HomeMy WebLinkAbout5.a. City Hall Office HoursCITY OF ROSEMOUNT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR ACTION
CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: FEBRUARY 4, 1992
AGENDA ITEM: CITY HALL OFFICE HOURS
AGENDA SECTION:
OLD BUSINESS
PREPARED BY: STEPHAN JILK, CITY ADMINISTRATOR
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ATTACHMENTS: MEMO
APP OVED BY:
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At the request of the Council, I have completed a review of the effects of
changing office hours for City Hall.
I had discussion with staff to look at different options for operating
hours including:
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
I am recommending that the office hours be changed to 8:00 a.m. to 4:30
p.m. to be consistent with all other cities in Dakota County.
I further recommend that this change take place May 1, 1992 so that the
public may be informed properly and employees may make proper arrangement s
for their own schedules.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Motion to direct that City hall office operating hours be set at
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, commencing May 1, 1992.
COUNCIL ACTION:
Giiy of (Rosemount
PHONE (612) 4234411 2875 - 145th Street West, Rosemount, Minnesota MAYOR
Edward B. McMenomyFAX (612) 4235203 Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 510, Rosemount, Minnesota 55068.0510 COUNCILMEMBERS
Sheila Klassen
James (R(d) Staats
Harry Willcox
Dennis Wippermann
ADMINISTRATOR
Stephan Jilk
TO: Mayor McMenomy
Council Members Klassen, Staats, Willcox Wi ermann
FROM: Stephan.Jilk, City Administra i
DATE: January 31, 1992
RE: City Hall Office Hours
On January 7th Mayor McMenomy asked that we consider changing
office hours at City Hall so that they would be consistent with
other governmental offices in neighboring cities. Our office
hours now are 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, Monday through
Friday.
In reviewing other city office hours throughout Dakota County we
found that all cities except Rosemount and South St. Paul had
office hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; South St. Paul has
office hours of 8:00 a.m.' to 5:00 p.m. -
In doing a cursory review of other cities in the Metro Area most
have office hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m..
The desire to establish hours consistent with other governmental
units may be reason enough to change our hours.
Many of the people we serve at City Hall, whether they be
residents of Rosemount, business owners or contractors, will
appreciate knowing that if "everybody else has hours of 8:00 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m., Rosemount does too. Many of our "customers" do
business with and in other cities and come to depend on that
consistency of business hours.
I, would therefore recommend that we do change our office hours
from 7:30 a.m. through 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. through 4:30 p.m..
I would like to consider several points of concern before
approving this change:
1) The hours of 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. have been established for
a great length of time here in Rosemount. Many people who
do business at City Hall have become accustomed to those
hours, they like them and won't be pleased with a change.
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Office Hours
Page 2
2) Many people do their business at 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
because that is convenient for them.
3) It has been noted that there are people who would like the
office to be opened to 4:30 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. because it
would be convenient for them. These people, may in part be
satisfied but there will always be those who would like one
more hour to get in to do business. We won't be pleasing
everyone.
4) We did look at other options such as 7:30 - 4:30 or 7:30
5:00 and 8:00 - 5:00 as possible hours. We concluded that
we simply can't provide enough personnel to serve all
functions of service provided to the public with extended
(more than 8.5 hours) of open office hours without: a)
taking more than k hour lunch breaks or b) hiring more staff
to provide backup. Neither of these two options seemed
feasible.
5) Many employees will need to change their personal schedules
to maintain child care and similar responsibilities. I want
to note that this change will affect many employees who have
worked this schedule for years and many who were hired with
this schedule.
6) Changing to 8:00 a.m. through 4:30 p.m. will enable us to
provide no additional service to the public. We have
considered and will continue to consider extending hours for
such services as building inspection and deputy registrar.
We may be able to offer 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for those
services most of the time with our current personnel but we
would be limited because of vacations, sick leave, etc.
since backups are needed. Some cities can provide these
extended hours because they have enough personnel to do it -
we don't.
I felt that though the decision to proceed with the new hours
seems reasonable and consistency is reason enough to change I
wanted you to be aware of staff's concerns raised here.
Other comments received were:
► Many people commented that they like the 7:30 am opening and
like the "early bird" opportunity.
► There will be additional expenses to provide notices,
changes on stationary, etc.
Office Hours
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► Are we going to change every couple of years?
► My family will be affected because of daycare and
babysitting hours.
► I took this job and hours were 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.,
that's one of the reasons I took it!
► We'll always miss a group of people - before 8:00 a.m. or
after 4:00 p.m.
► We will coordinate hours as needed.
► We get complaints that we are not open early enough now!
► If customers come in at 3:59 we stay and take care of them
now, extending office hours will mean we may be here 4:45 or
5:00.