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Show PG City Council makes position changes, discusses new fireambulance station The additional cost to the budget for next year, however, for the new man would be about $25,000 to $30,000 because of salary, sal-ary, benefits, uniforms, etc. Mayor Holdaway said that Pleasant Grove is the fastest growing grow-ing community in Utah County. He said it is right behind Orem and Provo in the number of building permits issued last year. He said he knew that the growth of the city necessitated the city looking at getting another officer. He asked the chief and Budget Director Driggs to get together and come up with some figures about the total cost to hire a new man and present it at the next council meeting. meet-ing. The council gave its approval on a format to make quarterly payments pay-ments to Orem from the surcharge for the new E-911 emergency dispatch dis-patch system. The E-9 1 1 surcharge can only be used for E-911 services, according to Gary Wise of the Orem Police Dept. He said that since Pleasant Grove has its own dispatchers that part of their salary could come from this surcharge. Also, any printers or other required equipment could be paid for with the surcharge. He said that it is expected that the E-911 system will be on line in about 20 months. They are now setting up the data base for it. There will be about 4,400 phone lines hooked in from the Pleasant Grove and Lindon area. There will only be a momentary delay from the Orem dispatching center to the Pleasant Grove office after the complainant calls come in. Cedar Hills receives fire and ambulance service from Pleasant Grove, too, however, Cedar Hills dispatching will go through the county dispatching center. ' Thesecalls will be transferred to Pleasant Grove dispatching also. The council gave its approval to the appointment of Anita Hardy as president of the Ambulance Association Asso-ciation for the coming year. Mayor Holdaway played a few selections from the Pleasant Grove Civic Symphony and Chorus for the council. He said the orchestra has 65 members and has only a few positions posi-tions less than what is needed for a full symphony orchestra. The chorus has about 60 members mem-bers but it varies in size somewhat. Deputy City Recorder Char-maine Char-maine Childs' title was changed to City Recorder at last Tuesday's City Council meeting and City Recorder K. A. Driggs was named as Budget and Finance Director, in arealignmentofresponsibilitiesby !. the Pleasant Grove City Council. ' This change was made in part as a followup to suggestions made by the auditors on separation of responsibilities re-sponsibilities in handling city funds and also to more accurately fit the responsibilities these employees em-ployees were already doing. Because of Charmaine's train-ingin train-ingin computer technology, the city council felt that this would also aid in office procedures and increase efficiency. Charmaine will now report directly di-rectly to the city council as do Driggs, Public Works Director Frank Mills and Police Chief Mike Ferre. Mayor David Holdaway said he was recommending the change because most of the things which Charmaine is now doing fit under the umbrella of City Recorder, while Driggs has been having to work extensively on budget and finance. In other matters, the council decided to proceed with discussions discus-sions regarding a new fire and ambulance station. K.A. Driggs told the council that there is not as much money available avail-able in the capital improvements fund as was hoped. He said that he anticipated that with sales tax revenues which are expected between now and the end of the fiscal year on June 30 that there would be perhaps a total of $63,000 in the fund. Driggs said that there were a "few unexpected expenses with the new library which took more of the available money than they had planned on. Mayor Holdaway said that the city can only move on this as fast as they have the finances to do it, even if it means having to wait one more year. The council would like to make some progress toward a new fire station during this coming year if possible. The mayor said he would also look in the possibility of getting a grant to help with this project. The council was told that the Personnel Policies and Procedures manuals are complete and were to be distributed Monday to all city employees at a special meeting. The city employees will be asked to read themanual and sign a statement state-ment that they have done so which will be placed in their personnel file. This way the city can avoid problems later on down the road should an employee say that they were not aware of a policy. The council had a lengthy discussion dis-cussion regarding thecarryingover of vacation time from one year to another. In talking with nearby cities, it was learned that American Fork allows onehalf of the vacation time, up to 30 days, be carried over while Lehi allows 10 days to be carried over. By policy, Pleasant Grove does not allow any vacation time to be carried over but everyone seems to be doing it anyway. The council said that the problem prob-lem is with employees building up too much vacation time through carry-over that it becomes too much of liability for the city, especially espe-cially if they terminate or retire. The council said that it is important impor-tant for people to get away from their jobs for a while and recharge their batteries. The auditors also criticize the city if the vacations are not used up. Some of the council members felt that there should be no carryover carry-over at all and others felt that a small amount should be allowed to be carried over if it was absolutely necessary. The council also discussed the procedure of buying out a person's vacation time rather than pay time and one-half to replace him while he is on vacation. They felt that this should only be done if the person has accumulated a lot of carry-over and the city wants to close it out. Councilman Dale Warburton said he felt that carrying vacation time over is just too much hassle. The council will take time to think about the policy and discuss it at the next council meeting on Feb. 7. Police Chief Mike Ferre said that his department is greatly in need of another man and he has a car available as well as enough money to pay the salary for the remainder of the year. |
