Employee Forum Minutes

July 14, 2005

Fire Station #4

Members Present: Amy Harvey, Ann Brown, Charles Bynum, Chelsea Laws, Dorice Johnson, Jackie Thompson, Jerry Neville, Kristi McClellan, Lee Harris, Maggie Burnett, Norman Clark, Terry Gearhart, Wendy Walsh, Wes Tilghman, Will Quick.

Absent: Beth Dean, Ceberettia Hinton, Chris Blue, Deborah Squires, Donnie Rhoads, Jonathan Bell, Traval Watkins.

Guests: Lisa Edwards, Human Resources, Anissa Graham-Davis, Human Resources

Opened: 9:07 am

Minutes approved with minor corrections. The Benefits work group stated last meeting that they were waiting for the ID badges to be implemented before making a proposal for the employee discount program. The ID badges have already become implemented.

New Items:

• Highlights of what the Council approved
• 3.78% wage increase for all employees at job rate or below. And average of 3.78% increase for employees above job rate. Feedback from the Council and from other persons indicated that the employee presence during the budget meetings made an impact with the decision. Thank you to Employee Forum members for getting the word out.
• All new employees will be paid bi-weekly regardless of how that position was paid prior to July 1^st. Employees who are paid weekly will have an option to switch to bi-weekly. Those existing weekly paid employees who are promoted to an exempt level (Executive, Administrative or Professional staff as determined by the Fair Labor Standards Act), or those employees promoted to a pay grade 35 or above, would be converted to the biweekly cycle.  All personnel paid on a 28-day pay cycle (i.e., fire and police personnel) would be required to be paid on a biweekly payroll cycle.

• The Council is recruiting citizens and employees to form a Town Pay Plan Review Committee. (See 6-27-05 agenda # 15.) Anyone interested may apply at the Town Clerk’s office or on the Town’s web site under boards and commissions. The Employee Forum is tasked with spreading the word and making a recommendation.

Computer Loan Program:

It has been one year since the computer loan program has been in affect and it is time to begin the process of loaning them out again. Those that have had the computers for one year will be asked to return them to the IT department for maintenance and redistribution. Employee Forum members are asked to go back to their departments and solicit names of those that are interested in participating in this year’s draw. The goal is to have the computers returned in August and redistributed in September to minimize the storage in the IT department. Members of the Employee Forum will ask the employees who have computers from the last draw to return them to IT.

Employee Forum Election Process:

It is time to re-establish the committee to organize the Employee Forum election process for those whose terms are ending in December. Instead of a nomination process, the Forum agreed to form the committee by asking for volunteers. Those that offered to be on the committee are Amy Harvey, Wendy Walsh, Norman Clark and Jackie Thompson.

Work Group Summaries:

The original goals for the Employee Forum work groups were redistributed for review during work group session

• Benefits:

The group will meet on August 5^th to prepare a proposal for the employee benefits program. The supplemental insurance proposal has been drafted and is almost complete.

• Education:

The work group refreshed perspective now that HR has a training coordinator that will be addressing training needs and implementing training programs that the work group had been focusing on. Some of the ideas the group discussed were: developing an orientation manual for new members to include the history, goals, accomplishments and established process and rules of the Employee Forum; provide information on new items such as; did you know the United Healthcare has a web site (http://uhc.com has great reference materials on health issues, explanation of benefits, etc.); find out about different jobs in all departments within the Town. For example, ask the host department to share funny or strange experiences within the Town such as odd phone calls that the Clerk’s department gets, or a particular job that your department does that other employees may not know about.

• Communication:

Reviewed the original goals of the Communication work group. Discussed working on more employee recognition for day to day things that people do that are above and beyond their jobs. The work group will design a certificate that a supervisor can fill out when someone compliments another employee. The certificate will be designed to go in the employee’s file.

The group also collected research on the computer purchase program through Dell. Dell would require that the Town purchase the computer for the employee in order to do the payroll deduction. Because it would be too difficult to track down an employee who leaves the Town, the group felt that having the Town purchase the computers for the employees would be too much of a liability for the Town. Employees can research computer deals for themselves and set up loans with their own banks in order to set up and automatic withdraw from the account.

• Policy:

The group decided to put the sick time donation issue to rest for now. Also discussed was the payout for involuntary termination. Up to this point it has been up to the discretion of the department. The work group will be reviewing policies that have to do with payout for sick time and other paid time off.

Agenda Items for July:

• Make a recommendation to the Council for the Town Pay Plan Review Committee
• Discuss suggestions to encourage Council Members to meet and get to know employees.

- Other agenda items should be submitted to Employee Forum officers via email.

Adjourned: 10:55am