Employee Forum Minutes

Date: January 13, 2005

Location: Fire Station #4

Members Present: Maggie Burnett, Charles Bynum, Amy Harvey, Dorice Johnson, Chelsea Laws, Terry Gearhart, Will Quick, Norman Clark, Ceberettia Hinton, Wendy Walsh, Deborah Squires, Jackie Thompson, Jerry Neville, Kristi McClellan

Members Absent : Planning Rep., Jon Bell, Lee Harris, Chris Blue, Ann Brown, Donnie Rhoads, Wes Tilghman, Traval Watkins

Guest Present: Anissa Graham-Davis, Susan Parler, Lisa Edwards

Discussions:

•Meeting opened at 9:10 a.m.

•The minutes from the December 2004 meeting were approved. Items for the January meeting were also agreed on.

•The topic of transferring sick leave to sick leave among family members was brought up for discussion to be re reviewed.  It was suggest that the Policy Work group look at this and devise a proposal that would be a modest compromise to this issue. The Forum has already been informed by Pam that this is not possible to do due to the fact vacation time is budgeted for and sick leave is not.  The Policy work group will work on proposal.

•Automatic draft for the purchase of a Dell computer was the next issue.  The question arose that if Pay roll is taking out a deduction for supplementary insurance why can they not do the Dell computer draft at the same time.  At the time of the meeting Terry had not heard back form Kay on this question.  Terry did say he went to the Dell site on the internet and if you apply for credit with Dell their credit program seemed very reasonable.  Kristi informed the forum that it is very time consuming to do these automatic drafts on the pay checks.  At this time Pay roll does not have the man power.  Another suggestion was for an employee to inquire with their bank to see if the bank would be willing to do an automatic draft from an account for a computer.

Lisa suggested contacting the supplemental insurance representatives to see if an automatic draft from bank accounts was a possibility.  She also suggested checking with Dell to see if this was possible as well.

• One of the winners for the Computer Lottery declined to take a computer.  Terry Battle in Public Works was drawn from the list of applicant.  He will be notified and he can pick up his computer from IT.

•The election of new officers was the next occurrence.  The nomination for Chair and Vice Chair, with the exception of Jackie Thompson were declined.  An open nomination was conducted.  For the Chair seat Will Quick was nominated.  For Vice Chair Jackie Thompson and Maggie Burnett agreed to run. For Secretary/Treasurer Wendy Walsh was nominated.  The following is the results of the Election of Officer for 2005:

Chair                Will Quick

Vice Chair        Jackie Thompson

Sec./Tres.         Wendy Walsh

The new officers will take over at the February meeting.

•Health Insurance and problems employees have had with it was the next topic.  It seems that some employees are still having problems with the new insurance company – United.  Anissa strongly encouraged all employees that any time a problem arises that HR needs to know as soon as possible.  HR is meeting with representative of United on an as need basis and would like to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out.

Employees are still interested in hearing from Aflac for supplemental insurance.  Anissa will be in touch with a representative to schedule a time for them to come to a forum meeting.  The Benefit work group needs to get in touch with Anissa and arrange this.

Work Groups:

Benefits: The group discussed discount cards for town employees and Id badges as well.  They also were interested in the town policy on accepting gratuity and would a discount card be considered this as well?  They will review this at the next meeting.

Communication: Time of service for employees was the topic of discussion.  The group was interested in knowing if all employees are being notified of they milestone anniversary dates, 5, 10, 15 and 20 years. Anissa will be attending the February meeting to go over this with the forum. The new computers that are to be rotated out for employees this year were also discussed.

Education/Training: The group came up with a proposal for Spanish speaking classes.  A proposal for a Banking Lunch and Learn was also drafted.  These proposals will go out with the reminder for the February meeting for the forum representative to review.  This item is also on the agenda for the next meeting.

Policies:  A presentation for sick leave to transfer to sick leave of a family member will be drawn up.  It was also asked for representative to ask within their departments how many employees have a family member that also works for the town.  This would give the group an idea as to how many people that work with the town are related directly.  The group also discussed supporting Pay roll to have another full time employee so that it might be possible to have pay roll deduction for supplemental insurance and possibly a Dell computer.  Several employees have expressed a great interest in this method of obtaining a computer.  The work group also inquired if the Forum could have a representative to speak for all the employees in the upcoming Budget public hearings.  A proposal for this will be worked on for presentation in March.

Town Talk Topic:

•The topic for February will be the newly elected Chairs and the new computer lottery winner.

•The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 a.m.