EMPLOYMENT OF RELATIVES
This policy must be considered when hiring, assigning, promoting, or transferring any employee.[1] This policy shall apply prospectively to all hires, assignments, promotions, or transfers occurring after January 1, 2019.
For the purposes of this policy, “relative” shall include any relationship established by blood, marriage, or law. Examples of relative include, but are not limited to the employee’s spouse, domestic partner, partner by cohabitation, child, ward, father, mother, legal guardian, sibling, half-sibling, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, first cousin, foster parent, and foster child. Relative also includes any person who is parent to the same child and any person with whom the employee is involved in an intimate relationship.[2]
The employment of employees who are relatives can create barriers to diversity in the workplace and can cause various additional problems in the workplace, including but not limited to perceptions and complaints of favoritism, conflicts of interest, scheduling complications, and appearances of impropriety that may work to the disadvantage of the City and to the morale of its employees.
It is the goal of the City to promote diversity and to avoid creating and to avoid maintaining in the workplace circumstances where those disruptions exist.
To that end, relatives of the City Manager, the Assistant City Managers, the Assistant to the City Manager, the City Clerk, the City Attorney, Department Directors, and Human Resources staff are ineligible for City employment. Additionally, relatives of the City Manager, the Assistant City Managers, and the Assistant to the City Manager are also ineligible for temporary employment, seasonal employment, a City internship, or any other temporary engagement with the City.
For all other positions, it shall be the general policy of the City that no person shall be hired, assigned, promoted, or transferred to a department of the City or any subdivision thereof, when, as a result, that person would be directly or indirectly supervising a relative, would be directly or indirectly supervised by a relative, or when, as a result, that person routinely would be overseeing, working for, or working with a relative.
When a prohibited work relationship between relatives arises, the City will make reasonable efforts to find an acceptable alternative or to remedy the conflict, either by reassigning or transferring one of the employees. If there is no reasonable alternative or there are no available positions for reassignment or transfer, or the employees’ positions are such that reassignment or transfer will not remedy the conflict, then the City Manager, or his or her designee, will select one of the employees to resign his or her position. That employee shall have ninety days after notification to voluntarily resign his or her position. Failure to resign one’s position within the allotted time shall be grounds for involuntary termination.
Regardless of the foregoing, no personal employee relationship will be allowed to be maintained if it creates disruption or potential disruption in the workplace, creates an actual or perceived conflict of interest, or is prohibited by any legal or regulatory mandate.
Additionally, the City reserves the right to exercise appropriate managerial judgment and to take such actions as may be necessary to achieve the intent of this policy. The City also reserves the right to vary from the guidelines outlined in the policy to address unusual circumstances that may arise on a case-by-case basis or where it may serve the best interests of the City. In such cases, the City Manager shall notify the Governing Body at on open public meeting of his or her intent to vary from the guidelines of this policy.
[1] For the purposes of this policy, except as may otherwise be provided herein, employee does not include seasonal employees, temporary employees, interns, volunteers, or any person temporarily engaged by the City.
[2] For the purposes of this policy, intimate relationship means any significant romantic involvement, but not necessarily including sexual involvement. An intimate relationship does not include casual social relationships or associations in a business or professional capacity.