Colfax approves change to hiring policy and raises for department heads and EMTs

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  During a joint meeting of the  Colfax Village Board and the village board’s personnel committee, changes to the employee handbook were approved that eliminate village board approval of hiring new employees. 

The village board and the personnel committee met January 30 to consider making the change to the employee handbook.

The personnel committee includes the entire village board.

The procedure for hiring new non-department head employees became an issue during the January 23 village board meeting when trustees were informed that Tim Rundle had been hired for the full-time position in the department of public works.

Village Trustee Keith Burcham pointed out that according to the wording in the employee handbook, the administrator-clerk-treasurer would make a recommendation to the village board, and the village board would make the final approval for hiring a new employee. 

Rundle’s official start date was February 1, and Burcham noted at the January 23 meeting that according to existing employee handbook, the village board had not yet approved hiring him, even though his official start date was listed as February 1.

Prior to February 1, Rundle had been working for the village on a temporary, part-time basis. 

Several village board members, along with Village President Scott Gunnufson, Lynn Niggemann, administrator-clerk-treasurer, and Rand Bates, director of public works, said at the January 23 meeting the intent when the employee handbook had been written was to allow department heads and the administrator-clerk-treasurer to hire non-department head employees with no involvement of the village board in the hiring process.

At the January 30 meeting, the village board and the personnel committee approved changing the wording in the employee handbook to, “the A-C-T (administrator-clerk-treasurer) will communicate the employee hire to the village board.”

In the past, while collective bargaining was still in place for public employees, the Colfax Village Board would screen applications, would interview candidates for employment and would approve hiring new employees — and at times would not involve the department head in the hiring process or would ask for minimal involvement from the department head.

The village board and the personnel committee also decided that hires prior to January 30 would remain “as is.”

Since Rundle was hired on the assumption that the employee handbook read as village employees and the village board assumed it did and how they intended it to read — that is to say, the administrator-clerk-treasurer would communicate the employee hire to the village board — Rundle already had been officially hired with a start date of February 1, and the hire did not require village board approval.

Raises

Following the changes made to the employee handbook, the Colfax Village Board and the personnel committee met in closed session to conduct yearly performance evaluations for the public works director, rescue squad director, administrator-clerk-treasurer and the 30-hour per week Emergency Medical Technicians.

The village board and personnel committee reconvened into open session to approve a 1 percent pay increase for Rand Bates, director of public works, and Don Knutson, director of the Colfax Rescue Squad, and a 1.75 percent pay increase for Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer.

Regarding the 30-hour per week EMTs, a pay increase of 1 percent was approved for Scott Johnson, and a pay increase of 1.5 percent was approved for Tim Swenson.