Elk Mound approves temporary overtime policy
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
ELK MOUND — The Elk Mound Village Board has approved a temporary overtime policy that establishes the village president as the first contact for approval of overtime and the village clerk-treasurer as the second contact.
The temporary overtime policy approved at the village board’s October 17 meeting will be in effect from November 1 until January 1.
The question facing the village board was whether overtime should be approved by the village board, the employee’s supervisor, the village president or the village clerk-treasurer?
The clerk-treasurer, Karin Wolf, has been authorizing the overtime while doing the payroll but has said she is concerned that someone with more authority should authorize the overtime pay.
State retirement complicates the issue for the wages and retirement portion of the budget, said Terry Stamm, village trustee.
The police chief cannot stop what he is doing in the middle of writing a speeding ticket if he is “out of hours,” noted Greg Kipp, village president.
Mark Levra, director of public works, can send people home if he knows there is a snowstorm coming so the employees can come back in later to plow snow, but Police Chief Chad Weinberger does not have that luxury, he said.
The Elk Mound Police Department has been hoping to hire more police officers, but police officers are currently in short supply.
The police chief should be allowed 20 hours per week in overtime because what if Kyle DeVries cannot come in for work? Kipp asked.
DeVries, who is a Wisconsin state trooper, also has been working part-time for the Elk Mound Police Department.
The overtime policy should be temporary for three months so the village board can evaluate it and see how it is working, Stamm said.
The departments should do a monthly report as well so the village board knows where the departments are sitting in terms of the budget, he said.
Authorization
The question is — who should authorize the overtime? The clerk-treasurer or the village president? Kipp asked.
The clerk-treasurer is in a good position for the accountability, and the village board could review the overtime periodically, he said.
“Or we can manage our time. I went home today because I knew I had a board meeting tonight,” Levra said.
Overtime is a line item on the sewer and water budget and on the public works and streets budget, he said.
Overtime also is divided between categories for the police department budget, Police Chief Weinberger said.
But how much overtime? Kipp asked.
If the police chief calls at 10 p.m., and an arrest he is working on will take another three hours to transport the suspect to jail, but if he is out of overtime, how will that work? he asked.
Under Wisconsin Chapter 51, people can be taken to a mental health facility, but that could be a 15 or 16 hour process, and the person is considered “in custody” with the police department, so an officer cannot just walk away, Police Chief Weinberger said.
If something like a water main break should occur, there is no telling how much time it could take to fix it, Stamm said.
In the middle
It would not be prudent for employees to call for authorization of overtime when they are in the middle of an incident, Stamm said.
Overtime should be “looked at after the fact and not during the fact,” he said.
If the overtime is brought to the village board, and the village board does not approve the overtime, we can’t not pay (the employee) because the employee has already worked the hours,” Kipp said.
If the overtime comes for approval after the employee worked the hours, the village board should request that the employee give justification for the overtime with documentation, he said.
Once the overtime is worked, it has to be approved and paid, Kipp said.
The police chief could be allowed 15 to 20 hours of overtime, and then the clerk-treasurer can approve it, Stamm suggested.
The clerk-treasurer wants to clarify the policy since she is the one who signs the checks, said one village board member.
By that time, the overtime has already happened, Kipp said.
“If I am not running the place to your satisfaction, you can buy me out, and you can find someone else. I did not ask for a raise,” Police Chief Weinberger said.
Burn-out
The concern is, with no extra help, that the police chief will suffer from burn out, Stamm said.
Overtime is a good investment, but if the police chief is authorized for 15 to 20 hours of overtime and then ends up with burn-out, that is not a good situation, he said.
The job can take a toll on the toughest of people, Stamm said, noting that earlier in his employment at Elk Mound, he served as the police chief.
Stamm is the retired director of public works in Elk Mound.
If the village can afford to hire another police officer, the village can afford to pay overtime, Kipp said.
The other option would be to ask the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department to respond when the police chief is at 40 hours, he said.
Much of what the sheriff’s department handles would be turned back to the Elk Mound Police Department to finish, Police Chief Weinberger said, noting that having the sheriff’s department respond would not be especially helpful because the police chief would be finishing up the cases anyway.
No one else
“We do not want someone else,” said Cynthia Abraham, village trustee, in response to the police chief’s earlier comment.
Abraham suggested that the village board members and the employees “calm down and clean it up,” since she had heard what she considered to be some inappropriate comments.
The overtime policy should be for a probationary period, she said.
If 20 hours of overtime a week puts the police department over budget for overtime, but the police department is under budget overall, then budget adjustments can be made, Abraham said.
Weinberger noted that sometimes he puts in 40 hours per week but that sometimes he works 60 hours per week.
The public works department cannot be compared to the police department, Abraham said.
Both departments have their hazards. Mark Levra could become ill with four different diseases from working at the wastewater treatment plant, and the police chief could be shot, Stamm said.
Village board members agreed that the process for overtime should be consistent for all departments and that the policy must be clear.
The Elk Mound Village Board unanimously approved establishing the village president as the first contact for approving overtime and the clerk-treasurer as the second contact and that the policy should be in effect from November 1 until January 1.
Other business
In other business, the Elk Mound Village Board:
• Referred to the public works and streets committee a situation in which a village resident had a leaky hose that leaked 34,000 gallons per month into his yard. The resident’s normal water usage is 3,200 gallons per month. The village resident asked that the sewer portion of his sewer and water bill be forgiven since the water leaked into the yard and did not go through the wastewater treatment plant.
• Learned that the Elk Mound Police Department had 109 calls for service in September. The most unusual case of the month was a prank in which someone had changed the “Google Business” address for “Shooter Showgirls” to a residence in the village, Police Chief Weinberger said.
• Learned that the Elk Mound fire department has received a bid from Pierce Apparatus and Equipment for a new fire truck at a cost of $454,071 in “today’s prices.” An increase on the cost of fire engines of 10 percent per year is projected.
• Approved appointing Deborah Creaser-Kipp to the Elk Mound Zoning Board of Appeals.
• Approved a tax collection agreement with Dunn County for the 353 parcels on the list. The cost is the same as last year at $2.35 per parcel.
• Approved a contract with the Dunn County Humane Society at a cost of $2.04 per capita for 868 people for a total of $1770.72.
• Approved purchasing two Kenwood JVC Viking P25 Mission Critical VP80000 multi-band radios, accessories, software and programming cables for the Elk Mound Police Department in an amount not to exceed $8,200. The money will come from the “police citations” account, which had a balance of $9,446 as of August 8.
• Approved purchasing from PC Doctors two desktop computers for the Elk Mound Police Department in an amount not to exceed $2,100.