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Employee Compensation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
Date: 9/21/12 at 10am
Present: Gareth Backhaus, Muriel Lazzarini, Mickey Jervas, Maynard Forbes and Melissa Noe
Absent: Larry Klein and Daniel Moriarity
- The minutes from 9/7/12 were approved as written.
- Gareth will join the legal subcommittee and the salary/benefits subcommittee.
- Reports were made from the sub groups on the following:
- Legal items: Maynard and Muriel have compiled a list of attorneys that specialize in municipal matters with regards to benefits, compensation and policies/handbooks. This will be reviewed more and calls will be made. Muriel stated that she has spoken with the rest of the Select Board on this and they have agreed that this is something that needs to be done and they will find the funds needed to pay for the services.
- Employee Handbook & Policies: Muriel, Mickey and Melissa met earlier this morning and reviewed the employee handbook (old & suggested versions) and made corrections and comments. All agreed that once it is pared down the ECAC as a whole will need to review specific sections in more depth and from there the counsel chosen that specializes in this area will need to also review it. The subcommittee has questions on the current holiday & overtime policy – how an employee is paid when they have to work on a holiday. Extended jury duty and maternity leave policies also need to be discussed further and town policies need to be created for.
- Misc: Maynard stated that the salary and benefits subcommittee is working on updating the step salary chart created in 2005 with current salaries; the chart included pay on a step scale and included increases for performance.
- The Committee reviewed a spreadsheet created during the compensation/benefits discussions with the Select Board earlier in the year that calculated the cost of offering health insurance, an on call stipend (to Police & Highway) and the clothing and boot allowance (Highway only) to show a more accurate cost for each employee. M. Noe will update this with the FY13 salaries and the FY13 health insurance rates.
- An idea that was mentioned was looking into whether or not a “benefits menu” could be offered and an employee could then choose what benefits are more beneficial to them and which ones they might be willing to give up in order to get something else (i.e. give up xx number of sick days in order to receive a better split on health insurance). The Committee is also going to look into the cost of a adding a couples only health insurance plan for those employees that are married but do not have dependants and whether or not a married couple could get 2 individual plans instead of a family plan.
- The Committee confirmed dates for their next 4 meetings: October 12th, October 26th, November 9th and November 30th all at 10am in the town hall.
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Inter-Departmental Secretary
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