3/14/12 – The Juneau Common Council last night approved a Personnel Policy for city workers. The new policy covers around two dozen employees in the Department of Public Works, City Hall, the Rec Department, the library and utilities. In recent years, city workers had been seeking to unionize, but that effort was halted with the collective bargaining changes in Madison. Clerk-Treasurer Gladys McKay helped draft the new policy with the city’s personnel committee and the city attorney and also with input from city employees. The new policy changes the way unused sick pay is paid-out after retirement or termination. Juneau city workers who leave before the end of this year will still receive a 100% cash pay-out for the sick days they have accumulated. Those who retire beginning January 1 of next year will receive a 75% cash pay-out. McKay says city employees will still need to have a certain amount of years under their belt before they would be eligible to collect a sick day pay-out and no city employee has ever been able to collect unless they worked for at least ten years. The new policy also streamlines vacation benefits beginning in 2013. McKay says the old policy was confusing and incremental but the new policy provides two weeks paid vacation after one year and three weeks after five years, etc. Overtime will also be handled differently. Employees will still be paid overtime beginning at 40 hours. Under the old policy, those who may have taken a vacation day or two during the week would have had those days count toward their 40 hours. As of today, all city employees must actually work 40 hours before they would be eligible for overtime.
