if there was a line item
3 for sick and vacation. Langley explained that vacation and sick(as well as any payouts) is
4 captured within the "salary" line item on the spreadsheet. Bagheri stated it would be good
5 to know what we pay out in sick and vacation each year; not for a budgetary discussion,
6 but for transparency purposes.
7
8 Langley asked the committee members what metric they wanted us to work towards?
9 Average? Average +? He stated that would help us as we come back with
10 recommendations. Wazny shared her concerns with the automatic 6% increase in health
11 insurance as well as the automatic 3 — 5% increase each year in pay. She stated we have
12 pay, and we have benefits. Benefits keep going up each year. It's one pot of money; it
13 should be one discussion—what is the City ready, willing, and able to pay? Hileman
14 stated we can bring something back for a future discussion, but for now, we were looking
15 for direction to better utilize the committee's time. Bagheri stated she was looking at the
16 middle + 5%to 10%. Briggs said, for her, it is more about being proactive and ensure pay
17 and benefits is manageable and sustainable. Briggs stated she would like to see an
18 example of how much we pay an employee when he/she leaves the City. After some
19 discussion, it was clarified that she wants to see how much vacation, and if applicable,
20 sick leave, we are paying an exiting employee. It was suggested that staff provide
21 examples of several employees: Police civil service employee, Fire civil service
22 employee, field employee, mid-manager, and a top level manager.
23
24 The committee shifted its discussion to sick leave accruals. Bagheri stated that the current
25 sick leave accrual is generous, but she is trying to look at it outside of her private sector,
26 self-employed lenses. She stated if we are looking at decreasing the vacation time, we
27 need to give in other areas. Langley commented there is a workforce management aspect
28 we need to consider; how would the changes help or hurt us as an organization? He
29 commented that we have had supervisors express concerns about excessive sick leave
30 usage by some employees. Briggs commented that if we take away from vacation, we
31 could be impacting new parents if we do not add sick time, especially those early in their
32 career. Bagheri stated that maybe maternity leave needed to be addressed specifically
33 with a separate policy. Wazny stated that would need to be a full Council discussion.
34 Hileman stated there could be unintended consequences with a maternity policy; the
35 Council might be better off increasing sick leave. He further stated that if there are
36 management issues with an increase in sick leave, that would be easy to address with
37 supervisors; there could be aggressive management on sick leave abuse. Briggs clarified
38 that she was not suggesting a separate maternity leave policy.
39
40 Wazny stated that in the workplace, benefits usually follow longevity. She suggested
41 bringing back an option for graduated sick accrual. There was also some discussion about
42 bringing back an option for an upfront bank.
43
44 The committee shifted its discussion to carryovers and payouts. Bagheri stated she'd like
45 to see uniformity among carryover. Romine stated that there was a difference for Fire
46 because the City uses 12 hours to define their days versus 8 hours used to calculate the
47 benefit for non-civil service employees and Police civil service employees. Romine also
48 stated in anticipation of a discussion about decreasing the carryover, she looked at an
49 option of decreasing it from 320 hours to 240 hours. She said some organizations who
50 have made changes to their benefits have either changed it for new employees and
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I grandfather in existing employees or have paid down the benefits so employees do not
2 feel like they were cheated out of their benefit. She stated that if the Council wanted to
3 consider changing the carryover and wanted to pay employees their accrued time down to
4 the new carryover (assuming 240 hours), the cost would be approximately $1.3 million.
5 Bagheri asked if Council wanted to consider that, could we look at a phased in approach.
6 Romine stated that could be possible.
7
8 Bagheri noted that when looking at the survey of comparator cities, we are the outlier for
9 payout. She referenced the tiered approach with grandfathering that Carrollton has and
10 said she liked that. Langley stated we needed to look at our system. He stated it would
11 probably be easier for us to implement a tiered approach versus grandfathering. Wazny
12 commented that grandfathering can create resentment. She also stated that providing a
13 bigger payout the longer an employee stays with the City becomes more of an incentive
14 for employees to stay.
15
16 ACTION ITEMS:
17
18 1. Staff will prepare a report on the actual pay out of vacation for a general
19 employee, a mid- manager, and a top manager. Provide a report on actual pay
20 out of vacation and sick leave for a Police civil service employee and Fire civil
21 service employee.
22 2. Staff will prepare a report on the total amount the City spent for all vacation
23 and sick payout for the past two years.
24 3. Staff will prepare a report providing options for sick leave accrual changes.
25 4. Staff will prepare a report providing options for vacation carryover and
26 vacation payout changes.
27
28 3. Set future meeting dates and topics.
29
30 Wazny stated she thought it would be beneficial if the committee's role was expanded to
31 be able to talk about other benefits on an on-going basis. Langley stated that the current
32 resolution is specific to the committee reviewing vacation and sick benefits, and the
33 resolution would need to be broadened if that was the desire of the Council. Wazny stated
34 she would mention it under"new business" at the March 28, 2017, City Council meeting.
35
36 Wazny referenced the FY 15/16 Personnel Services spreadsheet. She noted the high
37 dollars spent on TMRS and medical insurance. She stated we needed a solution to the
38 medical insurance and asked when we last looked at copays and deductibles. Langley
39 stated we look at them every year. The group agreed this could be an item we bring back
40 for a future discussion.
41
42 Wazny suggested for future comparisons that we throw out Arlington and Ft. Worth. She
43 stated they were too big for our discussion. Langley clarified that the cities used in the
44 benefits comparison were the same cities that we used in the Police and Fire meet and
45 confer agreements. Wazny stated that civil service is different, and that it would be
46 beneficial to keep other employees separate from them.
47
48 Bagheri stated from a "devil's advocate" argument, it would be good to keep some larger
49 cities in the comparison to see what they are offering; it is a helpful metric. Hileman
50 stated that to the extent we can look at the same comparisons, it helps with consistency.
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I He further stated it does not mean we have to have the same benefits package, but these
2 are the cities we are competing with for employees. We recognize they are part of our
3 market, and it is important to know what these cities offer and if we are competitive.
4
5 The meeting adjourned at 10:27 a.m.
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