KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas’ board of commissioners voted to lift the residency requirement for Unified Government employees on Thursday evening.
The vote comes after several months of discussion and rescheduled meetings, even prior to this current administration.
The previous policy required employees to reside in Wyandotte County or relocate within 12 months of their date of hire.
The resolution they voted on gave the commission four options to consider: maintaining the current policy with updates that align with Workday system updates, including a radius option, making some positions permanently required to live in Wyandotte County if lifted or establish a temporary moratorium option after two years.
Administration recommended caution regarding the fourth option.
There was no public comment at Thursday’s meeting, but residents have made their opinions known for months now.
KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson has talked with both proponents and opponents of lifting the residency requirement.
Staff from the Human Resources department gave a presentation with data based on questions they received from commissioners at the previous meeting.
Their presentation included several statistics, including the fact that there are 2,045 UG employees.
The total payroll for all employees is estimated at a little over $159 million, not including the District Attorney’s office or the State of Kansas office.
In terms of workforce, 48% of Wyandotte County’s residents work in Wyandotte County and 52% work outside of the county.
For all jobs in Wyandotte County, 39% of jobs in WyCo are filled by WyCo residents and 61% of jobs in WyCo are filled by non-residents.
The UG says their annual turnover rate is 11% and that this number typically stays under the national average.
Staff says they saw an increased trend in hiring employees to transition to the Workday system for recruitment.
The UG averages about 300 separations a year and completed about 93 exit interviews this past year.
Out of those interview subjects, 28 of 93 noted that they left solely because of the residency requirement.
Staff concluded that UG wages will need to increase to attract applicants who will need to account for higher costs, such as property taxes, education for children, and homes in neighborhoods perceived as safe.
Based on the migration trends study they conducted, if they eliminated the residency requirement, it would translate to an average loss of 27 employees per year, which they said would not significantly impact the Wyandotte County population at large.
Additional data says the employee count makes up $1.4% of the total Wyandotte County and would not have a major impact on the county as a whole.
Commissioners also asked for data on what neighboring peer organizations do.
Through that research, staff learned that BPU is also looking at lifting its residency requirement.
Overall, staff recommended an organization-wide approach for fairness.
They say it’s generally legal to grant incentives for employee residency. Still, there are potential legal risks based on the specific incentive plan structure that would need to be fully vetted.
An email was sent out to 2,172 employees and 1,173 responded.
93% of people said they did not think a residency requirement was necessary for their position.
41% of respondents said the requirement should not apply to any employees, 28% thought it should apply to director level and above, 14% said it should apply to the county administrator only, 11% said it should apply to all employees and 6% said it should only apply to specific departments.
60% of community survey respondents said UG employees should be required to live in Wyandotte County.
This survey had a 20% response rate with 1,200 completed questions from a random sample.
The mayor asked for the staff’s recommendation, and Ramirez said it would have a positive impact by expanding candidate pools, but that residency alone is not the only factor influencing recruitment and retention and must remain competitive in other areas like wages and benefits and foster a welcoming and supportive workplace culture.
Ramirez said they would have to look at the workforce and make sure departments are right-sized and may have to upscale or re-scale current talent.
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