Wadena County Management of Information Systems Director Kevin Stensrude's request that two employees in his office receive extra pay during his deployment to Iraq continues to raise concerns about ramifications for union contracts.
Commissioners twice tabled a decision about whether to grant Carol Tabery and Rhonda Dittberner a $400 per pay period stipend totaling $13,600 during Stensrude's expected eight-month absence.
Mike Gibson, the county's former human resources consultant who was hired to finish union contract negotiations, said the county board will have trouble defending the $400 sum if it approves it.
"What I'm trying to point out to you is there is no logic [for the amount]," he told commissioners.
Paying the lump sums means a senior worker will receive the same pay increase as an employee who has worked for a shorter period of time and who works fewer hours, Gibson said. The county needs to justify the amount it pays.
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According to the union contract, Gibson said, if someone is asked to do duties at a different level for a period longer than 10 days the county should pay them whatever the next level is for those duties.
He talked with the Teamsters Local 320 business agent and she said the women should receive an increase in their hourly wage because of their increased responsibilities and because the department is critical to the county, Gibson said.
The county needs to know how the workers' job duties are changing, Gibson said.
"Are they just doing more of their normal job duties or is there a higher level that you're anticipating from them," Gibson said.
County Attorney Kyra Ladd cited several issues as concerns.
A portion of Stensrude's duties will be covered by contracted services from an information technology consultant, she said. This is different than some situations where a department head left and those duties were absorbed by other employees. Also, Stensrude's duties will be shared by two people rather than one. Whether or not someone is appointed to act as a department head creates an issue because Stensrude is in a supervisory position and outside the union, she said. Also, the employees are both part-time. This is somewhat problematic because Stensrude requested they be paid more and have more duties but not work more hours, Ladd said.
In a perfect world, she said, one person would act as a temporary department head who would not be subject to the union, would not get overtime, but would get a salary based on pay scale.
"That's sort of the nice clean way of how that would go," Ladd said. "Right now what we have is a hybrid of a whole bunch of stuff."
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Stensrude didn't specify how he came up with the $400 amount, Ladd said.
Gibson said the county will have to justify there was logic behind the numbers to a "me too" claimant. He recently received a phone call from an employee in another unit saying "isn't this 'me too'?" when he heard about Stensrude's request. People are thinking about this and the board needs to be cognizant of that, he said.
Gibson said no one has defined a "scope of practice" for the work the women do now.
"What, in fact, is it that Kevin would do as a department head that may get tossed back on them," he said.
It's possible that another department head could perform those duties, Gibson said. It could be the county is making this decision more complicated than is necessary.
Ladd said the county has a job description for Stensrude's position. It should look at that to determine who is performing those duties in his absence, what duties are supervisory and which are the same as what the women are currently doing.
The board decided to have Ladd, Gibson and Commissioner Ralph Miller, the board's liaison to MIS, examine the issue further.
