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Item No: 12 Meeting Date: March 3, 2003 Type of Business: Worksession City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Acting City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Review and Discuss Issues Relating to “At Will” Employee Introduction: The Council asked to discuss this item further at a worksession. Discussion: The League of Minnesota Cities indicates the following regarding the issue of “At Will“ employees: I don’t think we would advise the City to go back to have a probationary period for employees, the reason is, a probationary period implies that after it’s over, you’re no longer an “at will” employee, you have some special protected status. And that’s why attorneys, our attorneys here, have been advising cities to remove that language from their employee handbooks. Because if your employees are not covered by a union contract or a civil service system, hopefully you have language in your employee handbook that considers them all to be—everyone--probationary, non-probationary, everyone, “at will” employees. Once you establish a probationary period, you imply that when the employee has passed that, that they have some special protections and are no longer “at will”. That’s why you take that off and just say, everybody’s “at will”, all the time, we can fire anybody, anytime, any reason. And not that the League would advise cities to do that, fire anybody anytime for any reason, but, preserving that right to do that, because in Minnesota, we still do have an “at will” employment state, helps in various kinds of lawsuits that might come up, wrongful termination, etc. Recommendation: Discuss and provide direction to staff, if any direction is determined to be necessary. _____________________________________ James Ericson Interim City Clerk/Administrator