Soap Lake City Hall to reopen Fridays

SOAP LAKE — Soap Lake City Hall will return to Monday through Friday hours beginning May 22. Soap Lake City Council members approved reopening city hall on Fridays after an extensive discussion at the regular council meeting Wednesday.

The vote was unanimous.

Currently city hall is open to the public Monday through Thursday. Council member Allen DuPuy proposed reopening on Friday, saying both city ordinances and the city employees handbook include Friday as part of the work week.

DuPuy said he had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for employee wages and analyzed the data. Some city administrative employees were being paid overtime, he said, but opening on Friday might eliminate the need for overtime.

“If we were open the city of Soap Lake office hours, after paying straight time for Friday, they would’ve saved $3,733 and some-odd cents. So we would’ve had our city hall office open on Friday, you would’ve paid them straight time instead of time and a half, and that would’ve been the savings,” DuPuy said.

Mayor Michelle Agliano said a previous council had approved a change in city hall hours because of a reduced city staff.

“The original request was because at that time the city didn’t have enough people working to work five days a week,” she said.

City employees do not receive overtime pay unless they work more than 40 hours, although a fulltime job is considered 32 hours.

“Unfortunately I’m going to have to put out the number of hours worked between this period of time -” DuPuy began.

“Excuse me, that is not the discussion at this table,” Agliano said.

Council members were discussing hours of city hall operation, she said, and they should stick to that.

One city employee answers questions from the public during business hours, Agliano said. Two others are working Monday through Friday, working to address the city’s financial issues.

The City of Soap Lake recently had multiple audit findings against them for a variety of issues, some financial. The Columbia Basin Herald is reviewing the audit reports and speaking with city staff and will share findings in a subsequent issue of the paper.

“We need a third person,” said Council Member Leslie Taylor. “It sounds like the third person is really the person who (waits on customers).”

Agliano confirmed that was the case.

“It sounds like the overtime situation is germane to the decision making,” said council member Kayleen Bryman. “And yet we’re not discussing the overtime.”

“I think the problem is, the (staff) that is needed extra time to get their work completed, because of the short-term crisis, is not the person we need for the Fridays,” Taylor said.

Agliano said most of the overtime being paid is going to city clerk-treasurer Ruth Wade. Wade is working to update the city’s financial accounts, she said.

DuPuy attempted to amend the motion to include discussion of overtime hours, but Agliano did not call for a vote on the attempt to amend.

“You need to stick with the motion,” she said. “The point on the table is the hours. You can’t put that on the table, because that wasn’t what was brought up.”

DuPuy could bring up discussion of overtime hours at subsequent meetings, she said, and DuPuy said he would request that discussion at the June 7 council meeting.