This transcript has been formatted with the appropriate speaker names based on the roles and context provided. [00:00:00] **Nicole Miller**: ...and we have uh moved that until March. Our finance director is out sick today, oh, but we've been able to confirm that it will not um change our ability to um implement rates effective January 1. [00:00:12] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. All right. Well, that's good to know. Sorry, I think I drove her to a mental breakdown. [00:00:18] **Nicole Miller**: It wasn't you. I could see that happening. I could see that happening. [00:00:22] **Charles Cadenhead**: I like you, too, Mayor. Well, looks like you get the limelight tonight then. [00:00:26] **Nicole Miller**: So we're going to talk about uh item number three, which is Personnel policy updates. Yes, um, so this is my favorite time of year. I always bring policies towards the end of the year. This year I'm proposing a pretty large overhaul to just put the policies in what I think is a more applicable order. Um, the most important policies kind of come first—the ones that have to deal with laws that you want to follow: anti-harassment, um, data practices stuff like that. So you'll see that they're in a different order. Um, they are either red or blue lined just depending on changes, and then I am going to propose numbering them so that when we reference them they will have a name and a and a number. I apologize that I didn't do it on the packet but I'd like to include page numbers too so that going forward we would be able to just update a policy as needed, pull it out, put the new one in, and it'll just allow those changes to happen more efficiently. So that's kind of the overhaul. On the council report, I indicated the policies that had changes and there's really just a few that I'd like feedback on to make sure that we are doing the best changes for the city. Um, that is our earned sick and safe time and our PTO policy. So those are the two major ones I'd love feedback on. Uh, if you have any questions, I'm open to have this Workshop however you want to see fit. Do you want to ask questions about policies? Do you want me to give you my spiel? What, what would you prefer? [00:01:45] **Nick Dragisich**: Well, I think that um, yeah, not really sure. E-either way, I do have some questions. But I ask some questions too. I read through it in detail because I have a lot of time and I love to raise all kinds of questions and cause problems. Um, one question I had with the the change where employees can use up to 40 hours of their unused vacation um to go into a for-a like a retirement plan or benefit plan—has there been an estimate of the cost to that increased cost a result of that? [00:02:18] **Nicole Miller**: Um, that is one piece that we don't necessarily have today with the finance director being ill. Um, currently they are allowed to do 40 hours of the—the current policy they can do 40 hours into Deferred Comp, which is the retirement plan. Um, and we were just looking to increase that to allow people to not lose as many hours at the year end. Um, you will notice that the department heads and I had a meeting today so that has actually been updated a little bit and that would be one of the policies I just left at your seat. We pulled the option to do cash and we just are allowing 100 hours—up to 100 hours for the year—being in Deferred Comp or health savings account. So the finance director's feedback was to not provide a cash out option due to the tax implications. Right. [00:03:02] **Nick Dragisich**: So um is that 100 hours similar to what um let's say this—the state system has? Because I think my previous experience was in 80 hours. And that is—is that what we currently have is 80 hours? [00:03:15] **Nicole Miller**: Currently we have 40. Yeah, and that's why I'd like this Workshop. We can talk about... [00:03:18] **Nick Dragisich**: Well, I'm o- we have 40. I'm okay with 80. I don't want to do 100. That's—I want your feedback. So I mean I'm okay with a certain amount, but at some point in time, I think we need also let uh the employees know that that's what PTO is for—vacation time is to take off and use that. That's a benefit. So I'm—I'm not entirely on board with taking a 100 hours and throwing it into a comp plan because i-I'd rather have them spend time with their family or fishing or hunting or relaxing or reading or whatever they do to recharge, then just stuffing it into MSRS or something like that. That's my—my personal opinion. [00:03:52] **Nicole Miller**: Yeah, I didn't see this catch. So we changed from 40 hours, which is what's was in the packet, to 100 hours. Um, I think in the packet it was 120 hours and we lowered it to 100 and we removed the cash out option. So they can put it into to Deferred Comp or health savings account. [00:04:10] **Nick Dragisich**: Yeah, I-I think 80 hours absolutely. I mean that's two weeks worth of work. That's—and especially