Presenter/Contact
Presenter
Jared Werner, Chief Financial Officer
Contact Info
(830) 221-4395 - jwerner@nbtexas.org
Subject Header
SUBJECT:
Title
Approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance authorizing the assignment pay for Support Services assignments within the Fire Department.
Body
BACKGROUND / RATIONALE:
There are assignments within the New Braunfels Fire Department that certain personnel perform that are not performed by every Fire Department civil service employee. Section 143.042(c) of the Texas Local Government Code requires that the governing body set forth in an ordinance the amount of assignment pay and the conditions under which it is to be payable to members of the Fire Department that meet the stated criteria.
Assignment pay was originally implemented in 2014 to begin addressing a long-term morale and internal recruitment issue within the Fire Department. When a sworn Fire Department employee is assigned to Support Services from the Operations Division, they experience a reduction in take home pay. The reduction is caused by mandatory overtime generated by the Operations Division scheduling system - 24 hours on/48 hours off. When assigned to the Support Services Division, employees are scheduled to work a standard 40-hour work week (Monday-Friday), which nearly eliminates the opportunity to sign up for discretionary overtime shifts. As mentioned above, the reduction in pay as well as the lost opportunity to earn discretionary overtime has had significant impacts to morale and recruitment for support services positions.
When the assignment pay was initially implemented in 2014, it represented approximately 50 percent of the amount of pay “lost” when an employee was reassigned to Support Services. The assignment pay has not been adjusted as the step plans have increased based on recent market studies. The long term goal has been to adjust the Support Services assignment pay to align with the annual earnings of their counterparts assigned to the Operations Division. The FY 2018-19 Adopted Budget includes the funding to adjust the assignment pay to a level that includes the automatic overtime generated by the shift scheduling. We are confident that this will ease the transition, and improve recruitment and morale for employees that are ultimately assigned to Support Services.
The table below reflects the assignment pay schedule to be adopted with approval of this ordinance.
ADDRESSES A NEED/ISSUE IN A CITY PLAN OR COUNCIL PRIORITY:
FISCAL IMPACT
Funds to support the increased assignment pay have been incorporated into the FY 2018-19 Proposed Budget.
Recommendation
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION:
N/A
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends approval of the ordinance.