I’m on the city council in a small town (pop. 220). We have several part-time city employees – clerk, treasurer, groundskeeper, water tester, meter reader, etc. Some of these folks have full-time jobs and do the city work in their spare time, and for some, the city job is their only job.
Even though we’re small, we want to do things right, and the city has gladly paid for various kinds of training. The clerk wants to take a two-week city clerk certification course offered at a university, but she has a full-time job elsewhere and wants to be reimbursed for earnings she’ll lose while she’s in training. She’s a real estate agent who works on commission and doesn’t get paid vacation, so taking this course might mean that she’ll lose a commission.
I’d like her to get the training but I don’t know if it’s good policy for the city to pay her to get it, and since she works on commission, I don’t know how we’d determine what to pay her.
I’m hoping there are some Dopers who’ve run across a situation like this before. I’d appreciate any arguments, pro or con, to help me make up my own mind and advise the rest of the council one way or the other.
I’ve seen people get paid their hours for training done for that company. I have not worked in a company that would pay for money you might have earned at another company. It’s up to your city as to how generous their policies will be on employee benefits and free education is a benefit for her which can use for other jobs in the future. Can she do her job appropriately without this course?
Assuming her clerk position is compensated, there’s absolutely no reason you should be paying her for lost earnings at a second job.
If you wanted to be overly generous, you might consider paying her whatever hourly rate she makes as the city clerk while she’s attending the course - but not whatever she makes as an estate agent (unless that’s less).
Does this certification actually benefit the city in any way? Or is it just a resume booster?
I agree that she should only be paid her Clerk’s wages, if she is paid anything at all.
Many companies will pay for classes that benefit the company. I have not personally heard of any company paying wages for such training, unless it is an ‘in-house’ style of thing. That is, some companies will consider training a ‘business trip’ and there is compensation; but I’ve never (again, myself) heard of a company paying wages for ‘school-type’ training. (I hope that’s clear. Haven’t had my first cuppa joe yet.) The way I’ve seen it work is that the employee will take classes in his spare time, and the company will pay for the class; not the spare time.
The company I work for needs an ‘Access guru’, and I believe they would pay for classes if I wanted to become that person. But they would not pay me my salary if I were to take the classes during working hours. They certainly wouldn’t pay my wages for a second job I might have. The most they will do is make accommodations such as allowing me to shift my hours so that I can do my job and also get training, or to allow me to schedule vacation even at an inconvenient time.
So offer to pay for the class. But don’t pay wages for lost time from a second job. And it would be unusual to pay wages for the Clerk’s job.
Harmonious Discord, yes, she can, but she might be able to do it better. Plus, we’ve been told that at some point, the State is going to require certification for City Clerks.
Really Not All That Bright, I think it’d be a resume booster but it would also benefit the City. We’ve had different kinds of training in the four years I’ve been on the Council, and I’ve found it all to be valuable.
I’m salaried…also management, and I get paid my regular salary for any training, in addition to per diem/travel costs, and the cost of the training itself. I’m not allowed to do any outside practice, so that isn’t an issue. Dunno how that would work for hourly employees, but if it were me, I’d expect to be paid at my normal rate for anything I did for the employer. If they choose to assign me to attend a training program, fine…but I don’t do it for free. The lost income from another employer is tricky. If the employee is part time, I can see where they’d want compensation for missing time at their primary job, and I don’t think it is necessarily unreasonable. I wouldn’t be willing to lose a couple weeks of my primary income for something to benefit an employer that pays me a few extra bucks on the side. Figuring out something fair for a commission sales position is going to be tricky, particularly in real estate, where even if the employee worked, they may not make any sales, and thus earn no income. Maybe some calculation of a weekly average based on annual income from that job could work…
Also salaried, not management, any training I do is 9 - 5 type hours and effectively counts as work. If the training involves travel, then hotel and evening meal are reimbursed also.
This seems to fall under the distinction I was trying to make.
If my employer said, ‘We need someone to take over the Access database. Since you’re the most “technical” person we have, you’re it,’ then it becomes a job requirement and I should be paid my salary. If I am required to travel, I would expect travel costs and per diem. But if I went to Management and said, ‘I’d like to take over the Access database,’ the only thing I would expect is to be reimbursed for the cost of the classes. I’d take the classes on my own time.
If the State requires (will require) City Clerks to be certified, then it becomes a job requirement. In that case, the City should pay the Clerk’s wages as well as the class fees. But I see no obligation for the City to pay the wages for a second job. If the Clerk wants to keep the Clerk’s job (assuming the certification becomes a job requirement) she will have to arrange her schedule such that she can get the training.
Whatever state “near Eagle Creek” is in probably has its own statutory formula for calculating lost wages. In Florida we use the average of the previous 13 weeks of employment, but things get a good deal more complicated when the employee is commissioned.
I think it might be reasonable for you to compensate her for other earnings if you were making the training mandatory, but it is not reasonable if she is choosing to take the training, even if the city will benefit.
In other words, if this certification becomes mandatory and you say “We need you to go to this training these weeks,” if might be reasonable to offer some consideration. Especially if she is willing to quit rather than lose the income. However, this is taxpayer money you are spending so any compensation paid would need to be conservative and supported by data–earnings from last year, probably corrected for general downward trends in the real estate market this year. If she wants to go to the training and it’s not required, I can’t see spending taxpayer money on the extra compensation. Definitely ask the “how would it look in the newspaper?” question.
In HR matters, put the organization’s interests front and center. It’s not about caring about the employees (That’s our secret motto.)
It seems that paying her for her other job would be a huge burden on the city budget of a city with only 220 people. Not sure that is how I’d want my tax dollars to be spent as your constituent.
(And if it isn’t a burden, let me know and I’ll move there - we can’t afford to plow snow, much less pay people for jobs they aren’t doing).
Also, if the state adds such a requirement, you can be sure that there will be plenty of notice. And there’s a pretty good chance that there will be some money made available by the state to subsidize training, or courses offered at a discount through the state community college system.
If her real estate gig is her primary source of income and she’d be missing out on that, then it’s reasonable to compensate her for it. I’m not sure how much, but I don’t think that 1/26th of her 2009 W-2 is a bad place to start.
If she had a “regular” job with steady earnings, I think the council would look more favorably on compensating her for lost earnings. The thing is, in a town as small as this, everyone knows too much about everyone else. She’s made comments at meetings about how slow the real estate market is, and she’s even on a special payment plan to keep from having her utilities disconnected. So when she says “reimburse me for money I’ll lose”, some of us hear “I really need some extra money”.
Boyo Jim, that’s another good point and I’ll keep it in mind.
Dangerosa, we’re in surprisingly good shape, until the next time we need to replace the sewer lines or something.
Which is a bit unfair to her, I would say. It does make it more difficult to calculate the amount of fair compensation. But the decision about whether to compensate really shouldn’t come down to what her other job is. What if there were two employees similarly situated, one a daycare worker paid hourly (who for the sake of argument was able to get unpaid time off to attend the training) and this lady? The decision on whether to compensate should be the same for both. Then you calculate the fair amount of compensation.
You say the clerk wants to do this training. If she is instigating this outside of her regular clerk duties then there is no case for reimbursing her for her other job. It is nice enough that you are paying for the training itself, although that probably makes sense since you will benefit.
If it is something that is mandatory or desired on your part then you should treat the time spent on the training as time spent on the job. Namely, paid as clerking hours. There still is no case for compensation against the other job.
FWIW, I’m a graduate student in public policy, and although city management is definitely NOT my area of study, I have taken a class in public management. I’ll ask some other people who know more about this sort of thing what they think.
(That’s our secret motto.)