9.2. SR 07-16-2018 - Laserfiche WebLink

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May 31, 2018 Cal Portner, City Administrator City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway NW Elk River, MN 55330 Dear Mr. Pormer, I am writing to request that the city formally consider a request to include additional compensation as part of my severance pay to account for the very unique circumstances that I found myself in during the tenure of my employment. When I began employment with the city in September, 2009, the city had recently implemented a Duty Officer program ("program"). The program was designed to ensure that a ranking Fire Department officer was formally "on-call" during the nights and weekends, timeframes in which there was no full-time personnel working. The program still exists today and has been extremely beneficial. It has ensured that an immediate, rapid response of a ranking officer is able to initiate incident command and coordinate responses — a critical task for a safe and successful fire department response. While it has under gone changes and revisions, part-time on-call officers are compensated $4.50/hour for being on call. The program runs weeknights (Mon-Thurs, 6 p.m. -6 a.m.) and (weekends, Fri 6 p.m. -Mon 6 a.m.). The on-call nature of the program has yielded great results and resulted in significant cost savings to the city compared to other duty -crew or full-time staffing models. As you recall, we experienced a number of personnel and organizational challenges early in my tenure as the city's fire chief. The most significant impact this had on me personally was having to take a majority of the on-call Duty Officer shifts through the end of 2012. City administration, including the former city administrator and interim city administrator, was committed to the program and directed that the program continue, despite problems filling after-hours shifts with on- call officers. The result was that I personally had to be on-call for 4,729 hours during the timeframe of August 2010 -December 31, 20121. To this day, I have the second highest recorded number of Duty Officer hours compared to any current or former part-time officer. I have received no additional compensation for this assignment and did not flex any regularly scheduled hours in exchange for being on-call. City administration and the City Council was aware of the additional workload. This responsibility was not part of the job description or hiring process. I The Fire Department began using FireManager in August 2010. The City Administrator specifically directed in writing that the Fire Chief was exempt from Duty Officer shifts in a memo on September 13, 2012. Participation in the program since then has been entirely voluntary. 13073 Orono Parkway Elk River, MN 55330 763.635.1100 P 0 1 Y I t l B Y www.ElkRiverMN.gov/Fire