The city of Waterloo Finance Committee met Oct. 5 to discuss vacation carryover.
Here are the meeting's minutes, as provided by the committee:
Minutes of Joint Personnel Relations and Finance Committee Meeting October 5, 2016, 6:00 PM City Hall Conference Room
Meeting called to order by Alderman Heller.
Attendance: Mayor Tom Smith, Aldermen Gerald Frederick, Clyde Heller, Stan Darter, Rita Trantham, Vicki Koerber, Russ Thomas, Steve Notheisen, CBIZ Rep Eric File, Shawn Kennedy and City Attorney Dan Hayes.
There were no petitions by citizens on non-agenda items.
A motion was made by Alderman Koerber and seconded by Alderman Darter to approve the minutes of the 9/6/2016 Personnel Committee Meeting. Motion passed unanimously.
A motion was made by Alderman Thomas and seconded by Alderman Trantham to approve the minutes of the 8/22/2016 Finance Committee Meeting. Motion passed unanimously.
Discussion of Health Insurance For Retired Employees: Eric File, CBIZ Insurance representative explained to the attendees the requirements for complying with COBRA and Illinois Continuation law for retired and former employees. Because the offered City health care plan incorporates both a high deductible insurance policy and Health Reimbursement Account, retired/former employees must be offered both components under COBRA and Illinois Continuation law. The costs for retired/former employees are then adjusted based on either an actuarial basis or past cost basis. Since this is the first year of the plan, a past cost basis is not applicable. As a result actuarial analysis was used to develop a premium equivalent rate for retired/former employees based to cover the City’s anticipated cost of the Health Reimbursement Account component. The premium equivalent rate was set at 16.2% higher than the standard premium. This is still significantly less than previous COBRA and Illinois Continuation law premiums. Eric further stated this process was run through CBIZ underwriting and legal reviews. The proposal meets all requirements and is the only legal process for addressing a high deductible insurance policy with a Health Reimbursement Account.
Alderman Thomas asked if the City can switch to a past cost basis in future years. Per Eric, the City can use either the actuarial option, the past cost based option, or a combination of both.
No motion was required for this issue. The briefed plan implements legal requirements.
Sick Leave Payouts / Annual Vacation Carryover For Management Employees:
Sick Leave Payouts For Management Employees – There was discussion of current sick leave earnings and how sick leave/short-term IMRF can be used for long-term illnesses. The Mayor and Alderman discussed different policies among other Metro-East cities with regard to payouts of sick leave at retirement/end of employment. Alderman Thomas made a motion to payout 30 days of sick leave with the balance being used for an IMRF credit. This would be effective for newly hired management employees who are enrolled in IMRF. The motion was seconded by Alderman Koerber and approved unanimously.
Annual Vacation Carryover For Management Employees – The Mayor and Alderman discussed different policies for vacation carryover among other Metro-East cities. The possible “use or lose”, annual buy-outs, unlimited carryover and other options were all discussed. There was consensus around a possible policy which would cap vacation carryover at 80 hours with any hours in excess of 80 hours being “bought back” by the City on the day prior to the employees hiring anniversary. However, no motion or action was taken pending review of a statute referenced by another municipality which appears to restrict regulation of vacation hours.
Prior to leaving this issue, there was a short discussion on what is the root cause of management employees not being able to use all their annual vacation. The topics included employee workload and the concept that vacation is designed reenergize employees rather than provide additional financial compensation. The discussion was deferred for another meeting due to time constraints.
Comments:
Mayor Smith recognized Sarah Deutch, Shawn Kennedy, and Alderman Steve Notheisen for visiting Fox 2 TV in St. Louis and appearing on camera to talk about the upcoming Pumpkinfest. Fox 2 did a positive story and was very supportive of Pumpkinfest.
Alderman Koerber stated she believes discussion of management workload is an important issue and would like to see it addressed at another meeting.
A motion to adjourn was made by Alderman Koerber and seconded by Alderman Thomas. The motion passed unanimously.
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