Former city IT worker Todd Ojala asks International Falls Council to enforce sick-leave payout; council approves payout and asks IT firm to confirm backups

Todd Ojala, a former city IT worker, told the International Falls City Council at a special meeting that the city has applied its salaried-employee sick-leave payout policy inconsistently and asked the council to order a consistent application and a date-certain payout.

Ojala said he had been told in writing by human resources that sick leave would not be paid out on separation, even though the city's salaried benefits policy states employees may cash out accumulated sick leave at retirement, up to a 180-working-day cap. "I'm here to ask for consistency, not sympathy, not drama, and not conflict," Ojala said, adding that the policy language creates "a valuable earned benefit" that should be applied uniformly. He asked the council to "direct administration and payroll to calculate and pay my accrued sick leave cash out ... and issue payment within 10 business days or another agreed upon certain date within the next month."

Chelsea, a city administrator who explained for the record why the matter was being handled in open session, apologized to Ojala and council members for the earlier delay. She said staff and the city's labor attorney had since reviewed the documents and advised that the matter was an interpretation of existing City of International Falls policy and therefore did not…