if we're looking at um... oh, the firefighters are diff—are they on a different... [00:04:22] **Nicole Miller**: They're on there and I'm proposing that we allow their carryover to be 300 hours due to their—they have a higher accrual because they are required to take 24 hours off to cover the entire shift. [00:04:35] **Nick Dragisich**: Mhm. [00:04:36] **Nicole Miller**: So their current—our current carryover is 240 hours for City staff. I did not change that carryover amount, but I propose increasing the firefighters' carryover amount to 300 hours. [00:04:48] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. So on the red-red line that was in the packet is: they can convert up to 40 hours of V to cash to um IRS deferral MSRS Deferred Comp, convert up to 40 hours to uh vacation leave to wages to offset the cost of benefits, and convert up to 40 hours of leave to a health savings account. So I assume you can only—you can only 40 hours, not 120? [00:05:13] **Nicole Miller**: Well, in the redline option, we were allowing people to put 40, 40 hours in each bucket—total it'd be 120. [00:05:21] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. I thought it was 40 in one bucket and that was it. [00:05:24] **Nick Dragisich**: Okay. And I guess I-I think a 100 hours is quite a bit. So, I mean, the old school me is like 40 is what I've always in my career been used to when I was at State and County. So I mean even 80's quite a bit. It's two weeks, especially when you're accru—you know, seven and a half... wait. I mean on the median you're earning a day every two weeks. [00:05:43] **Nicole Miller**: Would it um would it be helpful if we brought back information on other cities? Would that help at all have more information? [00:05:51] **Charles Cadenhead**: Fine. I mean, I just don't—I don't think that that's... you can... um, so just on the gist of it, two and a half weeks is a lot of time. What is—what is the current policy? [00:06:01] **Nicole Miller**: Current policy is you can carry over 240 hours and you can cash out 40 to Deferred Comp or to Deferred Comp. Yep. [00:06:10] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. That's so if you're over 280 hours at the end of the year and you haven't used that, you just lose those hours? [00:06:16] **Nicole Miller**: Okay, in each year you could cash out 40. [00:06:18] **Charles Cadenhead**: Yes, bring you down. [00:06:19] **Jeff Holtz**: Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest, I wonder if it was at the County where you had the experience because MAPE does not have that at all. No, with MAPE you can cash out at the end of your time with your vacation accrued. There's no help to bring down. [00:06:33] **Charles Cadenhead**: Yeah. Is there any allowance for the supervisor to say—sometimes, you know, in Public Works they've got extra time, or if they're required extra time in planning, for the supervisor to say "I'm going to okay more time on this and you can put it in the comp"? Because it really should be up to the supervisor to um manage that. [00:06:51] **Nicole Miller**: Do you mean for comp time earned or on the PTO? [00:06:54] **Charles Cadenhead**: Um, yes. [00:06:55] **Nicole Miller**: So under current policy, the staff and the supervisor can agree whether any overtime hours are going to be paid out or put into a comp time. [00:07:03] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. What is the MSRS Deferred Compensation Plan? [00:07:07] **Nicole Miller**: That is the Minnesota State Retirement 457 plan. It's basically like the government's version of a 401k. [00:07:15] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. 503b or something like that. Okay, thank you. I didn't—wasn't sure what it was. [00:07:22] **Nick Kragness**: I don't have a problem with the uh deferred compensation or the health saves account contribution. I think I'm kind with... $100 seems like a lot to put in. Well, just—and it—it's to the point that they get a lot of—I mean, in my viewpoint, get a lot of vacation. Use it, right? Because if they're not using that and they're getting more time, so we're almost like adversely saying, "Hey, work more and you can put it in MSRS or something else." [00:07:47] **Nicole Miller**: Yeah, I don't know. No, I—I think that's good feedback. I did put some provisions in there that if they want to cash it out, they have to have taken some, because I agree, I don't want people to say "I'm never taking vacation because I want to cash it out." Yeah, so they have to have taken at least 60 hours of vacation to be eligible for the conversion. [00:08:08] **Jeff Holtz**: Yeah, I think the max I'd want to go is 80 to be honest, and I still think that's very uh generous. [00:08:14] **Charles Cadenhead**: Generous. I agree. That sounds good. [00:08:18] **Nicole Miller**: So I can make that update then. [00:08:20] **Charles Cadenhead**: I'm in like the 40 to 60 myself. That's—I mean, I'm just trying to