05-23-2018 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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PTO Maximum Accrual Amendments Currently the Personnel Policy states that employees may not have more than 30 days (240 hours) of PTO accrued at the end of the year. If the STD benefits start day is changed from day 15 to day 30, Staff suggests that the allowed PTO accrual be increased to 45 days in order for employees to be able to bridge the 30 day gap until STD benefits begin. By allowing more accrued PTO, it would also help employees have some extra PTO time to supplement the STD benefit (60% of their salary). When STD premiums are employer paid, taxes are taken out of benefit checks, which is not the case when the premiums are employee paid. The City would continue to pay health insurance or opt-out while the employee is on STD, but there would be no PTO accrual or holiday pay. PTO Conversion Amendment- New Policy Currently all PTO over the maximum accrual amount is lost if not used by the end of the year. Each year during November and December, there are times when several people in the same department are out of the office at the same time using their excess PTO in order not to lose it. Some cities offer a PTO “cash out” conversion option at the end of each year. This type of policy would allow employees the option to cash out a certain number of hours at the end of the year versus taking the days off. Staff is proposing a PTO Conversion policy that allows employees who have more than the maximum hours of banked PTO at the end of the year, to convert up to 5 days (40 hours) to cash or deferred compensation. Miscellaneous Amendments There are several housekeeping amendments for updating position titles and correcting section references. Summary of all proposed Personnel Policy changes: -Move from a self-funded STD plan to a City-paid STD plan through Unum - Change the STD benefits start day from calendar day 15 to calendar day 30 -Increase the maximum allowed PTO accrual amount from 30 days to 45 days -Adopt a PTO Conversion Policy to allow up to 40 hours of excess PTO at the end of the year to be converted to cash or deferred compensation -Housekeeping amendments: updated position titles and correcting section references These proposed PTO and Short Term Disability changes are a benefit for the employees in that they would no longer pay for their STD policy and could accrue more PTO, but the drawback is 15 more days to wait before STD benefits begin. Another issue could be a new employee who has not yet accrued 30 days of PTO, would not be paid between when their accrued PTO runs out and day 30 when STD benefits begin. There is a PTO Donation policy that may possibly help employees who do not have 30 days accrued. The proposed changes to the personnel policy are attached. Several parts of the STD section are shown to be removed since we would be following Unum’s policies rather than the City’s. A benefits survey of Ramsey County cities and a few others is also attached. The cities listed in purple have PTO versus sick and vacation time. Staff only compared the cities that have PTO. The survey shows that every city who offers STD, allows a maximum PTO accrual amount of more days than what it would take an employee to get to their first day of STD benefits.