By David Kilby, Special Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD — To ensure fiscal responsibility and fairness, the Township Committee is taking a closer look at its public employee work schedules.
The governing body spent about an hour at its July 26 meeting going over the number of paid holidays given to its nonunion township employees as well as the actual of number of hours they work every week.
Last month, township workers made a public plea for a 2 percent salary increase the Township Committee had provided for in the 2012 budget, but not granted. At the time, the committee members said they would be willing to revisit the salary issue, but made no assurances the raises would be granted.
Township Business Administrator Dianne Kelly told the committee members on July 26 that the municipality’s practice had been to stay in line with what the state provides state employees. Federal holidays must be observed, she said.
The official federal holidays for 2012 are New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Washington’s birthday (Presidents Day), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Township employees also get paid days off for the day after Thanksgiving and Good Friday, she said.
Committeeman Robert Faber suggested not granting paid holidays on Good Friday, Columbus Day and the day after Thanksgiving, but was told the township must at least observe Columbus Day because it is an official federal holiday.
If a holiday falls on Saturday or Sunday, it is observed Monday since workers already have Fridays off without pay because municipal offices are closed.
In addition to debating which holidays should be observed, the committee also discussed how many hours the township employees actually work. The Friday furloughs instituted several years ago have reduced employees hours and pay.
Employees now work 29 hours per week. However, the intention was to cut employees’ hours by 10 percent this year, and 10 percent less than the 32.5 hours they worked last year would actually be 29.25 hours, which is a 15-minute difference per week, Committeeman Stanley Moslowski explained.
”I’m not trying to trivialize this,” Mayor LoriSue Mount said. “But whenever we talk about this at meetings, it’s like ‘I think we used to work this many hours, and now we work this many hours,’ and ‘No, we didn’t work this Friday, but we did work this Friday.’ So let’s just have the numbers in front of us so we can talk intelligently about it.”
Mr. Faber said Committeeman Steve Alexander was the “architect” of the new employee work schedule, and Mr. Alexander was not present at the July 26 meeting.
The committee also discussed the number of sick days and personal days given to township workers. Effective this year, township employees get nine sick days, a reduction from 12, and sick days cannot be bought back or banked.
”I wanted to go to six (sick days),” Mr. Faber said. “I was for six when we decided for nine.”
Employees also get three personal days each year. Therefore, the combination of holidays, sick days and personal days means employees can use up to 24 paid days off per year.
Mrs. Mount suggested a spreadsheet be made laying out the employee work schedule, and the committee agreed to continue the discussion at a future meeting once the facts were more clearly understood.

