Town manager recommends increasing time off for Meredith employees

MEREDITH — The selectboard heard a presentation about proposed updates to the personnel policy manual, notably involving vacation accrual for department heads.

Chris Janosa, director of human resources and special projects, met with the selectboard, on Monday, to discuss the potential revisions to a policy not updated since 2018.

Janosa said Town Manager Judie Milner set up several meetings with town department heads, where they met and discussed the personnel policy from front to back. He said most changes were what he considered small, regarding process flow and department name changes. Others were “larger changes.”

There are four major proposed changes, Janosa said. The first is the way vacation is accrued for department heads. He said newly hired department heads would receive 160 hours of vacation time on their first day of employment, and all department heads would accrue 14 hours of vacation per month instead of based on tenure.

The second is implementing vacation accruals for regular part-time employees, earning between four and seven hours per month based on tenure. This is for employees working a minimum of 24 hours per week. Milner said this would be accrued at a pro-rated amount.

The third aspect is updating the vacation accrual ceiling from 240 to 320 hours.

The fourth change is allowing employees who have reached their maximum accrued sick leave balance to use up to one day of sick leave per month. Janosa said this allows them to accrue additional sick leave on the first day of the month.

Milner made clear the policy changes need board approval.

“The board sets policy, so nothing has been changed in this policy until the board approves,” Milner said.

Vice Chair Jim Gregoire was taken aback by the changes being considered.

“I would like to know, for each of these major changes, why are we doing them and what is the motivation behind it?” Gregoire asked.

He also sees the cost of the potential changes being astronomical.

“Some of these changes are going to be very expensive, and I want to know before approving them how expensive they are going to be,” Gregoire said.

Janosa said the group generated the changes, with all department heads contributing, and he deferred to Milner on why. She said she went into the meetings with the selectboard’s goal of being a “premier employer in our Primex study.”

“Vacation time for department heads is something I brought forward to department heads, and it was an uncomfortable conversation, with department heads talking about this,” Milner said. “But it’s something that’s done in a lot of other communities. It’s your management team-level department heads coming in and giving them their vacation time, and having them accrue at the higher rate right off the bat.”

Milner said this is done to entice the right professionals into high positions.

For part-time employees, she said these are regular staff, who are scheduled each week. It does not apply to seasonal, on call, or temporary workers.

Milner said updating a vacation accrual ceiling allows for an employee to keep a year’s accrual “in the bank,” and continue to get a new accrual the following year.

She said the number of people at the top accrual amount is very low.

“So, we don’t expect this to be a huge increase,” Milner said.

By allowing employees who reached the maximum to continue to accrue sick leave, she said instead of someone just calling in sick each month to use their time, this allows them time off, and for town offices to be able to plan around it.

Any amount left over is paid back to the employee, at one-third of the dollar value.

Selectboard member Mike Pelczar wanted to clarify, “in layman’s terms,” that someone who signs on automatically gets four weeks of vacation, and in the first year, could accrue seven weeks of vacation. Janosa said his “theory is correct.”

Pelczar said this seems like a risk, if a new hire leaves and they would be paid out. Janosa said the “impetus” of this is if someone comes from the private sector or another community, they start with vacation time, as most people come in starting with nothing. Janosa stressed this only applies to department heads.

Pelczar said the 14 hours for accrual for new employees seems to be “a little much,” and it looks like if the town hired outside, they are in a much better position than those tenured.

Selectboard member Jeanie Forrester also wanted clarification.

“Are you telling me if we hire someone tomorrow, a department head, that person would get 160 hours front loaded?” Forrester asked.

Janosa said this was correct. Forrester asked if that meant the person could leave within a month, and the town would need to pay them for their time. Janosa said that's the way it was written.

Gregoire recalled the employee survey sent last year, and said he doesn’t remember a widespread dissatisfaction with the employee benefits package.

“This package you are proposing here is sweeter than any I’ve ever seen in the corporate world where I’ve spent my career, or in the not-for-profit world where I’ve been for 15 years,” Gregoire said. “I’ve never seen anything as generous as this.”

Gregoire said Milner and Janosa will need to make a strong case they are losing staff because of the benefits package, or that it's impossible to hire good staff.

“I don’t want to see employee turnover, or impossible to recruit very good staff members, but I am not at all convinced that we have to be as generous as all this in order to make that happen,” Gregoire said.

Gregoire also wondered if this is a “gross conflict of interest” having the department heads develop recommendations which would benefit them directly. Janosa said it is for just 10 or 11 department heads, and why it wasn’t implemented right out of the gate.

“That is why we’re here talking to the board,” Janosa said.

Milner said she will come up with information from other like communities, and she will find one with a summer community with an influx of people. She also said the proposal was not out of the ordinary, and is something she thinks should be considered, and implemented.

“I would say that this is very generous, but middle-of-the-road in our area.”