not zero... it's one of those things. I'd be curious how—because what we probably won't vote on this until the New Year, right? [00:08:31] **Nicole Miller**: So I'd be curious how Matt would... I'm hoping to vote on it in December actually, the next meeting, right? Um, so that we can have it implemented and obviously in the case of the HSA, the reason for that is because tax-wise it's treated the same as the Deferred Comp with MSRS. Yes. Right. Yeah. [00:08:48] **Jeff Holtz**: Question: because the state changed some law on employers needing to provide separate—is it PTO and sick leave? [00:08:56] **Nicole Miller**: Yes. So that's why we're kind of hashing the these policies out. So the state implemented earned sick and safe time, which started January 1st of 2024. And when they laid out the statute originally in 2023, they indicated that if your PTO was generous enough to cover all of the requirements, which is 48 hours of sick leave, you could combine it. And then in May of 2024, they changed the statute to say that if you have combined it, then all of the ESST regulations now need to pertain to your PTO hours. So that can be concerning. [00:09:34] **Charles Cadenhead**: I'm sorry, ESST? [00:09:36] **Nicole Miller**: Earned sick and safe time. Okay, thank you. Yep. So under the earned sick and safe time, you can use that for any leave to take care of yourself, your family members—and how they define family is pretty broad. Yeah, you don't need to provide a doctor's note, you don't need to provide your replacement. So if we're having shift work for our on-call um Public Works employees or the shifts for the firefighters, under our current policy, if somebody wanted to take a vacation day, they could switch with somebody or we could have them kind of find their replacement. Under earned and safe time, we cannot do that anymore. And then if attendance becomes an issue, you certainly can't retaliate against anyone for taking sick leave. So it's—the combined policy makes it difficult to prevent people from just always calling in sick versus planning their vacation and taking time off ahead of time and giving supervisors the opportunity to fill those shifts and prepare for that time off. [00:10:35] **Jeff Holtz**: Primarily we were talking about our non-exempt employees, right? [00:10:38] **Nicole Miller**: Yes. So we're not even really... because the union covers the Public Works department. [00:10:44] **Jeff Holtz**: It does, but they don't specify, so they do follow these policies. And if they go overtime, they get paid time and a half, right? Or comp time? They do have the comp time add an hour and a half—uh, yes. Yeah, it is. Right. Mhm. [00:11:00] **Charles Cadenhead**: So these cities here in your salary and benefits survey—where you've got Hopkins, Hugo, us—they're going to have to change that, right? [00:11:08] **Nicole Miller**: Well, I was just trying to look. It's—it's interesting because cities in history used to have separate sick and vacation time, and then about five to six years ago it became more popular to merge it into one. And now with this ESST, the earned sick and safe time changes, you're going to see a lot of the cities—from the feedback I've gotten just from reaching out to the League of Minnesota City groups—that they're going to separate it back out again. Right. [00:11:34] **Nick Dragisich**: So in the document that was on—in our packet, it said that they couldn't carry—they they eligible to carry over accrue but unused ESST time. But in this one it says they're going to get paid out. [00:11:47] **Nicole Miller**: Yes. So we had a three-hour meeting with the department heads today just to hash out these policies to make sure that what I was presenting to you was the best for the city, and we thought that we would prefer having separate policies. So we have a vacation and an earned sick safe time. And after much discussion, we're proposing having 48 hours of accrue earned sick safe time available to all staff on January 1st, and if they don't use it, then it would be paid out. The statute suggests three different options. So that was one of the options. The other option is to earn 1 hour for every 30 hours worked, accrue it throughout the year, and then carry it over. There's third option is to allow people to have 80 hours as of January 1st and then use it or lose it. [00:12:35] **Nick Dragisich**: I-I think the—the option you have in—in the red line um, you know, just—or you know in the one tonight—just pay it out is a—you know, is a good option in my book because it creates an incentive to come to work. To pay it out. The new one I just provided and the other one—if you—if you lose it, people say "Well, I'm going to call in sick because I lose it." When I was in my experience... you, we had a similar situation up in the city of Virginia where people could accumulate sick leave up to 150 days or something and then they quit accumulating it when they got to 