Parker council reviews proposed personnel disciplinary procedures and appeals process

Parker City Council members and staff spent the council’s April 15 workshop reviewing revisions to the proposed personnel policy manual, focusing on disciplinary steps from verbal counseling through termination and the role of human resources, the city administrator and the city attorney.

Council members questioned language that treated verbal counseling as a written entry in an employee personnel file and recommended removing a sentence that would place a written record of a verbal counseling into the file. “A verbal counseling is not written,” a council member said, adding that “if there is [a written] document … then certainly it has to have the same mandates that someone can respond to.” City Attorney Catherine asked staff to update the draft accordingly.

The council then discussed how written reprimands and suspensions are handled. Several members suggested replacing specific lists of possible outcomes with broader language such as “may result in disciplinary action” to avoid…