Consent Item 3q
STAFF REPORT
City Council Consent Item
DATE: May 19, 2025
TO: Honorable Mayor and Council Members
FROM: Aaron Felmlee, Finance Director
THROUGH: Amy Nilsen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Approve Amendments to the City of Fortuna Step Policy and the State Disability Insurance/Paid Family Leave Integration of Wages Policy STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Approve amendments to the City’s Step Policy and the State Disability Insurance/Paid Family Leave Integration of Wages Policy.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
City of Fortuna Step Policy:
Due to less compensable pay rates offered by the City, there has been an increase in requests by Department Heads to hire new employees at a higher starting step than 0. To create an efficient process for those requests, amendments were made to the current Step Policy.
The process will now include an Advanced Pay Step for New Hire from (Attachment A), which will be submitted by the Department Head, to the City Manager. The purpose of the form is to document and support the request. The department must provide justification that will be based on individual qualifications, market availability, and the pay of employees currently in the classification.
In addition, staff recommends that eligible employees advance automatically to the next step annually on the anniversary of their date of hire and that automatic step increases shall be accompanied by an annual performance evaluation, which the employee’s immediate supervisor shall be responsible for.
City of Fortuna State Disability Insurance/Paid Family Leave Integration of Wages Policy:
More than 18 million California workers are covered by the California State Disability Insurance (SDI) program. SDI is a partial wage-replacement insurance plan for eligible California workers. City of Fortuna regular full-time employees (1.0 FTE) are automatically enrolled into the SDI program upon hire. The program does not cost the City anything and is paid for through deductions from employees’ wages.
The program covers two main areas. The first is Disability Insurance (DI) which provides short-term wage replacement benefits to eligible workers who have a loss of wages when they are unable to work due to a non-work-related illness, injury, or pregnancy. The second is Paid Family Leave (PFL) which provides benefits to people who need to take time off work to:
• Care for a seriously ill child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or registered domestic partner
• Bond with a new child entering the family through birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
Consent Item 3q
• Participate in a qualifying event resulting from an eligible family member’s military deployment to a foreign country
In both of these cases the State may provide payments to eligible employee which can necessitate the need to integrate those payments. Integration of SDI or PFL benefits is a process in which an SDI or PFL weekly benefit amount is paid to the employee and the employee is also paid wages using their available accrued leave (sick, comp time, floating holiday, vacation) to cover the difference between gross weekly wages and what is received from SDI/PFL. City of Fortuna employees who are absent from duty due to a qualifying SDI or PFL reason, elect to integrate wages, and have been authorized to use the City paid leave benefit, shall be eligible to integrate wages and could receive up to 100% of their gross weekly wages depending upon the length of leave, accrued leave balance, and SDI or PFL eligibility. The proposed policy defines how this process will work.
RECOMMENDED COUNCIL ACTION:
Approve amendments to the City’s Step Policy and the State Disability Insurance/Paid Family Leave Integration of Wages Policy. Consent Agenda vote.
ATTACHMENTS:
• (Attachment A) Amended Step Policy
• (Attachment B) State Disability Insurance/Paid Family Leave Integration of Wages Policy