Bourbon Town Council Makes Changes To Town Employee Pay
By Amanda Bridgman
BOURBON — Employees for the town of Bourbon will now get time-and-a-half pay for a minimum of two hours for call-out hours and will now get holiday pay if they request time off two weeks in advance.
That was decided at the Bourbon Town Council meeting held Tuesday, Jan. 9, at Bourbon Town Hall. Both topics were brought up by Council President Les McFarland during the council member comments section at the end of the agenda. He said there are five employees between the utilities and street departments that are on-call, meaning they can get called in the middle of the night to come into town to address a water leak or downed tree, for example, but may only end up working for 15 minutes. These employees are being paid at a time-and-a-half rate for the call-out hours. McFarland wanted to know if they can get two hours’ pay minimum during these call-out hours, regardless if they work 10 minutes or 2 hours.
“A little extra pay for the inconvenience, I guess,” he suggested to the council. Councilman Larry Wattenbarger motioned to suspend the rules and pass the amended salary agreement; Councilman P.J. Hanley seconded and it passed 3-0. Wattenbarger then motioned to pass all three required readings; McFarland seconded and the amendment passed 3-0.
After that, McFarland brought up employee holiday pay policies for before and after the holidays. According to Sec. 5-1 of the employee policy book, holiday pay is only earned if the employee works their scheduled shift before and after the holiday. After hearing from town attorney Mark Wagner, a 3-0 vote for resolution 01-2018 to amend the language was approved. Employees will now earn holiday pay if they use a vacation day directly before or directly after the holiday, but the requested time off must be asked for two weeks prior to the holiday; if they’re sick, they lose it.
In other news:
- The council was presented with information from Brent Martin with SRKM Architecture regarding the Center Street property in town. Martin told the council he’s aware of the town’s interest in keeping the area housing and suggested a meeting with Indiana Housing & Community Development to what would be required for the town to get grant money to build new homes for low-income families. Martin gave the council designs from his work on the Homes on Harrison project in Plymouth and a similar project in Kokomo. He said most cities like the investment and having new housing to offer residents when considering using The Home Program. Wagner said Center Street property has become a big, dark hole of Bourbon, and Zoning/Building Commissioner Bill Keyser said he thinks the program is a good buy down. Martin also said there is a 10-year affordability period to prevent people from flipping the new builds for profit. The council unanimously approved further investigation into the program.
- Town Clerk Kim Berger’s request to raise park pavilion rental fees from $25 per section to $35 per section was unanimously passed. There are three sections of the park pavilion.
- The board unanimously voted to declare the area from West Center to Jackson streets and a block of Bourbon to Thompson streets a blighted area at the request of Keyser. Keyser said there are nine houses in the area in very poor condition, five of which are vacant, and this declaration is the first step to proceed with grant funding to clean the area up.
- Council members heard from Police Chief Bill Martin. His department made 15 arrests in the month of December and that 53 shifts were covered by the reserve program. Martin also told the council he was approached by Ron Brown at the high school asking if the department would be willing to present a handgun shooting class, using the department’s range, sometime in the spring when the high school plans to start a new shooting program. Councilman Hanley said he’s all in “as long as the insurance companies and the lawyers are OK with it.” Berger then told the room that Martin has been with the department for 20 years this month.
- The winners of the town’s annual Christmas house-lighting contest were reported. In first place, Tim Mosher and Cheryl Buckles, second place, David and Melissa Clanton, and third place, Eric and April Sechrist. That, and the efforts by Alexis Stanley with the town’s marketing campaign, are part of Bourbon’s attempts to use minute-videos and online resources to grow local business and interest in the community.
- The next meeting is 7 p.m. Feb. 13, at Town Hall, 104 E. Park Ave., in Bourbon.