City looks at changes to computer use policies

The city of Medford is working to clean up its policy manuals and employee handbooks.

At Monday’s committee of the whole meeting, aldermen reviewed proposed acceptable use and computer password policies. City clerk Ashley Lemke credited patrol officer Craig Amundson with helping to draft the policies which spell out expectations for staff use of the technology.

“Where does council fit in to these policies?” asked alderman Greg Knight, noting the city council already has a policy for use of the city-issued iPads.

“Council members aren’t employees,” replied city coordinator Joe Harris, noting the policy for consideration is focused on the computers that are logged into the city’s servers and at their work stations.

Alderman Mike Bub raised questions about use of personal email accounts for city business. He called for language to be included that says all city business should be done through city email. He said the reason for this is to protect the employees, noting that if they used their own email for something and there was a lawsuit, for example about a bid opening, under the open records law all the emails would be open for inspection.

Harris said they have been advised by the city’s attorneys that there would be limitations in those cases about what could be released to the public in a request. He said all the emails would be reviewed by the city’s attorneys and “Anything pertaining to city work would be pulled out and the rest not,” he said.

Bub urged the city to use caution, noting it could cost a lot of money to research that in the case it happened and it would be up to a judge to decide.

Alderman Greg Knight agreed and said the city should likewise discourage use of personal laptops or cellphones for city business for the same reason. He said that was the standard he was expected to follow while working as a federal employee up to his retirement.

City Clerk Ashley Lemke also said they have been advised by the city’s attorneys that the number of people able to access other data would be limited. “It is only open to specific eyes,” she said.

Bub disagreed noting that it only would take one judge saying it fell under the open records law to make it an issue. He said having it addressed in the policy protects the city and shows they have considered this.

Aldermen also looked at the policies regarding employee use of social media.

Knight said he feels it is in the best interest of the employees to have a strict social media policy. “You are going to be guilty until proven innocent,” Knight said of any appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest involving a public employee on social media.

“You still get free speech,” Bub said. “You just want to be careful about what you say and how you say it,” Knight said.

They called for language to advise employees against using their title or city position in private social media posts. Bub gave a hypothetical example of a police chief posting their own opinions on an issue with their job title creating an appearance they were speaking for the city.

Aldermen also revised the password policy with Bub being skeptical about the ability to enforce the portion calling for a unique and separate password for each work account. He asked how people will remember them all.

“You will write them down,” said mayor Mike Wellner.

“I think you will make it difficult for yourself,” Bub said, noting they need to come up with something better for securing accounts. Bub’s career background is in corporate computer systems.

The policies were recommended to council for approval with the additional language to be added.

In the ongoing handbook policy revisions aldermen reviewed and gave preliminary approval to sections dealing with employee records and with leave. The revisions update language from when the policy manual was created in 2015 and incorporate changes to city practices and laws since that time.

In other business, aldermen

_ Recommended awarding the capital construction bid for the Perkins Street and work on Pep’s Drive to Francis Melvin, Inc. for a price if $1,157,635.36 for the Perkins St. work and $939,976.40 for the Pep’s Drive work related to the housing project. Those were the lowest of the bids received with other bidders Switlick & Sons, Inc. and Haas Sons, Inc. coming in higher on both projects.

_ The engineer’s estimate for Perkins St. was $1,118,000 plus a contingency of $112,000 for a total available construction fund of $1,230,000. The engineer’s estimate for the Pep’s Drive work was $912,000 plus a contingency of $91,000 for a total available construction fund of $1,003,000.

_ Recommended purchase of a 2022 1-ton truck body from Medford Motors at a cost of $44,127 which includes a plow. The truck will be outfitted with a dump box from Monroe Truck Equipment for an additional $21,127. The total cost will be $65,495. The city had also received a quote from Medford Chrysler Center for a Dodge Ram without a plow for $49,545. The price quote received is for a 2022 model, but the city has been told that the order bank for 2022s is closed and the city will instead be receiving a 2023 truck when it eventually arrives. Harris said this may impact the price of it and said that if there would be more than a $1,000 difference he would bring it back to council for review.

_ Received an update that the city will also be receiving loads of wastewater from Land O’Lakes due to Marshfield and Spencer not being able to accept them. Harris said that even with the additional loads, the city wastewater treatment plant is operating at about 50% capacity, up from 40% prior to taking on additional customers hauling in waste. He noted the plant is running better because it is closer to capacity.