By Matt Mackinder
Clarkston News Editor

At the April 4 Independence Township Board of Trustees meeting, a presentation and subsequent discussion focused on township employees possibly going to a four-day work week while still working 40 hours.
A survey was recently sent to township employees and department leaders, with 57 individuals responding. The total number of township employees was not available as of press time (but said to be 97 and communicated to The Clarkston News on Tuesday).
Workbooks were also distributed to department heads to determine busy and slow times so as to make sure the potential plan benefits both employees and residents.
Nancy Olind from the The Kelly Firm presented the info at the April 4 meeting.
Of those that responded, 82.46 percent were in favor of the four-day work week (17.54 percent were not), and 84.21 percent felt that they could maintain service levels in their job if a four-day work week was implemented (3.51 percent said no, 12.28 percent said they weren’t really sure). When asked what day should be used as the day off, 96.49 percent said Friday (3.51 percent said Monday).
For working hours, 61.4 percent said they would be willing to come in earlier, just under 10 percent said they would prefer to stay later, 28.07 percent said they would be open to either, and the remaining percentage said they cannot change their schedule. The preferred start times were, in order, 7 a.m. (75.44 percent), 7:30 a.m. (14.04 percent), and 8 a.m. (10.53 percent). The current start time for the township is 8 a.m. In terms of closing time each day, 96.49 percent were in favor of 6 p.m., with 3.51 percent saying 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., and 1.75 percent saying 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
A total of 70.18 percent said they would need two weeks to adjust their home schedule before making the move, 17.54 percent said a month, 8.77 percent said two months, and 3.51 percent said three weeks.
When asked what employees would prefer their schedule to be, 82.46 percent said 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., 12.28 percent said 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., 3.51 percent said 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and 1.75 percent said 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. The time slots of 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. received zero votes. All come with a 30-minute lunch break.
“I’m still struggling with the half-hour lunch thing; I think that’s a farce,” said Township Trustee Sam Moraco. “I just don’t think you can have a half-hour lunch and expect that to work for people. When they said they wanted to work 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., I was OK with that, but I know people won’t like the idea. The loss of a day, having that extra hour at night for people to try to get here would be worth it. I don’t want to feel like we’re not getting a full 40 hours a week out of those people by saying there is a half-hour lunch. I know from business that’s a tough thing to do. I don’t want people to feel like they’re getting cheated by it in any way. I’m confident we can remain with the services we need and for people that I’ve talked to, being open later means you can make it in time. Even if the doors are locked, you can still conduct business opposed to possible risk of coming in early and being tied up and having to leave before your business is done to ensure you can get to work if you have a far commute.
“For the massive amount of flexibility, that’s what I would be in the most favor of. Just my opinion.”
Township Trustee Terri Nallamothu said she agrees with Moraco’s comments.
“I think it’s going to be hard for people to come in at 7 a.m. and expect to leave on time if they have somewhere else to be, as opposed to coming later,” said Nallamothu. “Not everyone can get their kids out the door. They might come and conduct business once their kids are in school or you can certainly bring them with you afterwards, but you’re not going to bring your kid at 7 a.m. assuming they might be late getting where they need to go. I prefer the 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. as well. I think that 5-6 p.m. is just fair to everyone that lives here to be able come after their job and try and get here on time if we’re taking away a full day that they can come in and take care of things.”
Township Treasurer Paul Brown also chimed in, saying he always likes looking at numbers.
“I picked a month, August of last year (2022), and I looked at all the data related to folks coming into the treasurer’s office,” Brown said. “That covers people coming in to pay water and sewer bills, paying taxes, and picking August ensured I had a pretty good selection of folks paying their summer tax bills, people coming in to pay for building permits. We excluded all data for people making electronic payments where they weren’t actually in the building. It was interesting what I found. Based on data of the week for August, we had approximately 500 transactions on Mondays, and it was a steady decline on down to Friday. Every day went lower and lower and Fridays had about 170 for the whole month of August. Fridays are, without question, a slow day at the township. I think the numbers bear that out. I asked a couple other department heads to run those same numbers relative to their transactions and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the same thing. I’ve worked here for eight years and Friday is pretty quiet in Town Hall.”
