5.3. SR 03-10-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item: 5.3. ver MEMORANDUM ro: city council PROM: Lori Johnson, City Administrator DATE: March 10, 2008 SUBJECT: Severance Pay Policy 'Phis item is a follow-up to a CouncIl xequcst at last month's woxksession for staff to review the severance pay section of the personnel policy and bring back a proposal fox Council discussion. The uitent in reviewing the policy is to ensure the City is competitive with other cities to achieve our goal of attracting and retaining high quality employees. As we discussed briefly at the woxksession, the Cit3,'s severance pay falls fax below that of other cities and Elk River il4unicipal Utilities. The upper management staff met recently to discuss this and to put together a proposal fox consideration by the Council. This group felt that adjusting the pay out provisions would accomplish several things. First and foremost, it would help the City remain competitive with other cities. This is a critical part of recruiting new employees and retaining motivated and highly skilled employees. This is paxticulady important if we want to attract employees from the metro communities, and keep ours from moving to metro communities, because the City's pay is often not competitive fox upper management positions. Second, this rewards both long-term employees and employees who have excellent attendance because they axe not using their sick leave. It is one of the few, and probably most common, options available to cities to offer an incentive to employees. As you know, unlike private business, governments axe not allowed by law to reward employees in the ways that private sector businesses do. Finally, attached is the current severance pay section from the City's personnel policy along with survey data on from other tides and Elk River Municipal Utilities. At the meeting we will be prepared to discuss the survey data and possible changes to the severance pay policy.