Recent changes in the city of McMinnville’s Personnel Policy are giving one week’s pay for each full-time city employee this year, along with another change that sweetens the financial pot for employees next year.
“I would like to give each full-time employee a week’s pay this year,” Alderman Billy Wood said during a Finance Committee meeting to discuss the changes. “We could give it to them somewhere around the first week in December.”
One week’s pay for each full-time employee will be one-time only and will cost the city approximately $108,000.
“The pay out will be one-time only,” he said. “I’ve looked over the city’s budget and the money is available for it.”
Also new in the policy is longevity pay for employees. Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, the program will reward full-time employees with at least three years of continuous service with $100 per year. Maximum is 30 years.
Longevity pay is not a one-time deal. A 15-year employee would receive $1,500 in 2012, $1,600 in 2013 and so on.
To be eligible for longevity pay, the employee must be considered a full-time, active employee at the time checks are distributed. Employees using accumulated sick leave, annual time, or personal time toward retirement will not be eligible.
Longevity pay will be based on employee’s anniversary date in the calendar year the pay is to be issued. Checks will be issued between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15 yearly beginning in 2012.
Unchanged this year will be the number of paid holidays for employees.
There will be 14 paid days — New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve.
Personnel Policy changes were unanimously accepted by the full board. When it comes to longevity pay, numbers on cost were not released.