GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The City of Green Bay’s idea to pay employees to volunteer has been retooled and rebranded as a program called GB Cares.
The city council rejected a plan in May to give employees three paid days off to volunteer.
Joseph Faulds, the city’s human resources director, tells FOX 11 under GB Cares, starting the first of next year, City of Green Bay employees could get one paid day off per year to volunteer.
“I believe the main purpose is to give back to the community and I think a byproduct of that is to help us recruit and retain employees because employees want to work for an organization that cares about the community.”
Green Bay staff hopes to have its plan ready for a city council vote in September.
In May, some city council members said the idea of paying employees to take days off to volunteer prompted the most resident phone calls they’ve ever received on one topic.
Mark Steuer, Green Bay’s city council president, was one of them.
“The bottom line is there are citizens out there that said volunteer time should be volunteer, on your own.”
Under the revamped proposal, an employee can take the paid volunteer day off for any event or activity sponsored by a 501 (c )(3) registered nonprofit in the city.
The employee must receive supervisor approval before and after the day off.
Employees represented by a union, like police officers, firefighters, and transit workers, are not eligible.
Faulds says the changes were mostly in response to city council feedback.
“We also thought if we reduced the time of hours we gave that it would be less indirect cost to the taxpayer and we also thought if we kept it within the city limits that then the taxpayer dollars would stay within the city of Green Bay.”
Steuer tells FOX 11 he’s willing to look at this latest attempt.
“I think there are some good things that have been brought forward with it, but again, there will be some challenges, some pushback, because a number of citizens that have called and said well we have an issue with being paid for volunteer work.”
The city says if all eligible employees take advantage of GB Cares, it would pay out $70,925 for volunteer days.
The city’s goal is to have about half of employees participate in the program in 2020.
While governments in other states have similar programs, FOX 11 couldn’t find any municipalities in Wisconsin that offer paid volunteer days off to their employees.