150 days. They would just thought as vacation—just calling sick because I'm not going to get it. You know, if they—if they called in sick then they would get it back, basically maintain that 150 days, but they used it. My experience is you create that incentive if you—you know, if you—if you don't give them something for not using it. [00:13:28] **Nicole Miller**: That was kind of the discussion today as well, and there was concerns that if it's "use it or lose it," then come November/December, that is when everyone's going to be suddenly taking their times off, and that's the snowy season for the Public Works department. Um, the—the Fire Department obviously needs to have a standard of at least two people on. So we were... [00:13:51] **Charles Cadenhead**: Is there a max accrual of sick time? [00:13:54] **Nicole Miller**: It's 80—80 hours a year. The max that's required is 48. So under the new statute, you have to provide at least 48; you can be more generous if you want. If you want to carry it over, you can allow accrual up to 80. So the statute kind of recommends that you frontload it 48 and pay it out, or frontload 80 and don't pay it out, or accrue it per hour and then you can either pay it out or carry it over. [00:14:24] **Jeff Holtz**: We map—so the way MAPE for reference (MAPE is the—the state union)—but um it's four hours every two weeks and then it does not change no matter your seniority, whereas the vacation rate then does. Yep. And you—and then sick time can be cashed out when you leave into your Health Savings Account. And then over—but over a certain dollar, it's a percentage of—of the... [00:14:51] **Nicole Miller**: Right. Yeah, it's like 40%. Yeah, it's not the whole thing, whereas vacation time can cash out in a different way. Right. Yeah. [00:14:59] **Jeff Holtz**: So Jeff, I apologize, did you say four hours per week or per pay period? [00:15:05] **Nicole Miller**: Per pay period. For every two weeks. [00:15:08] **Jeff Holtz**: For every two weeks. So that's six days per year. Yeah. So it—it's gone through a couple different iterations. When I was there, it was uh up to 900 hours you cash that out. For a while there you cash out 450 hours, 50% of it cash, and then they went 50% to HSA. And then I think over 900 hours—I mean, I had some guys working for me, they had like 1650 hours of sick leave because the benefit of that was that every—and then everything over 900 hours they would get like 30% into their HSA. Right. So even though it's not 100% payout, they're getting money put right into a Health Savings Account that's tax-free for them when they retire. So some people treated it as a benefit as such, and some people misused it and would—because they would say "I want to get paid 100%," and they would say, "Well, I'm going to be sick on Friday." I'm like, "Oh, you got a doctor's appointment or something?" "No, I'm just going to be sick on Friday." So that—um, it gets tricky. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt on how they do it, but... [00:16:11] **Charles Cadenhead**: So we're saying we're going to—going to give them on January 1, how much? [00:16:15] **Nicole Miller**: 48 hours. [00:16:16] **Charles Cadenhead**: 48 hours. 48 hours, which is six days. [00:16:19] **Nick Dragisich**: Six days. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a—that's a reasonable allocation because you have—you have the longer-term leave if someone or just if someone gets—has another issue. But I, you know, I know other cities that at least couple others that the unused um sick leaves goes into a um Health Savings Account which they can—which is a—they don't see as a benefit initially but actually after they have it for a while, they do. It becomes a big benefit—substantial. Yeah. [00:16:51] **Jeff Holtz**: And I made a mistake. It's not the sick time for MAPE, it's the vacation time that goes into the health savings. [00:16:57] **Charles Cadenhead**: Really? Yeah. [00:16:58] **Jeff Holtz**: 100—100% of vacation pay converted to MSRS Health Care Savings Plan, which is interesting. [00:17:05] **Nick Kragness**: Yeah. I—I would—I would agree with that because it, again, a lot of—I wouldn't have thought when I was 22 about health savings accounts. Like that—that's just not something that happened in that year. It certainly didn't happen the 80s and the 90s. But I think as—as society becomes more acutely aware of health cost, I—I support that. And I think it is a—a very good option to have that. And it is like we're doing our part to at least make sure that's part of the conversation and is—not everyone, again, is even considering that, and that's fine. That's totally okay. But I—I think that is a rational way to do it. Do we have a Health Savings Account for our employees right now? [00:17:46] **Nicole Miller**: We do not participate in the MSRS Health Savings Account for our city staff. The union has an account with them. Um, so this Health Savings Account