By: Daniel Cooley
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
The Bryan Board of Public Affairs (BPA) meeting of June 6 began with the Pledge of Allegiance. All five board members, Dick Long, Jim Salsbury, Annette Schreiner, Karen Ford and Tom Sprow, were in attendance.
In the first order of business, the board approved the meeting minutes from the previous May 16 meeting.
Next, the board approved the reclassification of electric department employee Derick Wyrick from Probationary Lineworker II to Probationary Lineworker III.
According to Human Resources Director Jackie Schlachter, Wyrick “meets the qualification of and is able to perform the essential functions of a Lineworker III.”
That was followed by the board approving the hiring of office employee Nancy Michael as Probationary Account Clerk II.
According to Schlachter, Michael “has experience in accounts payable/receivable, purchase orders, state bidding/contracts payroll and tax preparation. In addition, she has been involved with new employee orientation/paperwork and providing training and managing Ohio bureau of workers compensation claims.”
Next, Derek Schultz, director of utilities, gave a power supply cost savings update. Schultz demonstrated that the rate is keeping the bills stable, or reduced, while many utilities in Ohio are raising their rates.
That was followed by the board approving of the motion to pay the bills.
Next, the BPA and staff provided comments. Sprow thanked Schultz for the power supply cost savings, gave congrats to Wyrick for his new work classification and welcomed new employee Michael.
Schreiner said it was nice to see stability and/or savings in power supply cost and Long thanked Schultz for keeping supply costs down.
Bryan city councilman Mike Betts commented that there is an advantage to Bryan’s utility costs not going up, when everywhere else, it is going up.
Mayor Carrie Schlade stated that there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday at 10 a.m., for the new Bit-O-Honey plant.
On hand for the ceremony will be Mayor Schlade, Ohio lieutenant governor Jon Husted, congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and Spangler/CEO Dean Spangler. The public is invited to tour the new facility, located on west Mulberry Street.
The board then went into executive session and came back with one decision, approving of an agreement between Bryan Municipal Utilities and IBEW Local 245. The agreement takes effect now and will run through October 31, 2025.
The agreement takes place in several employment areas. One of those is providing for up to 16 hours personal leave for new hires and for those hired July 1 or later, six hours. Also, there will be an accumulation of compensation time from 24 hours to 40 hours.
Also, regarding on call for observed holidays, the provided eight hours of compensation will go to a flat rate. Juneteenth is added as a paid holiday.
Next, an adjusted annual work wear allowance will go beyond the uniform pants and shirts, to cover coats, rain gear and boots.
There is also a change in compensation to 5% with a varied equity adjustment and 3% each year, beginning January 1, 2024 through 2025.
Finally, regarding retirement, a section involving a program that the City of Bryan no longer offers, was removed.
No other action was taken from the executive session meeting.
Dan can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com
APPROVING HIRING … Human Resources Director Jackie Schlachter asks the board to approve of the hiring of Nancy Michael.