HomeMy WebLinkAbout#21 - SubstituteFirefighters STAFF REPORT
DATE: February 7, 2018
REGULAR
ITEM: 21
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Jake Foster, Assistant City Administrator/Fire Chief Greg Malmquist
AGENDA ITEM: Approve the Creation of New Employment Category – Substitute Firefighter
BACKGROUND:
Since the start of the fire department’s shift coverage by part-time personnel, the most consistent hurdle
has been scheduling to fill all shifts. Initially they struggled with properly pairing staff to allow for our
new hires to get trained to our operations and become familiar with equipment, while maintain a balance
between staffs availability and the required 18 – 24 hours of work per week. From nearly the beginning of
the transition they experienced “availability” issues, primarily due to conflicts with their other jobs.
Moving forward as the new employees met minimum competency levels, they had more options for
scheduling.
One of our newly hired part-time employees from our paid on call ranks experienced a significant job
change, between the interview/hiring process and beginning of shifts. He began working out of state, thus
preventing us from consistently scheduling him. He is now back and being scheduled.
Contributing factors to scheduling difficulties, varying work schedules with additional jobs, vacations,
sick leave, appointments, etc. Attached are the schedules to date for your review to help illustrate the
struggles of availability.
The proposal before was developed and discussed at great length by the Officers of the dept. The Officers
support this plan and believe that in addition to providing shift, back up coverage, it will also help with
retention of current paid on call firefighters by allowing them alternative ways to “earn” Relief Credit and
schedule their time to meet the requirements of the dept.
The Council discussed these issue at their work session on January 12 and directed staff to continue
working on a way to utilize POCs for shift work while not triggering PERA , holiday or PTO beenfits
since they would be working limited hours. Staff worked with our employment attorney to come up with
the specific changes recommended to the personnel policy as outlined below.
At their January 22 meeting, the Human Resources Committee recommended to Council that the City’s
recently adopted personnel policy be updated to create a new employment category of “substitute
firefighter.”
ISSUE BEFORE COUNCIL:
Should the Council approve the HR Committee’s recommendation to create a new employment category
of “substitute firefighter” to allow paid on call firefighters to cover part-time shifts while still being
allowed to earn relief credit and the part-time wage of $17/hour?
PROPOSAL DETAILS/ANALYSIS:
The proposal for discussion is to allow our current paid on call personnel to be allowed to work shifts on
an occasional, as needed basis. This would only be available for the paid on call personnel that currently
are not hired as part-time employees working shifts. Paid on call firefighters working these shifts will be
considered “substitute firefighters,” earn a wage of $17.00/hour, and earn fire relief credit.
To avoid confusion, provide clear separation and avoid “double dipping,” the following guidelines would
pertain to these paid on call employees. They would not be allowed to exceed the minimum requirement
of 18 hrours of shift work per week on a regularly scheduled basis, (this may occur occasionally). By
staying under the 18 hour required minimum, on a regular basis, they would not be entitled to the benefits
received by the part-time employees such as holidays, PTO or PERA.
We believe this wil help with the retention of our current paid on call employees. We are also hopeful that
this will allow us to fill all shifts and prevent us from having to go outside to hire again.
The definition section of the Personnel Policy should be amended to include:
Substitute Firefighter: Any paid on-call firefighter for the City who, on an occasional and sporadic
basis, voluntarily agrees to work an available part-time firefighter shift. Substitute firefighter are not
eligible for benefits or seniority. A substitute firefighter shall not exceed 18 hours of shift work per week.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This approach will have no additional financial impact. It was already budgeted for the shift coverage.
They are already trained and have all necessary equipment and gear. In fact, by guaranteeing 100% shift
coverage, we will be able to reduce the need for ALL CALL paging and potentially reduce staff costs.
RECOMMENDATION:
“Motion to amend the Personnel Policy to create the substitute firefighter employment category under
the definitions section as described above”
ATTACHMENTS:
None