Council rectifies pay agreement for city employee firemen

Authored by Jim Langham on Jan 11, 2012

The Berne City Council passed emergency legislation on Monday evening to rectify the means of paying full-time city employees who are also employed as firemen.
Berne Clerk/Treasurer Gwen Maller said that she had learned that those employed by the city on a full-time basis are to, in compliance with state regulations, clock out when they are called to the scene of a fire. At that point, they will be paid as firemen and with fire payment scales.
City employees who are already working 40 hours a week will be paid above and beyond through their firemen pay. If there is a fire during the day, they will be asked to clock out of the fire department and then clock back in at the city if they return to their regular jobs.
Berne City Attorney James Beitler said that this legislation only affects full-time employees who work for the city and also work for the city as firemen.
"We are paying full-time employees for the City of Berne who work for the fire department," said Beitler. "Under the Fair Labor Standard Act, we need to pay them for overtime pay, according to provisions."
"It's going to add a payment, for the most part, to their time," said Maller. "I didn't realize that there was a problem with this. I found out about it and we are fixing it."
Council took the emergency legislative steps to enact an ordinance (Ordinance 622) that established pay for volunteer firemen who are full-time employees for the City of Berne.
With Beitler's leadership, council established the beginning steps to enact an unsafe building code that would allow for proper measures to rectify unsafe building sites in the city.
"The State of Indiana has an unsafe building code. Third class cities such as Berne have the right to enforce that code as long as we pass a code," said Beitler. "We must define the substantial property and give notice to the bank with the property mortgage which is responsible to enforce the ordinance in the city."
Beitler said that the building commissioner would be working a multi-phase approach to eventually see that the lot is taken care of.
"This essentially adopts the state law code," said Beitler.
Beitler said that this would allow the city to start the process to address unsafe building situations, particularly one on North Jefferson Street. The attorney said that this woould probably be put on the agenda for the next meeting.
McKean told council that he had been looking forward to the first meeting.
"I'm excited to work with this council," said McKean. "We are all excited about the upcoming year."
In other matters, council:
- opted to re-advertise the 2012 concrete contract due to the fact no one had placed a bid on at the last meeting. Council will re-examine the matter on Feb. 13.
- Elected Gregg Sprunger as council president again this year.
- Heard special recognition from the Board of Directors of the Adams County Solid Waste Management for service rendered by former Mayor John Minch over the past eight years.
- Agreed to move three meetings to Tuesdays, those that would have been held on the holidays of Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day.

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