would just be if you have elected the Health Savings Plan with our medical plan. But that is something that we've been talking about. The con—I don't know if it's a concern or not, but if you elect the MSRS Health Savings Account for City staff, then that becomes mandatory. So, Jeff, I might ask: at the end of the year, do you guys have to put it in there if you're over? [00:18:18] **Jeff Holtz**: We are—all MAPE employees are required for every paycheck to put a percent into the HSA, and that started at least a decade ago. [00:18:27] **Nicole Miller**: Okay. And so that would be something—something that as a city we could decide to do, but then it—staff no longer have the option of, "Well, I'd like to put my vacation leave in to my deferred comp or my health savings account." It—it would be chosen for them or directed for them. [00:18:45] **Charles Cadenhead**: Do we not have HSA accounts with our uh health plan? [00:18:49] **Nicole Miller**: We do, but not everybody's on that plan. [00:18:52] **Charles Cadenhead**: So is that a high-deductible plan? [00:18:54] **Nicole Miller**: Yes. Yep. So we offer two plans: the high-deductible plan and a co-pay plan. And you can't have a Health Savings Account if you have a co-pay plan. [00:19:03] **Nick Dragisich**: Co-pay plan. Yeah. That's—I think that's similar to what... so if an employee decided to, you know, let's say they didn't take any sick leave, they could get paid out for 48 hours at the end. Could they put—and they were in the high-deductible, could they put it in the HSA? Are you talking about vacation payout or this earned sick and safe? [00:19:24] **Nicole Miller**: So as it's written, the earned sick and safe right now, we were just planning to cash out on your last paycheck. [00:19:30] **Nick Dragisich**: Okay. So if we wanted to offer that going into a retirement account as well, we could kind of play around with that. [00:19:37] **Charles Cadenhead**: Well, Health Savings Account's not necessarily retirement account though, correct? I—I was just thinking if I—if I'm an employee, I'm in the HSA, I have the high-deductible plan, I already have the HSA, could I find a way to deflect this 48 hours of pay into my HSA if I chose? [00:19:54] **Nicole Miller**: Not as it's written right now. [00:19:56] **Nick Dragisich**: Okay. I think that would be a pretty good option. I just— [00:20:01] **Clarissa Hadler**: I just just will add that um during our um department head discussion today, we did bring up the State Health Care Savings Plan, and the majority of them were not interested in that. However, I do think that maybe we could um get some more program information and bring it up. Well, it's actually—what do you think? There was feedback that they wanted to be able to control where that money went and—and put it in their own Deferred Comp. But if we were just addressing the earned sick and safe time, I think as a city we could just say, "Well, we are going to elect the MSRS Healthcare Savings Plan, and if your—your earned sick and safe time are unused, it automatically goes into that plan." That would also save on any tax implications. [00:20:53] **Charles Cadenhead**: We put a capital O and say if you're in the high-deductible, we can put it in your health HSA as opposed to the state plan? [00:21:01] **Nicole Miller**: I don't think we could. I-I'd want to ask MSRS that question because we would have to develop a contract with them, and typically if we want to elect money to go into them, then that is mandatory. [00:21:14] **Nick Dragisich**: I have a question for you, Clarissa. If we had that um State Health Care Savings Plan, which the unused ESST hours could go into, can we just have that for that, or if you sign up for that, do you have to have in place contribute to it? [00:21:30] **Clarissa Hadler**: I think it could just be for the earned sick safe time cash out. I know—I know I shouldn't say I think—I know that we can just do one. It's just how the city develops the contract. [00:21:43] **Jeff Holtz**: I think from the employee's perspective, it's probably... I think some may say, "Well, why can't they just have the cash?" But the end it's pretty much neutral because no health plan covers 100%. So, you know, from HSA, you can buy all kinds of things that they're currently paying money out of their pocket for—aspirin or whatever and um dental, eyeglasses, what—all those kinds of things. So it is—it does provide a benefit that way, but... [00:22:12] **Nick Kragness**: Well, the nice thing is that's a non-taxed, yeah, dollar value. So if you cash it out, you're hitting that higher percentage; cash out in HSA, you're getting all of it pretty much in there. [00:22:24] **Jeff Holtz**: Yeah, and it's earning very good interest and accruals right now. In the case of MSRS, depend upon the—where you—because you have the choice to allocate. If you're in the MSRS Health Care Savings, you can choose how you allocate, and there are