5.5. ERMUSR 12-09-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities 322 King Avenue phone: 763.441.2020 Elk River,MN 55330 Fax:763.4418099 December 1, 2003 To: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission John Dietz Jerry Takle James Tralle From: Bryan Adams Subject: Water Issues Elk River Municipal Utilities has been awarded the 2002 Water Fluoridation Quality Award by the Minnesota Department of Health for maintaining optional water fluoridation. Attached is the Minnesota Department of Health cover letter and award certificate. Dave Berg, and the employees of the Water Department, continue to do a good job in their water treatment efforts. It is interesting to note that tooth decay is actually rising, due to the increased consumption of bottled water which contains no fluoride. The last couple of commission meetings, staff has briefly mentioned the Water Department going to an on-call status. The attached outline titled "Water On-Call Issues" was discussed with the five affected water department employees and the details have been worked out to everyone's satisfaction. The cost of going to on-call status is approximately $22,000 annually. There remains one fairness issue that needs to be addressed—that being, compensation for the Water Superintendent. Previously Dave Berg, Water Superintendent, has handled after hour calls with no additional compensation because he was an exempt employee. It is desirable to have five people on call, so the employee is on call only one week per month. With that criteria, the Water Superintendent would remain in the on-call rotation until we grow to the point where we have five employees on call. Because we are paying the employees to be on-call, should we also pay the supervisor as well when he is on call? On- call pay is eight hour pay at time and a half per week of on-call. If a holiday falls within the on-call week, compensation will be two hours at double time per holiday. When an employee is called out, they are paid two hours minimum at appropriate overtime pay. I would recommend the supervisor be paid the on-call provision but not the call-out provision. The difficulty will be to do it without jeopardizing his exempt employee status and not setting other precedence's.