Waterville Considers 4-Day Workweek for City Hall Employees

WATERVILLE — Officials are considering introducing a four-day work week for City Hall employees and increasing their daily hours to 10.

This will help recruit and retain good employees, give the public more opportunities to conduct business at City Hall before and after regular business hours, and help improve employee morale.

Additionally, opening for only four days will have an environmental impact by reducing the number of days people commute to City Hall and reducing the buildings’ heat and utility use by about 20%.

Those were some of the talking points City Manager Brian Kaenrath and city Human Resources Director Bobbi-Jo Green presented to the City Council Tuesday night.

Kaenrath said the world has changed since the COVID pandemic, changing the nature of work schedules as a result, with many more municipalities moving to a four-day work week. Job seekers are interested in this type of schedule or a hybrid situation where they can also work from home, he said. Waterville is losing good people to more attractive opportunities, Kaenrath said, and last month the city lost two very good employees in the finance and code enforcement departments to other positions that offered remote or hybrid flexibility.

“The competition among municipal employees is extremely high,” he said.

South Portland and Gorham moved to a four-day week in 2023, and South Portland moved to a four-day week in September of this year.

On Tuesday, council members voted 5-2 to approve a proposed amendment to the city’s personnel ordinance that would change the workweek from five to four days, and they need to hold a second vote to finalize it. City Hall is now open from 7.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday, but with the change, opening hours will be 7am to 5.30pm Monday to Thursday, with staff having half an hour for lunch. The mayor’s change will not affect employees in the public works and public safety departments, who will be reviewed later for possible schedule changes, Kaenrath said. While there is no hard or fast timetable for implementing the new schedule, if the council approves it, the city is proposing to start on Jan. 1, he said.

Council members Ken Gagnon, D-Ward 5, and Tom McCormick, who is unenrolled and represents Ward 7, opposed the change, with Gagnon saying the proposal benefits the administration rather than the public.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” he said.

Gagnon argued that workers may leave city jobs for reasons other than work schedules, no one has studied why they leave, and he would like to see a report on that before deciding to approve the schedule change.

“I don’t think it was well thought out,” he said.

Kaenrath said employees were surveyed for their thoughts and there was “almost unanimous support, great interest and encouragement to do this with our employees, which is a great moral act.” Our employees are 99.8% committed to doing something like this.”

The main reason the city is looking at changes, he said, is to keep up with the market and what Waterville’s municipal counterparts are doing.

Council members Thomas Klepacz, D-District 3, Flavia DeBrito, D-District 2, and Brandon Gilley, D-District 1, said they support the changes. Klepach stated that the city needs highly qualified personnel, thanks to which the city performs at its best; without him the city collapses.

DeBrito said that in her previous job, she worked four days a week, which was helpful because she could schedule medical and other appointments on Fridays for herself and her children. She said it’s also crucial for people to take time for themselves in a world where mental health is on the rise.

“I see this as a way to take care of our employees, so I’m all for it,” she said.

Gilley went on to say that work-life balance is important, as is being able to set aside a specific day for personal needs.

According to Kaenrath, more and more municipalities are moving to a four-day work week. At Waterville City Hall, Tuesday is the busiest day in terms of public business, Monday is the next busiest day and Friday is the third busiest, he said.

The cities of Oakland, Winslow, Newport, Pittsfield, Pittston and Dresden will close their city offices Friday. Other municipalities with offices closed Friday include Biddeford, Bath, Sanford, Windham, Cumberland, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth, Lisbon, Wiscasset and Belfast.

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