plans that are getting 8 to 10% over the last several years, not just during inflation. But um I—I would be curious then in the non-MSRS one... so for the people who have the—the Deferred Comp... the Deferred Comp right now, like what um options do they have for choosing how they want it? [00:23:01] **Nicole Miller**: Um, I wouldn't be able to tell you off the top of my head, but they do get to choose. It's—they can similar to like a 2050 plan, a 2040 plan, a 2030 plan on a high risk, or individually if they just want to say "I want the Vanguard such and such," they can—they can choose that as well. [00:23:20] **Nick Kragness**: I think that that would be a something—sounds like something the Council would be supportive of. Yeah. Of the three options, I—I like the one that's there right now, the 48 hours to start. Yep. Of the—I don't like the other... yeah, I don't like the other two. I think that's makes the most sense. Good thinking, Clarissa. Well, I appreciate your feedback and thank you for hashing it out. The other one I liked—all the changes for the complaints and stuff to come to you with—think we had talked about that previously, so that's good to see that's in there now. [00:23:55] **Charles Cadenhead**: Yeah, I thought all that was good. I—I first read through the um the pronouns thing. I start to worry a little bit about "What if we have someone who has a religious conflict with that?" But then I did my own research and found out it don't matter, they have to honor it. So and that was my only concern. I—I think if someone wants to be called a particular—if—if Jeff wants—want me—wants me to call him Harry, I'll call—call him Harry, you know, just out of respect. But I was worried about the conflict, and then I—as I said—I read it, found out that doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are. If you—if someone wants to be called they/them or whatever, you have to call them they/them. So that took—put my—my only fear away. [00:24:39] **Nicole Miller**: Well, that's good, I'm glad. And I did—I know last year when we updated this, there was some concern about having both the harassment and the respectful workplace, so I did try to just merge that and make it just... I was also trying to be more concise so that the policy isn't too long. Um, I thought that all was very good. [00:24:59] **Jeff Holtz**: Concur. Uh, it—it's to me it's pretty straightforward to show respect to others, so I—I don't—I don't have a lot more to say on that. In terms of smoking tobacco and related questions um, out of curiosity, where—what are staff thoughts in terms of... because obviously it's explicitly clear in terms of—of smoking of tobacco. And what is—what is the position—what is the position then in terms of, now that it is legal and it'll only increase in terms of usage, um marijuana? Do you mean our like youth policy on it in terms of, obviously usage during work hours, usage on—obviously it's not allowed on site, it's not allowed on public property, and then also if you have a scent of it but you are on work hours? Because I—the whole testing bit is a whole other thing and I'm not one want to get in that can of worms—but what would be the position if an employee comes in and that employee does work with the public and it's clear and evident that usage has occurred simply due to scent? [00:26:01] **Nicole Miller**: So when the cannabis law went into effect, I did update our alcohol use policy to include cannabis. So much like we don't allow people to drink on the job or show up drunk, we don't allow them to use cannabis on the job or show up high. I don't know that we have anything in our policies that addresses a cigarette smoker and whether if my cube mate smokes and I smell that after their lunch break and that irritates me, that would probably just become an HR issue that we would address. I don't think we have any policies specifically that state that you can't... that to me would be a fragrance-free policy, meaning that people couldn't use strong scented lotions or perfumes, you know, that—that kind of falls into that. Um, if someone were to show up smelling like cannabis, which would lead us to be reasonably suspicious of their being high, I would treat that as an un—like a suspicion drug testing. [00:26:58] **Jeff Holtz**: I like—I like use of reasonable suspicion. Brings me back to my day job. And obviously then in the case of gummy use where you have no scent, it would still come down to if there's a reasonable suspicion based upon behavior and... [00:27:12] **Nicole Miller**: Correct. If you're able to perform your job or not. Correct. And that would be for any legal substance. If somebody is using a pain reliever and they seem a little aloof, right? I mean, we don't allow any drug use... they had a surgery and they're on, right, something to alleviate the pain and they're acting a little wonky. Correct. [00:27:35] **Charles Cadenhead**: Gotcha. Thank you. Well, I