City Council Agenda and Packet 2017 03 14 SP

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SUBJECT: DISCUSSION/DIRECTION — LIVABLE WAGE OVERVIEW AND OPTIONS DATE: MARCH 14, 2017 PAGE 3OF12 $14.02. At the same time Boulder City Council asked staff to review other options for calculating the livable wage because the FPG is an outdated measure based on a national average, rather than a specific measure to Colorado or Boulder County. • In 2016 the City of Boulder selected $15.67 as the living wage based on the average identified in the 2015 Self Sufficiency Standard (SSS) for Boulder County using the data from the Colorado Center on Law and Policy. Specifically, the $15.6 is the average of (1) $13.36 per hour for a single adult in Boulder County working 40 hours per week, or $28,209 annually, and (2) the annual living costs for a family with two working adults, one preschooler and one school-age child, which they calculated as $75,906 annually or $17.97 per hour for each adult working adult. See the attached links to the City of Boulder information: o February 16, 2016 Options to Expand City of Boulder Living -Wage Resolution 926 o June 14, 2016 Options to Expand Living Wage • The $15.67 went into effect January 1, 2017 for full time, standard part time and temporary employees. The City of Boulder's terminology regarding employee status varies slightly from the City of Louisville's. • In January 2017 Boulder required janitorial and landscaping contracts to provide a living wage of $15.67 and health benefits for those contractual employees (including those employers with less than 50 employees). This will require renegotiating those contracts and assumes the City of Boulder will likely pay an increase for those contracts in 2017 and into the future. One concern the City of Boulder expressed was that the SSS is not indexed and the Colorado Center on Law and Policy typically only updates the study every 4-5 years and they currently do not have an exact timeframe for the next update. The City of Boulder is working to determine how the $15.67 will be updated or how City Council will increase the wage by some factor in future years. One option, is to contract with the Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP) to complete the study for the City of Boulder on a regular basis. Costs for this option are unavailable at this time. Policy Considerations As City Council considers how it could or should implement a livable wage the following policy questions may be helpful in determining an implementation strategy: • What are the driving factors in offering livable wage to our employees? o Right thing to do. o Use the research and information from the CCLP in support of poverty reduction efforts. o Feedback from full time, part-time/variable employees, or temporary employees that they need better wages. o Feedback from part-time/variable employees working less than 30 hours per week, that they would like to have additional benefits as part of their employment with the City. CITY COUNCIL COMMUNICATION