HomeMy WebLinkAboutJuly 12, 2021 Council Special Meeting COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY
JEFFERSONVILLE, INDIANA
July 12,2021
Special Meeting Minutes
The Common Council of the City of Jeffersonville, Indiana met for the Special Meeting in person in Council
Chambers on July 12,2021.
Council President Owen along with City Clerk Gill called the meeting to order at.6:01 p.m.
ROLL CALL:
The roll call was conducted by City Clerk Lisa Gill and those present were Councilperson White,
Councilperson Burns,Councilperson Paris, Council President Owen, Councilperson Webb and Councilperson
Hawkins. Councilperson Ellis arrived late to the meeting at 6:13 pm and Councilperson Croft arrived at 6:48
pm. Council Vice President Maples was absent from the meeting.
NEW BUSINESS
1. Kim Calabro and Heather Metcalf Civilian Employees Benefit Packages—Mrs. Calabro stated the first
ask is for a consideration of a 457 match up to 4%for civilian employees. A lot of our civilian employees
don't work here for the 20 years of service it requires for retirement or-believe that the INPRS retirement
check will sustain them and unfortunately that just is not the case. One of the things they are planning on
doing internally is spending some more time on explaining what is needed for retirement and helping
employees to understand that. What they are proposing is that after one year of employment the
employee would receive and automatic 1%contribution from the City. Their hope is after the employees
see how that grows they will begin contributing and then the City would match up to 4%. Controller
Metcalf discussed the impact of this request to the budget stating that the 1%automatic contribution
based off of current salaries would total$96,657.60. If 100%of employees participated at the 4% level the
total cost based off of current salaries would be$386,713.60. Councilperson Burns noted that it would be
very unlikely that they would see 100%participation at a 4%match.
The second request for consideration was regarding vacation time. Currently civilian employees receive 5
days after one year of employment, 10 days on their hire anniversary on years 2-4, 15 days on their
anniversary-on years 5-14, 20 days on their anniversary on years 15-24, and 25 days on their anniversary on
year 25 and every year after that. It was discussed that in the current job market, people value their time
off and it is difficult to recruit new hires with this current policy. Ms. Calabro discussed the current policy
for police and fire and their vacation time accrual and proposed a new schedule for civilian employees that
closer resembled their policy. The new proposed schedule was 5 days accrued after 90 days of
employment,an additional 5 days on the one year anniversary of the employees hire date, 10 days accrued
each anniversary date on years 2-4, 15 days accrued on each anniversary date on years 5-9, 20 days accrued
on each anniversary date on years 10-14, 25 days accrued on each anniversary date on years 15-19,and 30
days accrued on each anniversary date starting on year 20 and each year after that.
Councilperson White said he would like to see the schedule to match the police and fire policy.
It was discussed that while this wouldn't have a direct amount associated with the budget, it could incur
costs associated with overtime (or additional employees) needed to handle having employees with more
paid time off. Mrs. Calabro will discuss with-department heads the resources that would be needed in
order to make sure that staffing remained at the minimum requirement to get the job done for each
department.
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There was an additional discussion regarding Civil PTO. Currently those employees hired prior to 2006(39)
receive 80 hours of PTO on January 1st of each year while the employees hired after that date receive 48
hours of PTO on January 1st
Councilperson White said he would be in support of seeing a request for those who are earning 48 hours
each year to move to earning 80 hours each year.
The third request for consideration was to offer the civilian employees a cost shared or provided short term
disability and long-term disability, or just a short-term disability insurance plan. Mrs.Calabro and Mrs.
Metcalf provided the Council with a chart of different options for these plans and stated what they
recommended would be the Principal Plan. Currently 72 employees pay for a short-term disability plan on
their own so they feel this would be a welcomed contribution from the City. It was discussed that the rates
provided are based on premiums for doing both the short-term and long-term package and if the City
elected to just offer the short-term disability the price noted would likely increase. In order to get the rates
presented there would have to be 100% participation so it was discussed that the City would need to
provide that benefit. Councilperson Hawkins asked if Mrs. Calabro could get the rates for the plan if the
City just elected to offer short term disability and Mrs.Calabro said she would get those rates for the
Council.