appreciate reading through all of this. Is there any more questions on any? No. We just need to... so what do we co- with on the converting of hours? Because you said "less than," and I mean, I came down to 80 just—just because 100 seems like so much. But really I'm in that 40 to 60 range as well, I guess, now that I think about it again. Just—just for people to make sure that they take the time off they need it. Otherwise, some people just don't. Correct. Well, and I guess I'd be curious if you—if there you have an employee who say is in the 25 years and more and they're accumulating 13 hours every two weeks and literally has not used a single hour after six or seven months, is there—is it a norm, is there an expectation that there would be a conversation and be like, "Bill, like, it's okay, like this is actually here for your mental health," what regardless of there might be a family might not... like an encouragement? Is there—is there a—a position as to where that would come into play? Like I assume those conversations happen. It's not necessarily a policy thing, it's more so a best practice like, "Please do what's best for you." That's why we... I—I agree with the Mayor. We—we have vacation hours not for the purpose of building and accrual and then transferring out, we have them for their—their well-being to be used throughout the year. [00:28:55] **Nicole Miller**: I believe we do, and I—I would assume most directors are having those conversations. Um, I don't think we have anybody that doesn't use any of their time. But it's—sometimes it comes into play, especially with the Fire Department and the Public Works department, that on certain occasions we can't allow PTO to be taken because we have a big snow issue or we had that huge fire that took 12 hours to put out. And so we obviously—the first thing would be that we want to encourage people to take it, but then if we can't have them taking it to the full ability, is it seem to penalize them if they use it at the end of the year? [00:29:34] **Charles Cadenhead**: Well, can we agree on dropping that to 60 hours? [00:29:37] **Jeff Holtz**: I'm—I'm fine dropping it to 60 and we'll wait to hear from the other two. [00:29:43] **Charles Cadenhead**: What do you think, Council Member Dragisich? [00:29:45] **Nick Dragisich**: Well, I was leaning to 40 because I'm conservative. But yeah, I would—um, I would go along with 60 if that's the consensus of my associates. I—I think it's more—it's more generous than most, if not all, places that I know that I've ever been, so um I think it's pretty generous. [00:30:05] **Nicole Miller**: I appreciate the feedback. [00:30:07] **Charles Cadenhead**: I think it would also be a good thing then anytime there's a new position that comes up for a posting and those interviews are happening, "Hey, you're considering another city? Guess what, we just changed..." And I think that might put a person over the top for who they're—who they're deciding on. Because I agree, this—I'm going to take a guess—is it's definitely more robust than other availability, especially other comparable cities. [00:30:31] **Nicole Miller**: Okay. [00:30:32] **Charles Cadenhead**: Is there anything else we really needed to address? [00:30:34] **Nick Dragisich**: I think we hit everything. Else seemed pretty straightforward to me. [00:30:38] **Nick Kragness**: I thought everything else was real good. [00:30:40] **Charles Cadenhead**: Yeah. Nice job. Very nice job. [00:30:43] **Nicole Miller**: Thank you. The amount of updates, making sure everything's aligned with statute, like it's a lot of work. So thank you for all that. You are welcome. [00:30:52] **Charles Cadenhead**: Okay. So you have enough to go on there? [00:30:54] **Nicole Miller**: I do, thanks. [00:30:56] **Charles Cadenhead**: All right. So future agenda items. Will come back to the Utility Financial Management Plan update. Anything else that they should be aware of or we should be aware of? Says future agenda items... [00:31:08] **Nick Dragisich**: No. Why—why are we doing that till March? [00:31:12] **Nicole Miller**: Well, we... yeah, good question. Um, we looked at our available work session dates. Yeah. And um so we have work sessions in January related to our strategic plan, then February we're doing combined with Planning Commission and the Parks Commission. Correct. Um, the January one is now open because we moved the Parks Commission oh after strategic plan. But then I also want to point out that we do have goal setting um Wednesday and Thursday night. So we just removed that. So we were kind of like, "Maybe the Council doesn't want to do three nights in a row." [00:31:50] **Charles Cadenhead**: That's fine. I don't want to do three nights in a row. Well, actually I can, so it's fine. March is fine. I was just—it was more of a question, not a complaint. Yeah. All right. Given that, uh, I think I'll adjourn the meeting early this evening at 7:10 p.m. Thank you.