Carla Clark | For The Republic Design inside the addition designed by James Paris his partner the late Nolan Bingham of Paris/Bingham Partnership for the Columbus Fire Department, Central Fire Station 1, 1101 Jackson Street, Columbus, Indiana.
Columbus Board of Works members on Tuesday agreed to amend the community service leave policy for city employees so firefighters can take advantage of the opportunity to volunteer and receive paid-time-off (PTO).
The board unanimously agreed to the changes, which involved the deletion of a couple sentences within a policy the board consented to in December.
Columbus firefighters were initially excluded from the policy because of their unusual work schedules, according to Arlette Cooper-Tinsley, the city’s human resources director.
Now that the updated community service leave policy has been in place for about seven months, fire department officials felt as though they could now actively participate, Cooper-Tinsley said.
The policy, modeled after one used by the State of Indiana Personnel Department, states that full-time city employees and some part-time employees “will be allowed leave with pay from the employee’s regularly assigned duties to voluntarily participate in activities that benefit another Governmental Entity or a charitable organization that is exempt from federal income taxation under Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,” according to city documents..
Community service leave time is not to exceed a combined total of 16 hours for full-time employees, 17 for sworn police officers, or eight for eligible part-time employees. Part-time employees are only eligible if they’ve worked for the city at least a year or have worked a total of 1,250 hours.
How the policy works is a city employee fills out a form and designates a nonprofit. If that’s approved by their supervisor then the employee can go volunteer.
It includes a section that states that the community service “must not promote religion or attempt to influence legislation, governmental policy, or elections to public office consistent with state statute.”
The previous policy, last updated in 2016, had a financial cap of $10,000 in terms of how much collective PTO can be paid annually for the purpose that was discarded. In addition, the updated policy allows for city departments as a whole to do a day of service once a year for a non-profit.
City officials said previously that showing an emphasis on community service is a strong recruiting tool.
