A measure to revamp Mtn. View city employee benefits was the focus of a special session called by the city council early this month.
The meeting, held June 7, was held in response to the departure of several employees from the city.
Mayor John Krasuski led the discussion, stating he would like to add to the employee benefits package and offer complimentary usage of the pool, golf course and library to immediate family members of city workers. Currently, Mtn. View’s employee benefits package offers staff free access to the pool, golf course and library, but the benefit is not extended to their family members.
Alderman Murray Anderson commented he would rather see the measure included as part of the annual update the council makes to the employee manual instead of voting on it during special session.
“That gives us enough time to gather the information and ensure we got all of our ducks in a row,” Anderson said.
Krasuski remarked he’d rather make the additional benefit effective immediately.
“There is a benefits package for employees of the city. We try to pay them as much as possible with our limited budget. Just anything we can do in an effort to retain or attract good quality people,” said Krasuski. “This is just one step toward giving them more freedom to do things with their families, like the golf course, the library and the pool. It is a benefit where we are not adding money by billing the city to pay extra for it.”
“I would like to make a motion to make it effective the quicker, the better because it will take us a while to get that manual and re-do that,” the mayor added. “That way, they now have that added benefit with the golf course and library and can start enjoying the benefit of it.”
Krasuski said the city has already had a slight turnover and lost six or seven employees over the last couple of months, and none of them were terminated by city supervisors.
“They went on, mostly they tell us they went on to better jobs, better job offers and better benefits. I would like to retain the good people we have now and the new ones we put on,” he said.
Alderwoman Laura Wagner said her only concern with voting on a measure during special session was the wording.
“It needs to be worded just so, such as household, immediate family members, and I want to know what they are entitled to,” she explained. “The golf course needs funds, so I want to make sure we aren’t stacking up employee benefits, which I am all for because our city workers deserve everything we can give them. I don’t want to shoot us in the foot, so to speak, by overloading the golf course with too much use. I think it needs to be very specific with how we word it.”
Aldermen came to a consensus that they would put together a resolution in writing to extend access and use of city amenities to employees and their immediate family members free of charge.
The council agreed to hold a first reading of the resolution during its regular June meeting, held Wednesday. An update will follow in an upcoming issue of the Quill.
JOB OPENINGS
Before the council went into closed session to go over the budget, Anderson explained to the public that the city had lost a couple of employees, and that none of these people were fired, but left on their own.
He further encouraged the public to come to city hall and apply for job openings.
“With positions, if you know anybody interested, at least have them come up and put an application and stuff in, so as things become available, we have a pool (of applicants) and stuff that is there, especially if it’s something for either part-time or something that needs to be filled fairly quickly,” Anderson said.
Krasuski added that depending on the budget, the city intends to have a full team in each division.
“When these openings came up, there were about six or seven that left. Two gave notices when they were going to leave. The rest were abrupt,” he said. “Luckily, to stay within the guidelines to have people in each group, we had a stack to go through. We immediately went through and found extremely quality people, and we got lucky there.”
“We only had two that gave us notice, and the minute they gave us notice, evidently, their department had already put the word out to friends in their line of work, mainly in the electric field I am referring to,” Krasuski added. “We had applicants calling because we didn’t want to be short on certain critical areas. We started calling through our list and found good quality people.”
HIRING AND FIRING
Alderman Lindell Vandevort then asked the mayor to explain who could hire and fire within the city before council members went into closed session.
The mayor explained that the city operates from the employee manual, which states that supervisors are hired and fired by the council with a board vote. He said that the mayor and department supervisors have the authority to fire employees, but that has not happened since he has become mayor.
“We are working on it. It will all get straightened out. Up to this point, we have not had no supervisor fire anyone since we have been on the council,” Krasuski explained. “We have had no board member fire or threaten to fire anyone from the city. The supervisors can only be let go by the board, not by the mayor, not by anyone else. It must be a board majority vote to get released as a supervisor.”
“None of this has ever come to anyone’s attention or needed to. We didn’t feel the need to let anyone let go,” he continued. “We are building on it, we are building on what we had. Slowly, I guess people bettered themselves at other jobs, which is more power to them, and I don’t blame them.”
He explained that is why he is pushing for employee benefits packages that are inclusive of workers’ families, along with other incentives such as raises, which he hopes could bring benefits up to the area’s standards.
“But of course, that all depends on our budget, which we are working frantically on,” Krasuski noted. “Once we’ve got a good handle on that, we will know where we are at, there.”
