Council adopts amendments to employee policy manuals, including an AI policy rewrite

Staff presented proposed amendments to the policy manuals for general employees, transit-related employees, and victim-services employees. The changes clarified PTO and funeral-leave procedures, corrected call-in pay language, added shift differentials for specific duties (plow crew, street sweeping, field training), updated conflicts-of-interest language to match a recently adopted ordinance, and included a substantially rewritten generative-AI policy developed with the town attorney and IT director.

Staff said updates were prepared with input from senior staff, the town manager, employer's council and an employee review period. Council moved to adopt Resolutions 26‑15, 26‑16 and 26‑17 to adopt the revised manuals; the motion passed unanimously. Staff said employees will sign and receive training on the updated manuals after adoption.

"We completely rewrote the use of AI policy," the staff presenter said, noting scope, definitions, standards of use, records retention and administrative references. Council thanked staff for clarifying operational distinctions between policy and operational guidelines.