City hall to close Fridays, extend hours during 4-day week

Beginning July 1, Maricopa City Hall will be closed on Fridays and open Mondays through Thursdays 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. as part of a one-year trial to see if the new schedule works better for both city employees and residents.

City hall currently is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The change would not affect emergency services, which function 24/7.

The city council approved the change after a presentation by Tom Duensing, who was recently hired as the city’s finance and administrative services director.

Duensing said the staff recommendation to change to a “4-10” schedule is tied to the results of two surveys — one external to solicit preferences of community members and the other internal appraising opinions of employees.

Of the external customers surveyed, most responded that Friday was their least-frequently visited day at city hall, and, if hours are extended, the preference is for city hall to be open until 6 p.m. Of the city employees surveyed, 73 percent supported the 4-10 pilot program, 17 percent opposed it and 10 percent were neutral.

About 50 of the city’s 200 or so employees would be affected by the change, Duensing said.

Schedules would change for all city hall offices, including the city clerk, finance and administrative services, development services, economic development, human resources, city administration and community services.

There would be no change in schedules for police, fire, fire fleet services, building inspections, library parks and maintenance and recreation services.

Not all city council members were in favor of the change — Julia Gusse and Alan Marchione voted against it. Councilman Ed Farrell said he had concerns about the proposal, but voted yes based on City Manager Brenda Fischer’s recommendation.

“I recommend we implement a one-year pilot program and see how it goes,” she said. “If it’s going south we can pull the plug on it early.”

The plan will be evaluated mid-year and residents will have opportunities to give feedback, according to the proposal.

Farrell said the new schedule could not only adversely impact scheduling for city board meetings typically held after regular work hours, but meetings between city and outside engineers and designers.

“I’m from the old school where I like 9 to 5, but I’m not opposed to it,” he said. “If I’m an employee here and I’m at management level I’m going to be here Monday through Friday whether I like it or not.”

Gusse said the new schedule would be great for employees, but not good for customers.

Marchione, who works four days in one week and then three days in the next at Intel, pointed out that if the new schedule was adopted city hall would only be open three days in the weeks when a Monday holiday occurred.

“We have plenty of time to decide,” Marchione said. “We need to have some meetings with staff and have a little more research.”

Councilman Marvin Brown said he could see how customers would use the extra hour of operation after 5 p.m., as the external survey indicated, but wasn’t sure how much traffic city hall would get between 7 and 8 a.m.