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Mayor proposes reclassifying guaranteed holiday pay into base salaries for shift workers
Summary
Helotes Mayor Rich Whitehead proposed rolling guaranteed holiday pay for shift workers (police, fire, dispatch) into base wages to make advertised pay comparable with other cities and simplify HR administration; council discussed technical, budget and implementation issues and directed staff to return with a formal agenda item and impact analysis.
Helotes Mayor Rich Whitehead opened a discussion on March 12 about reclassifying guaranteed holiday pay for shift workers into base salaries, saying the move would not reduce employee pay but would make base pay figures comparable with other municipalities and simplify recruitment.
The mayor said Helotes currently handles holiday pay as a separate line item that can make base pay appear lower in salary surveys and job postings. "This is not to take any money away from any employee," he said, adding the proposal would "reclassify" pay so that a worker who now appears to earn $60,000 plus $6,000 in holiday pay would be shown and paid as receiving $66,000 in base wages. He said overtime and retirement contributions would be based on the (reclassified) higher base rate, causing only modest incremental employer costs.
Councilmembers pressed for clarity on technical points: how the change would affect overtime calculations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), whether dispatch and police would be included, and how the change intersects with leave accounting. Staff explained the difference between 40-hour office schedules and 24-hour shift schedules and said the differential for hours actually worked on holidays would remain. The mayor and staff used San Antonio as an example of the base-pay approach but were asked to provide local comparators within Bear County.
Several councilmembers said the agenda packet lacked an executive summary or an agenda-request form describing the proposal, which made it harder to prepare questions in advance. One councilmember asked for documentation of the mayor's claim that 'roughly 2,000 municipalities' use the approach; staff agreed to include specific comparators in a future report.
City staff and council discussed implementation timing and budget impacts. Members generally favored returning a formal proposal timed with the next budget year and the city's planned salary survey so comparisons are "apples to apples." Staff said a future agenda item would include detailed cost estimates for overtime, retirement (TMRS) and insurance effects and recommend an effective date.
No formal action was taken tonight. Council directed staff to prepare comparative data, a draft policy revision and an impact analysis for a forthcoming agenda item so the council can consider adoption aligned to budget timing.
