Wilder is updating their current personnel policy for the 21st century with the help of the Kentucky League of Cities, known locally as the KLC.
The city’s 75-page manual on employee conduct has only gone through minor changes since its inception in 1994, but this review effort has been in the pipeline since January.
Over the course of a few months, KLC will review Wilder’s current policy, compare it to dozens of other towns they have worked with before along with any laws that changed over the previous three decades and create a whole new document that addresses everything in-between.
A previous revamp effort, City Administrator Terry Vance, City Clerk Juanita Schultz, and Councilmember Kelly Meiser, netted no concrete results and was only based on comparisons with one other city.
“It is very interactive,” said Mayor Valerie Jones. “They [KLC] are going to collaborate with us. They are not going to come in and just try to dictate that this is what they are recommending and expect us to accept.”
The Kentucky League of Cities is a nonprofit membership association for cities and municipalities in the state which provides local leaders and government employees with legal services, training, legislative advocacy and policy development. Some of their current members include several communities of varying size across Northern Kentucky, including Newport, Covington, Fort Mitchell and Crestview Hills.
Recommendations could include recognition of new federal holidays, longevity benefits, more in-depth job descriptions, or best practices for employee discipline.
“We need to make it better for our current employees and the employees we haven’t even hired yet,” Vance said. “The hardest part will be to clarify new things and grandfather in people we already have. Our goal is to try to be as policy neutral or policy beneficial not policy backwards.”
The review process was unanimously approved Tuesday night by city council and will cost around $3,800 to draft the new handbook. The final version should be finished and delivered to the city by July 10.