07 City Council (6/16/03) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting June 16, 2003 Page 12 Councilwoman Neeley spoke about a City Council who decided that we needed to make some improvements and needed some things and then voted to borrow this money without raising rates. She said that some one near and dear to her (former Mayor Neeley) came home jumping up and down screaming that they have just robbed Peter to pay Paul and somebody down there, in a few years, is going to have to bite the bullet and raise these rates and take care of it. She stated that it seems that they were there whether they liked it or not. Councilwoman Neeley said that much of the things that they did were mandated by the EPA that was threatening daily large fines. She said that she talked to people, talked to industry and we do not want to drive industry out of town by raising our rates, but we also don't want to lose our bond rating. Mr. Anderson said he would like to address something that came up at the last Water and Sewer Subcommittee meeting that involved the possibility of going to the 12 hour shifts. He did, at Councilman Plata's suggestion, call the Financial Director at Kimberly Clark and discussed their 12 hour shift rotation schedule and essentially their employees work four 12 hour shifts one week, and three 12 hour shifts the next week. In other words, they work 36 hours one week and 48 hours the next unless they are called in for some other purpose. Mr. Anderson said if you wanted to do that, if you wanted to convert that to straight time equivalent hours in a two week pay period which is what the city uses, that is equivalent to 88 straight time hours compared to 80 straight time hours that the city currently utilize. Mr. Anderson said there was a question on how that would effect overtime and whether or not it would invoke overtime in that week that an employee would work in excess of 40 hours. The Fair Labor Standard Act is pretty clear on that and any hours worked over 40 are mandatory time and one- half. Mr. Anderson said what Kimberly Clark does, as he understands, the schedule their fourth day is intended to be and is normally scheduled for a Sunday. The week they work 4 days one of them is normally a Sunday and what they do on Sunday's they pay double time and not time and one-half. He said that under a normal two week cycle for a K-C employee, they are going to be paid for 72 straight time hours, and 12 double time hours for a total of 84 hours worked; but that is the straight time equivalent of 96 hours. Mr. Anderson said the overtime is a valid issue, and the largest drawback that he can see as it has