Parker council reviews draft personnel policy manual, probes evaluations, media contact and electronic rules

Council members and city staff spent the March 4 workshop session reviewing the proposed personnel policy manual, debating how and when employee performance reviews, training reimbursements and media contact procedures should be documented.

The discussion began with Section 3.1 on periodic reviews, where Council Member Curcho asked whether police recruits receive written reviews during their 12‑month probationary period. Chief Price responded that "the FTO book is a written review due to ensure that they complete the job," and that officers assigned as field training officers complete written assessments during training. Council members asked staff to clarify in the policy how probationary reviews relate to the city’s broader annual evaluation schedule.

Workshop participants discussed whether annual evaluations should be performed on a rolling schedule or in a single annual cycle. Grant, a city staff member who advises on implementation, said evaluations are "typically...done at once" in the late summer so that any salary adjustments can follow the evaluation cycle. Several council members suggested the manual should say explicitly how new hires will be scheduled into that cycle.

Council members also raised how employees may attach comments to an evaluation they consider "unfair or incorrect." Catherine, a city staff member advising on HR and legal matters, said corrections to factually inaccurate evaluations have been handled by revising the form and re‑submitting it; she noted the more difficult question is whether disagreement over supervisory judgment should be processed outside the grievance policy, because many grievance policies exclude evaluations. Council members asked staff to clarify whether an evaluation correction gets tracked and where employee comments are retained.

On Section 3.2, education and training, members examined who must track state licensing and certification requirements. Staff noted that police and fire already maintain internal tracking; other departments largely manage such records at the department level. Council members recommended stronger recordkeeping — for example, retaining engineers’ license and insurance copies where appropriate — and noted travel and mileage reimbursement language appears elsewhere in the draft under travel policy.

Section 3.3 on memberships and professional associations prompted debate over whether the city should limit the number of memberships it pays for. Council members said membership costs alone are generally modest ("I don't think there's any department that has more than, like, a thousand dollars in association fees...for the entire department") but training and conference travel are the larger expense. The council left the draft without a hard numeric cap and asked staff for usage data to consider a policy limit.

Under conduct and media contact (Section 4.1–4.3), council members discussed centralizing media responses. One council member said media contact should be routed to the mayor or city administrator as the public information officer, with department heads handling technical questions and routing to a PIO as needed. Several members argued against authorizing council members generally to speak on behalf of the city, unless specifically appointed to do so. Council members asked staff to simplify the draft language advising employees to refer media inquiries to their department head or the designated PIO.

On electronic communications (Section 4.4) members removed an antiquated reference to instant messaging, debated whether volunteers or temporary staff should receive system access, and asked IT and HR to coordinate on provisioning and cost control (several departments limit accounts because the city pays per email). Council members also asked staff to fold a new state prohibition on certain apps (the draft referenced TikTok) into a single state‑law compliance sentence rather than naming specific apps in the manual.

Section 4.5, cell phone use, prompted questions about city‑issued phones and permitted uses such as GPS for on‑call public works staff. Staff confirmed certain departments (police, public works, department heads) receive city phones while many part‑time or temporary staff do not. Members also asked that manual language be updated to reflect current state law on texting while driving and to clearly prohibit unsafe use while operating vehicles.

The council discussed process improvements for completing the manual, including circulating redlined versions in advance and consolidating member comments so staff can present a single redline for discussion. No votes were taken in the workshop; council members adjourned the workshop portion and recessed into executive session later in the evening.