City of Bloomington, Indiana VIDEO UPDATES with Mayor Hamilton, 5 Jan 2023

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Video Update: New Employee Benefits

Description

Join Mayor John Hamilton and Deputy Mayor Mary Catherine Carmichael as they discuss new city employee benefits in 2023, including two new pilot programs.

The new pilot programs include six weeks of paid parental leave and paid Commercial Driver’s License training.

In addition to the City’s ongoing benefits program, this year will incorporate significant overall increases in employee wages, benefits, and bonuses, including a new progressive matching retirement program and a new health clinic for employees and their families.

Learn more at: https://bton.in/s1ptA
A transcript of today’s video is available at: https://bton.in/~UCBg

People interested in employment with the City of Bloomington may visit the career portal at bloomington.in.gov/jobs. Don't hesitate to get in touch with hrmail@bloomington.in.gov for more information or with questions.
—----------------------------
Each week, Mayor Hamilton, Deputy Mayor Carmichael, and other city employees provide video updates on recent news and key initiatives. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.

A

A

B

And I'm deputy mayor Mary, Catherine Carmichael.

A

Deputy Mayor, congratulations. New job appreciate your service. Well,.

B

Done exciting new developments in employee benefits, we've got a couple of new programs for new employees or in existing employees for that matter, and then we're going to talk just a little bit about existing benefits that we have. So why does it even matter? Why are we.

A

Buying it's a hard time for employees is a hard time for us. Any employer knows that making sure we do all we can to keep the employees that we have they're a precious asset for our city. They provide all the services that so many people depend upon. So you know the two new things that we're piloting are really something we're really excited about. First is paid parental leave. We haven't had that for a long time.

A

Of course, we don't have it at the state level or the national level, and so we are putting a pilot in for six weeks of paid parental leave at 100 of your salary. You can pick any time in the 12 months after you have a child or adopt a child or foster a child, and so we're going to see how that works, and we're really excited about that.

B

So one parent could take the first, whatever amount of time they get off at their job, and then you could layer that to allow them more.

A

Time and our employees get that 100 paid six weeks, it's the same with Family Medical Leave Act time. The second thing is um commercial driver's licenses, so it's really hard to hire people who will drive the big rigs, the big trucks, and we have a lot of those kind of drivers and and positions uh in several departments, and so we've decided we're going to pay for the CDL commercial driver's license training which up to fifty five hundred dollars. So it's not cheap to get that training. I.

B

Can say that would be a barrier for.

A

Someone, you know.

B

Who's willing to do the work and would like to do the work, but just can't afford the training so we're taking that barrier away.

A

We're saying come on in if you're otherwise qualified for the job we'll pay for the training. Now you have to stay with us for two years. If you leave early, you got to pay back Pro rata. What we paid for, but you know we hope you'll stay a long time. So so those are two new things. We're really excited about that really add to a whole bunch of other stuff that we're doing to try to sure keep employees so.

B

We do have other things we're doing on an ongoing basis, but um I know one new thing: that's being added is a thousand dollar bonus.

A

So in 2023 and I want to thank the city council for their support. For all this, we are, every employee is getting a thousand dollar bonus for the year uh paid 500 twice. Police are a little separate, I'll talk about them in a minute, but uh every employee is getting a five percent raise, which is you know, big deal uh and also we're adding a couple. Other things we're adding a new retirement match, so you can get up to about eight hundred dollars. Cash into your retirement account uh two to one three to one match.

A

If you put money in uh we're, also doubling the health savings account match to put another two thousand plus dollars into that, so we're just trying to help employees be supported and be helped for them and their families. So we can keep them and attract more.

B

Yeah and maximize our dollars, I mean everybody's trying to figure out how to.

A

B

Dollar and I think this is going to be really helpful along those lines. I think the city of Bloomington has been known as a great employer for a long time time, but I think this really brings us just up that next Notch and there's a good reason for it. Saves US money saves the taxpayer money in the long run.

A

It does it helps a lot to keep people not having turnover. Let me just mention on Public Safety too, because we're doing some special things about Public Safety police officers uh actually are getting a five thousand dollar a year, raise all of them uh in 2023, implementing that and for police and fire we're doing some really important housing assistance, because we want our First Responders to be able to live in the city 750 a month, rental assistance.

A

If you live in the city or eighteen thousand dollars down payment, assistance for buying a home police officer or a firefighter so we're doing all we can we're going to keep working on this I want to thank you for your involvement in this. Thank the city council, and um we are so proud of our city employees. We want to help them and their families and do everything we can yeah.

B

And if you're looking.

B

Vacancies or almost always.

A

B

Please go to bloomington.in.gov and navigate that website and you can find your way to our current vacancies. Thank you so much mayor and thank you for joining us.