The fourth request for consideration was to look at the retiree heath insurance benefits. Mrs. Calabro
outlined the current benefits for health insurance for retirees. The police and fire retirees pay the rate that
they paid while they were still employed however civilian employees have a large increase in the cost for
health insurance after retirement.
The fifth request is for consideration to offer a paid maternity leave. That could look differently depending
on the requests of the Council. There could be a stipulation that it would not be offered until an employee
had worked at the City for a predetermined amount of time. Council President Owen discussed he would
be in support of both maternity leave and paternity leave being offered. He suggested a starting point for
discussion being 4 weeks paid maternity leave and 2 weeks paid paternity leave. He stated he would be in
favor of a stipulation being put in place that the employee had to be employed by the City for a certain
amount of time before the benefit would be offered.
The sixth request for consideration is that part time employees get some sort of holiday pay or vacation
accrual. Mrs. Calabro stated we have many part time employees that work 28-32 hours a week and have
regularly scheduled shifts and it would be great to see them get some sort of benefits as well. She
proposed that for holidays it would only be given to those employees who were scheduled to work the shift
that fell on the holiday and only for the scheduled number of hours.
Council President Owen stated another thought was to bring back longevity pay. He stated he is not in
support of this however he wanted to make sure all requests were discussed. ;Councilperson White said
this thought came about during negotiations and he feels it would equalize the playing field. Councilperson
Hawkins advised that he is not against any of these for consideration however he would not be in support
of longevity pay returning. To him,that is like a retroactive pay and they would be paying people a higher
wage than they agreed to work for at the time. Councilperson Burns and Council President Owen both
agreed they would not be in support of longevity pay returning either.
ATTORNEY COMMENT:
Corporate Counsel, Les Merkley—Not present
Council Attorney, Larry Wilder—Not present
DEPARTMENT HEAD COMMENT:
Mrs. Calabro—Mrs. Calabro thanked the Council for their consideration of this and she appreciates all of
their work.
Mr. Metcalf—No comment
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Mr.Ashack—Mr.Ashack thanked the Council for their consideration of these requests and he appreciates
anything that they can do to give incentives to stay employed at the City would be great.
PUBLIC.COMMENT:
Garry Gillespie—1107 Birchwood Dr.Jeffersonville, IN—Mr.Gillespie stated he currently works in
Wastewater. He wanted to discuss how the Council touched on days off and how they weren't as
interested in discussing the Personal days with the Vacation days but they were willing to give maternity
leave. There are a group of people getting 10 days and a group of people getting 6 days. He doesn't
understand why a person's who has been here longer personal needs are more important than someone
who was hired after that specific year. There are a lot of young families who may need personal time for
sick kids. It would be great to even the playing field instead of going by when someone was hired.
COUNCIL COMMENTS:
• Councilperson White—He is very happy they had this meeting. He is excited about putting some of
these benefits,as much as they are able to afford, into place. We are moving in the right direction
by doing this.
• Councilperson Burns—He agrees with what Councilperson White said. We need to retain our
employees.
• Councilperson Paris—He thinks this was a great meeting and they are on the right track here. He
wants to digest some of this and is sure he will have some questions.
• Council Vice President Maples—Not present.
• Councilperson Croft—He is glad they had this meeting and is sure they will get through this
process. Last night in the MLB draft Jeffersonville's Gabe Bierman was chosen so congratulations to
him.
• Councilperson Webb—He thanked Mrs.Calabro and Mrs. Metcalf for their presentations,they
made him aware of a lot of things that he was not aware of at all.
• Councilperson Hawkins—He stated he agreed with Councilperson Webb,they did a great job of
presenting this information. He would like to see what the short term disability cost would be
without the added long term disability.
• Councilperson Ellis—No comment
• Council President Owen—He thanked everyone who came, he appreciates the interest. Council
President Owen also thanked Mrs. Calabro and Mrs. Metcalf for putting all of this information
together.-It is a lot of work and something they have talked about for a long time without actually
having the meeting. He understands the frustration around PTO days being offered differently
based off of the hire date, he's not sure what the thought was in 2006 when they made that
decision: He thinks moving the rate of accrual on vacation will help offset that difference.
ADJOURNMENT: -
Councilperson Hawkins made the motion to ADJOURN the meeting at 8:00 p.m.
APROVED BY:
Matt Owen, President ATTEST: Li a Gill, Clerk.
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