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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 AGEN J� .j,� om 5 - L,, YY,, I�1`` J`1 ATTACHMENTS: MEMO APP OVED BY: i 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. (Sveryihings (Poming (UGb Rosemounill `� ,KVtIld 08fK, 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 Page 3 ► 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.