6.1a EMRUSR 10-08-2024 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ji Elk River amft . Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: ERMU Commission Mark Hanson —General Manager MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: October 8, 2024 6.1a SUBJECT: Staff Update ACTION REQUESTED: None DISCUSSION: • Settlement negotiations with RJM Construction for closing out the Field Services Building project continue. Our most recent proposal was sent to RJM on Tuesday, September 24. We have not received a response from RJM. Once a response has been received, I will work with our attorneys to plan appropriate next steps. • The Wage and Benefits Committee held its first meeting of the year on Monday, September 23. A second meeting was scheduled for October 8. The following agenda items took place at the September 23 meeting: o Staff's wage and benefits request: only one item was requested, an annual wage adjustment of 3.67%, calculated as the average adjustment for the seven metro average communities. o We reviewed the merits of a possible standard practice of using the Metro Average to compute a recommended annual wage adjustment. o We reviewed several possible changes/updates to the Utilities Performance Metric Incentive Compensation scorecard. I incorporated the feedback received into a proposed scorecard for discussion at the October 8 meeting. o We reviewed our Purchased Vacation Time program and whether it was still needed given recent time -off -related changes. • 1 had a good conversation with the same architectural company that designed and managed Owatonna Public Utilities' project to convert their generation plant into administrative offices. They are excited to work with us in developing a high-level concept review of what it would take to convert our plant into a history/education center. I will also have them evaluate the costs to demo the building. This way we'll have comparative data for the two options to bring back to the Commission for planning possible next steps. Page 1 of 2