More comments came from Township Trustee Ron Ritchie.
“I think employees will view a four-day work week as positive, but our main concern is taking care of the township, residents and business,” said Ritchie. “To me, we need more investigation on not what employees want, but taking care of township business on a day-to-day basis. I agree that the 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. sounds like the right number as far as opening early and staying late, whether that’s done with half-hour lunches or one-hour lunches or staggered times or whatever, those things still need to be worked out. I guess I wonder how we’ll take care of the residents and the business the one day we’re off. Everybody said Friday was a good day to take off. I guess in my mind, part of what we have is holidays throughout the year. Most of those are on Mondays. So we’re already closed on Friday now and then you’ve got 6-8 holidays that might happen on that Monday as well, so those mini weeks we’ll only be open three days a week.
“How do we handle those things? To me, that’s where we need to add more investigation.”
Township Supervisor Jose Aliaga noted that one issue that has been brought to his attention is the operation of the township’s Senior Community Center.
“Is it going to be open five days or is it going to be open four days?” asked Aliaga. “I was told the senior center will still be open for five days, so this will not affect our seniors. That’s a good thing. Our parks will be the same. This will not change anything, which is a very good thing. My concerns are the same. We want to keep the same quality of services, for sure. When you make a change, it can have a negative impact. Those questions have already been asked to our directors and our directors are OK with that.”
Moraco added that building inspections and township issues related to construction may set jobs back if the township offices are closed one day a week.
One township resident, Vincent Bozzone, did not attend the April 4 meeting, but said he would not be in favor of the four-day work week.
“First of all, the HR gal surveyed the wrong people,” Bozzone said. “Of course the employees will vote for a shorter work week. Survey the people who are paying for these salaries and benefits before you become so magnanimous. Second, a four-day work week represents a 20 percent reduction in service availability. We are paying taxes for 100 percent, not 80 percent. Third, it’s not a matter of whether or not the employees can finish their work in four days. Of course they can. Let’s be real. They are not overworked.
“I have personal experience with a four-day week. It’s very inconvenient. If you miss Thursday, you have to wait three days until Monday rolls around to conduct your business. This slows development, which is in direct opposition to the DDA plan. Employment in the township is not for the convenience of the employees. Taxpayers don’t work a four-day week. Is this a copycat idea because other townships have adopted this policy?
“Survey the people who are paying the freight before you move forward with this poor idea.”
Township Clerk Cari Neubeck said nothing has been set in stone as of yet.
“I think it’s important to note that we are looking at this as a trial run, or a six-month trial, to see if we are meeting the public’s needs,” said Neubeck. “If the public says they can’t get in the hours you are speaking and is not advantageous for them, that’s what we’re here for. We are a service organization. We’re servicing our residents, so that is on the forefront of our minds. We do not want to cut the services whatsoever, and I think the employees, our very hard-working employees, they get the job done. We have very dedicated staff. I think it will be interesting moving forward, there are still a lot of questions that we have on how this will work.”
Neubeck also said that the township has one employee (Lisa McCoy, administrative secretary) that works for the sheriff’s department and they would be excluded from the four-day work week.
“That person works alone, so there’s not a replacement for that person,” said Neubeck. “I’ve spoken to the lieutenant of the substation (Rich Cummins) and they had concerns. The employee doesn’t want to change and neither does the substation. They need to have somebody that responds Monday through Friday.”
Ritchie suggested that after more research is done to have a workshop to assess every department in the township and how each can adjust to the potential changes.
Brown added that Commerce Township has a four-day work week and is similar in size to Independence Township. He suggested Aliaga, Nallamothu and Ritchie meet with Commerce officials to see what the pros and cons are of working four days a week..
“We can do that,” said Aliaga.