City Hall holiday closures

Yorkton Council approved adjusted City Hall hours for the Christmas season at its regular meeting Monday.

In "2013 is a year where Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday Dec. 25 with Thursday being Boxing Day, and Dec. 31 will also be on a Tuesday with New Years Day following on a Wednesday," explained Chris Wentzell, Director of Human Services.

"On past occasions City Council has approved the closure of City Hall for December 24th. Normally staff has either taken a day of vacation or lieu time to facilitate the closure of City Hall on that date."

Wentzell said this year they are looking at extended days off.

"This year we are asking Council's consideration for the closure of City Hall on Friday Dec. 27th and Monday Dec. 30th and Tuesday Dec. 31st," he said.

"City Hall tends to be extremely slow over the Christmas holidays and with more and more people paying their utility bills and taxes on line, we do not tend to see an influx of customers at this time.

"City Hall also provides a mail slot for residents to drop off their payments whenever they are at City Hall outside of normal business hours. As we do not have a lot of staff in each department at City Hall, it is at times difficult to accommodate all those staff that would like to enjoy extra time with their families during the holidays, while trying to maintain adequate coverage to enable all Departments to remain open."

While there will be added days off, staff must still take the days as holidays.

"We are also requesting that if City Hall staff wishes to take either or all three of these days off, they would once again be required to utilize a vacation or lieu time for that purpose. However, if they wish to use those days to "catch up" on year-end work they would then be permitted to come to work, though the offices would remain closed to the public," said Wentzell.

In addition required City services will not be affected.

"Outside of City Hall, some of the Departments are staffed 24/7 and the articles of the Collective Agreement would continue to apply for those days. As well those Departments that need to be in operation due to snow clearing, and Municipal Staff at the City RCMP Detachment, along with other services to the public such as swimming, skating, etc. would remain adequately staffed to meet those needs," said Wentzell.