Discussion Regarding the Employee Sick Leave for Wellness Policy

The purpose of this discussion is to seek the City Council's approval, by consensus this evening, to revise the City's current Sick Leave for Wellness Policy and bring it back at the next regular meeting for adoption.  

In summary, the revisions sought would amend the current policy to include the optional limited use of one to three vacation days per year to help offset the cost of approved wellness  activities or to increase deferred compensation savings for  employees.   This limited use of up to one to three vacation days would not be available to employees until their 6th, 12th and 18th anniversary.  As shown on the attached draft policy, there are provisions within the policy limiting its use and ensuring a win-win outcome for both the City and  its employees.      

As the City Council will recall, this discussion started back in June.  At that time, staff was directed to revisit this issue with the Labor Management Committee (LMC) to further refine the policy by removing language that was specific to an organization, such as Weight Watchers, and to more clearly identify the types of eligible wellness activities.

As background, the City Council is aware that the City has an active Labor Management Committee (LMC), which is made up of  4 management employees, 2 non-union employees, 3 AFSCME employees, 2 LELS employees, and 3 ex-officio members, and meets on a regular basis throughout the year.  The Committee discusses issues that are relevant to all groups of City staff  in an effort to ensure that the City's core values are upheld and organizational effectiveness is maximized.   Organizational effectiveness and up-to-date workplace polices that foster employee satisfaction, physical wellness and financial wellness are important to the City and a good practice for all involved.    Interestingly, employee friendly, alternative uses of vacation time (within established policies) are on the rise.  This information is based on data obtained from the League of Minnesota Cities.  Staff will be on hand to elaborate, if the City Council desires, during this discussion.  

As a result, staff brought the policy back to the LMC for discussion and further revision.  The Committee had an extensive discussion regarding the types of wellness activities that should be eligible for payment.  The Committee was able to add clarity and additional detail to the list of eligible items.  However, after much discussion, it was determined that the policy needed to retain language that provided for some flexibility in determining if certain actives would be eligible for payment, leaving the Human Resources Manager with some discretion to consider requests on a case-by-case basis.  The Committee felt that it was impractical to list all possible eligible activities and attempting to do so would be inefficient.   Therefore, the newly revised policy adds additional detail where practical, but leaves some discretion to the Human Resources Manager, in cooperation with the City Administrator.  The Committee discussed the eligibility of exercise equipment and confirmed their desire to keep it in the policy as an eligible item.  In addition, the current draft policy now identifies an appeals process for employees to follow in the event there is a denial by the Human Resources Manager; appeals will be reviewed by the City Administrator and his/her determination will be final. 

Note:  The scope of this current draft policy, if adopted, will cover non-union employees.    It is anticipated that AFSCME will negotiate to amend the 2015-2016 contract, which contains the original Sick Leave for Wellness policy to exactly mirror the updated non-union policy.    It is also anticipated that Law Enforcement Labor Services (LELS) will negotiate in an attempt to follow-suit as well; however, LELS does not currently have any such policy. 

Up to 15 minutes.

It should be noted that this change would increase the budgeted line item for salary expense for the year; but it reduces the fund balance liability that is carried over at year end. 

Colleen Lasher, Human Resources Manager

For the City Council to consider revising the current Sick Leave for Wellness policy.