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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, December 9, 2013 Page 10 Roll Call Ayes: Laliberte; Etten; McGehee; and Roe. Nays: Willmus. Motion carried. 14. Business Items—Presentations/Discussions a. Merit Pay Policy Discussion At the request of Mayor Roe, Interim City Manager Trudgeon reviewed this re- quest as detailed in the Request for Council Action (RCA) dated December 9, 2013. As noted in the RCA dated December 9, 2013, and specific to Item 12.a entitled, "Consider Adopting a Final 2014 Tax Levy and Budget," Mr. Trudgeon noted that the proposed funding including a temporary suspension of$30,000 for the current merit pay system, and proposed to be funded from General Fund con- tingency funds for 2014. Mr. Trudgeon noted that this is usually a one-time bo- nus, and determined by Department Heads on a case-by-case basis. While this award policy is part of the employee compensation mix, Mr. Trudgeon advised that it should be a standalone program and was more of an organizational issue for Department Heads to recognize continued excellence of its star employ- ees. While the overall amount of dollars is small, Mr. Trudgeon recommended continuation of the program for the health of the organization in recognizing those who go the extra mile and perform beyond their regular job duties, as well as those who make services better and find more efficient, less costly ways to pro- vide services or programs. Regardless of what the City Council decided for the rest of the 2014 employee wage/benefit package, Mr. Trudgeon respectfully re- quested that they continue to fund this award program in 2014. Mr. Trudgeon noted that, as indicated in the RCA, he had sought input from De- partment Heads, with their cumulative suggestion to call this program a "Merit Award Program" versus a"Merit Pay Program," with those discussions indicating that they felt it was important to keep the program organizationally, but look at performance measures in granting those awards, as indicated in the RCA. Mr. Trudgeon gave credit to Finance Director Miller and his staff team for putting to- gether the majority of the proposed program, specifically the "Merit Award Plan Performance Standards," as outlined in lines 38-56 of the RCA (page 2). Mr. Trudgeon specifically highlighted lines 55 — 56 of the caution for Departments in refraining from setting employee work goals for the sole purpose of establishing eligibility for Merit Pay. Mr. Trudgeon noted that the use of the Award Program should be used judiciously and to provide for and encourage such stellar perfor- mance for the benefit of the whole organization and taxpayers/citizens. From the context of the budget, Mr. Trudgeon recommended continued funding of the merit pay award program as indicated at a cost of$35,000, as already iden- tified as part of the 2014 budget. If the City Council preferred further discussion for continuing the program or its make-up beyond 2014, Mr. Trudgeon asked that