Before Boulder Mayor Russell “Rusty” Giulio, President Drew Dawson, and new member Patricia “Pat” Lewis were sworn into the Boulder City Council Dec. 20, the existing council spent most of the meeting discussing changes to the city’s five-year-old Employee Policy Manual.
The council voted three to one in favor of continuing to offer compensatory time to city employees and raised the cap on the number of hours that can be accrued by an employee to 80, from 50.
Compensatory (commonly known as “comp”) time is “time off with pay in lieu of overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime work,” according to the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Councilman Bear Taylor favored the compensatory time policy, rather than replacing it with paid overtime; he proposed the higher cap for accrued hours.
Taylor argued that offering employees a limited amount of compensatory time would give the city greater predictability with its expenses. Paid overtime, he observed, is funded from a separate budget and can’t be forecast in the same way.
Mayor Giulio disagreed. He asked, “who’s working?” if employees are able to accrue so much comp time.
The council also moved to change the language describing breaks for city employees, and deferred to its next meeting a decision on a provision in the handbook amending call-out pay for city employees. There was disagreement among the council about whether Montana state law requires 40 hours to be worked in a week before pay for call-outs — work beyond an employee’s regular hours, often in response to staff shortages or emergencies — can qualify as overtime.
The council also moved to change its non-progressive disciplinary policy to a progressive one — providing a series of escalating threats or punishment for successive offenses — and changed the language surrounding performance management evaluations and employee grievances.
There was much comment from some members of the audience about these proposed changes, and the council asked for feedback before moving to pass the motions.
The council deferred the selection of City Council president and authorized bank signer to the first meeting in January. Members agreed that it would be more appropriate if the “new council” makes those decisions.
Giulio, Dawson and Lewis will all serve new, four-year terms beginning Jan. 1.The next council meeting will be held Tuesday, January 18 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.
