City of Fayette – Council Personnel Committee Meeting Minutes
Monday, September 25, 2023
Post started the meeting with Roll Call at 6:00PM in the Community Room at the Fayette Community Library as posted.
Members Present: Chairman Nathan Post and Patty Potratz. Absent: Amy Tucker (resignation submitted on 9/18/23).
Others Present: Public Works Director, Adam Hildebrand, Library Director Annette Butikofer, Police Chief Ben Davis, Police Officer Jeremia Owens and City Administrator/Clerk Markus Hawes.
Moved Post, Seconded Potratz, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes, motion carried.
Public Works Director requested to increase residency requirement radius for all city employees with residency restrictions. For the Public Works department, the most immediate emergency response needed would be if the wastewater lagoons have an issue where the lift station could not keep up. This fall, the lift station at the lagoons will be moved to match elevation of lagoons, which would eliminate the emergency response. Director Hildebrand proposed to change policy to 4 air miles from city limits. Police Chief Ben Davis proposed removing the residency requirement and putting in place a response time requirement for on-call employees. Davis noted that this residency requirement restricts the applicant pool for these departments. Director Hildebrand and Chief Davis plan to get more information on current policies and bring them to next Personnel Committee meeting. No formal action was taken on the agenda item.
Director Hildebrand requested that city hall implement a complaint form for issues between citizens and city departments or employees. Chairman Post advocated for a complaint form as well. Hawes agreed that a formal way to address valid complaints about the city would be good to have on file. Chief Davis has a formal complaint form that he is planning to modify to match should such a form be passed by council. More work will be done to draft a complaint form and add it to the agenda for the next Personnel Committee meeting. No formal action was taken on the agenda item.
City Administrator/Clerk, Mark Hawes, showed the committee that the Personnel Policy and the Health Insurance Handbook for city employees should be modified. The Health Insurance Handbook is updated annually, whereas the Personnel Policy is not, typically. Information about HSA contributions from the city of Fayette is listed in the Personnel Policy but the policy does not include when new employees are eligible for this benefit. Hawes proposed putting all HSA related information into the Health Insurance Handbook and having the Personnel Policy updated to refer to the Health Insurance Handbook for HSA information. Hawes also asked the committee to consider setting the city HSA eligibility for new employees to be the same as the date eligible for health insurance (the first of the month after the first 30 days of employment).
Moved Post, seconded Potratz to recommend to the city council to update the Personnel Policy to refer to Health Insurance Handbook for HSA related items.
Moved Potratz, seconded Post to recommend to the city council to update 5.1 in the Personnel Policy to include HSA contributions with health insurance effective dates for new employees effective September 1st, 2023, moving forward.
Being no further business, Post adjourned the meeting at 7:14pm.
