No Changes to Employee Policies and Procedures in Lomira

The Village of Lomira Employee Committee met on Wednesday, March 12, to discuss questions and concerns that arose during a Library Board meeting.
“The one question we wanted to address was approving the library staff. The board approving the library staff was the biggest concern that the library board had,” explained Library Board representative and village Trustee Jessica Loomans.
“The big argument was: if they go through the entire vetting process (as we would or any group that is hiring) and see everything is clear, and then they approve that person, or they actually authorize that person to be hired, they don’t necessarily have the authority to directly hire that person. They could get nixed by the village board. They don’t want that because, at that point, you are doing the work twice for the same thing,” elaborated Trustee Gary More. “They felt less empowered.”
Due to this, the Library Board requested to have the final say while hiring library employees.
“My disagreement with their request is that when something goes wrong with that employee, someone’s not going to go directly after the library. They’re going to go after us – the village,” said Trustee Joey Jewell.

“The responsibility falls on the village,” echoed Trustee More.
Trustee Jewell continued explaining his reasons for disagreement:
“Also [because] other [village] entities, like the fire department. If the fire department votes and decides on their person, and they still have to come here and get approved, why would another village entity not have to do that?”
“I don’t know of any time in the past that there has even been a [hiring] conflict that I know of, whether on the fire department or the library,” said Trustee More. “I mean, I’ve only been on [the board] for six years, but I’m not sure that it’s ever happened since they go through the same vetting process that we would.”
“Yeah, we take their recommendation... We’re looking to them as the experts in their field,” added Trustee Jewell. “As long as it is within our legal means, I think we should keep it the way it is.”
Administrator-Clerk-Treasurer Jenna Rhein researched the legality and powers of municipalities within the library.
Reading from the League of Wisconsin Municipalities’ website, Rhein stated, “We have concluded in the past that library employees are municipal employees and, therefore, subject to the same terms or conditions of employment that apply to other municipal employees.”
The league provides the reasoning behind its conclusion as follows:
“Support for this conclusion exists in a 1939 attorney general opinion which concludes that library employees are ‘municipal personnel’ for purposes of the municipal civil service system statute (then 66.019 but since renumbered to 66.0509). Further support for this proposition can be found in the fact that the legislature amended the statute after the attorney general’s 1939 opinion to permit municipal governing bodies to exempt any librarians and assistants from a municipal civil service system.”
After researching the legality of the board’s required approval of library employees, the conversation shifted to making a decision.
“I don’t fault the Library Board for wanting control over the hiring,” said Trustee Jewell. “However, because the responsibility of employees ultimately falls to us with anything that happens with an employee regarding the library, I think it’s almost better for their sake that we have the final say if something happens, so they can say, ‘Well, the village board approved it.’”
Trustee Jewell continued, “We haven’t hindered them. We aren’t turning away all of their staffing requests or saying their people aren’t a good fit. I would rather leave it as it stands right now.”
The committee unanimously decided not to make any changes to the current employee policies and procedures that require library employees to be approved by the village board.
Committee Matters:
• The committee considered allowing village employees to bring their children to work during special circumstances on a case-by-case basis. One of the circumstances discussed was if a child is sick when there isn’t another employee available to cover a shift. The committee decided not to allow employees to bring their children to work during special circumstances due to public health concerns and the potential for distraction from responsibilities.