Roiger’s questions about the percentage- ….

Roiger’s questions about the percentage- based wage increases came shortly after aldermen voted unanimously to approve a committee of the whole recommendation to raise the electric utility manager wage to make $1 more per hour than the electric utility foreman. The electric utility manager will be increased to $43.30 per hour effective January 1.

This was described as being a catchup raise so that a worker in the department is not making more than the head of that department.

Roiger had also questioned why the city did not split the cost of the dental insurance premiums from Delta Dental on the same formula as it does for the Security Health Insurance premium.

The city pays 90% of the dental insurance premium with the employees paying 10% This works out to $32.51 per month for the city and $3.61 per month for employees on the single plan and $88.81 for the city and the $9.86 for the employee on family and employee plus one plans.

By comparison, the city splits the health insurance premiums on an 85%/15% split. For this coming year it will break down as single employees paying $88.38 per month and the city paying $500.81. For a family plan, the employees will pay $265.14 per month with the city paying $1,502.43.

Mayor Mike Wellner explained that this has historically come down to cost. “Dental has been a relatively low amount,” he said.

Alderman Mike Bub noted the dental insurance had an increase of 2% this year on top of a similar increase last year. Health insurance premiums for the city have stayed steady with no increase this year. Wellner credits the city’s health insurance rates stabilizing since the city joined in a group with other municipalities. “We have been fortunate to be in this group,” he said.

“What is the need to change the percentage contribution?” asked alderman Greg Knight, questioning why they would be looking to transfer more costs to employees at this time.

Aldermen noted that any discussion of the wage increase process or how benefi t costs are split would be something discussed as part of the union contract negotiations.

In related action, aldermen also approved keeping contributions to city employee Health Savings Accounts the same at $2,000 per year for single and $4,000 per year for family or employee and spouse or employee and children plans.

Other wage adjustments approved by council members included increasing the on call/standby pay for electric utility employees from 6.5 hours at $255.52 to 7 hours at $285.67 and the on call/standby pay for wastewater and water utility employees from $166.50 per weekend to $189 per weekend.

In other business, aldermen:

_ Approved the sale of about 10 acres of city-owned industrial park land to a private developer for $1. The parcel is located near the intersection of CTH O and Pep’s Drive. The formal approval came during the open session at Monday’s meeting with the city meeting in closed session following to continue negotiations on a developer’s agreement for the parcel. Final action on that agreement is expected later this month.

_ Approved placing about $2,500 in delinquent municipal service fees onto the tax roll. The delinquencies are split between homeowners and tenants roughly equally with homeowners having slightly more. State law allows municipal utilities to place special assessments on the property owner’s taxes to recover delinquent fees. By comparison, last fall the city placed $13,235.23 in delinquent utilities on the tax rolls. “It is significantly down from last year,” said city clerk Ashley Lemke. Wellner noted the drop was due to the city being unable to shut off utilities to anyone last year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

_ Approved a change to the city’s ordinances for fencing and screening to include rules for installing fences in residential areas. Prior to this the rules only spelled out rules for fences in commercial and industrial areas. In related action, aldermen approved adopting changes to the city’s ordinances relating to nonconforming uses to match changes in state law.

_ Approved the final redistricting and the division of wards into voting districts for the city. This is the final step in the local redistricting process completed every 10 years following the census. There were relatively few changes with the borders between the districts moving slightly to accommodate population shifts in the city over the past decade.