O-2009-3129 approving updated Employee Policy Handbook

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8.14 Education Reimbursement It is the City's policy to provide education reimbursement in order to help employees develop current and potential future job skills. The Education Reimbursement Policy and Procedures are maintained and administered by Human Resources. Highlights of the policy include, but are not limited to: • Only regular full-time employees are eligible • Employees must attend courses during off-duty hours and will not be compensated for their course work as hours worked • The City will reimburse the employee's cost of tuition, lab fees and building uses fees up to a maximum of 17 semester hours annually at an accredited university. The employee must receive a passing grade of C or above in order to receive reimbursement. The City will not reimburse more than $3,500 annually per employee under this policy. • The City will not reimburse courses covered by Veteran or other educational assistance programs, nor does it cover any incidental expenses such as deposits, supplies, or other personal expenses. • The City may prepay continuing education courses required through established goals and objectives on an employee's evaluation, with approval by the Department Director. A certificate of completion shall be required and shall be turned in to the Human Resources Division for placement in the employee's file. Any employee who does not complete a prepaid course, or does not submit a certificate of completion, shall be excluded from any future prepaid options. 8.15 Certification Pay Departments with an approved certification pay program shall administer certification pay. The City Manager has the final authority for approving or disapproving departmental certification programs. 8.16 Bilingual Certification Pay The City of La Porte provides additional compensation to qualifying employees who demonstrate the required verbal fluency in a foreign language through a testing process. Eligible Employees — eligible employees are those regular full-time and part-time employees assigned to positions for which a foreign language is desirable in order to better serve citizens. Excluded Employees — employees excluded are those for which being bilingual is a requirement based on their job description, as it is assumed that the base pay for such positions compensates for that and other required skills. The City Manager, Assistant City Manager and Department Directors are also excluded for bilingual certification pay. 56