Contract Calls for City Hall to Close on Friday : Government: If the City Council approves, the workweek for most employees will be shortened to 36 hours. Exceptions include police employees and sanitation workers.

City Hall will be closed every Friday and the workweek for most city employees will be shortened from 40 hours to 36 if the City Council approves a proposed union contract.

The two-year pact negotiated by management and labor was approved by employees last week, and the council is expected to ratify it at its meeting Monday night.

Tom Ramsey, spokesman for the San Bernardino Public Employees Assn., which represents about 300 city employees, said the agreement was approved by a wide margin. He said most of the opposition came from sanitation workers, who wanted a four-day workweek but will not get it.

City officials said they cannot change the trash pickup schedule to four days a week because of daily limits on the amount of refuse that can be taken to local dumps. So sanitation workers will continue to work 40 hours, eight hours a day Monday through Friday.

The agreement also exempts civilian Police Department employees, who will work 10-hour shifts, four days a week, as do police officers, who are covered by a separate agreement.

Browning E. Allen III, assistant city administrator and personnel director, said closing City Hall on Fridays will save the city $1.5 million over two years--including money that would have gone to employees in raises if the city had not shortened the work week.

Hourly pay rates will be revised so that workers will earn the same amount in 36 hours of work that they had received for 40.

In addition, workers on the new schedule will get a one-time bonus of $640 each, which they can use to purchase additional health insurance coverage, take as cash or put into a deferred compensation plan. Employees who must continue to work 40-hour weeks will receive bonuses of $959 now and again in July.

City Hall, now open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday under the plan tentatively set to take effect Feb. 1.

The contract, for the first time, gives employees a paid holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, closing City Hall on that day. Employees will no longer receive Lincoln’s Birthday, Admission Day and the day after Thanksgiving as paid holidays, but will receive three paid holidays of their own choosing.

Lloyd Wood, interim city administrator and police chief, said he thinks the public will accept and adapt to the new schedule. While some may be inconvenienced by the Friday closing of City Hall, he said, the extra hours in the morning and evening “will be a plus.”

Besides saving money, the plan will help the city comply with mandates from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to reduce employee commuter travel.

Wood said the public should not see any impact on services, even though employees will be asked to complete the same amount of work in 36 hours that now takes them 40.

“We don’t expect any reduction in the work done,” he said.

Wood said lengthening the work day should increase efficiency. Besides, he said, “Friday is not one of the more productive days in city government.”

“It will give me more time with my kids,” said Elvie Santos, deputy city clerk, who has three boys ranging from 1 to 8 years of age. “It will work well for me.”

Her concern, she said, is whether work will pile up. The same concern was expressed by Ray Harton, city revenue manager, who said, “Now, you’re forced to do just as much work in 10% less time.”

Harton said he has never worked a four-day week, so “I can’t say if I will like it or dislike it.” But, he said, he has heard that employees in La Verne, which adopted a similar schedule last year, are pleased with it.

La Verne City Manager Martin Lomeli said the plan, which is saving his city $230,000 over two years, has been well accepted by the public and by the 60 affected employees.

La Verne residents appreciate the chance to come to City Hall as late as 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and until 7 p.m. on the first and third Monday of each month, and very few seem to miss the Friday hours, he said. Some management employees sometimes work on Fridays anyway, Lomeli said, but they accomplish much more in a shorter time because there are no distractions.

Although saving money was the main reason for adopting the 36-hour work week, Lomeli said he would not recommend returning to a 40-hour week, even if the city had more money. Employees appreciate the extra time off and the level of services has been maintained, he said.

Lomeli said he believes La Verne was the first city in the nation to adopt a regular work schedule of 36 hours in four days. More than 100 cities have asked La Verne for information about its plan.

“The 36-hour concept is the wave of the future,” he said.

Even if cities opt to keep 40-hour work weeks, Lomeli said, he expects many to reduce the hours their city halls are open in order to save money.

“In the next few years, I think you’ll see half the city halls in the metropolitan areas closed on Fridays,” he predicted.