During the Finance Committee meeting I proposed legislation for amending the approval limits as it relates to contract, temporary, and labor related contracts along with providing an additional limitation when the contract for any of those things would be for a former city employee. The limitation proposed for contract and temporary labor agreements was proposed at $2,500 though this could change once we have further discussion on council, however, if the person we are going to hire, temporarily contract with through an agency, or contract directly with was a former city employee, the approval of council would be required prior to such hiring.
I proposed this limit and legislation because we have several retried employees who have been re-hired through a temporary staffing service and based on the current limits these employees are often re-hired for several months before they would reach the current dollar threshold that requires council approval. I have several issues with how this is currently being handled. First, I do not believe temporary staffing services are the type of service that we should be using to re-hire employees that we are directing through the agency. Second, these are often not “temporary” type situations and have previously and currently been suggested as being necessary for a year plus. Third, in at least one case, the employee that is being re-hired through a temp agency was actually in a position that was already replaced. If we have replaced a position we should be relying on the person hired to fill the position to do the job, not also having the new staff member and also bringing back the former employee to also work in the same or similar department/role without a very good justification for the need. Fourth, often times replacement for these positions are approved, however instead of moving forward with a new employee the city brings back a former employee and essentially that employee is double dipping which can hurt the retirement system as they are no longer paying in to it but are drawing from it. Finally, based on the current situation these employees are often back and working in this type of status for several months, so when it comes to Council for approval it puts us in a difficult situation to say no because the whole relationship and employment is already going on.
My proposed legislation would work to eliminate the post communication and request for these types of situations and would require a very good justification for the re-hiring of an employee and allow there to be parameters on how the employee is hired along with how long such employment would be for. Hopefully after some further discussion we will have a solution to this issue that will be workable for both the administration and city council.
The official council meeting had no legislation passed with several items remaining in committee or tabled awaiting additional information and discussion. You may view the Council Meeting on YouTube as well. We will have a Special Council Meeting on Thursday June 18, 2020 at 6 PM for the approval of a resolution related to Stow being able to receive funding from the County related to the CARES act for COVID 19 related expenses. Our next regular committee and council meetings will be Thursday June 25, 2020 with committee times to be announced closer to the meeting.