For City Council Meeting August 25, 2026
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM: Tanya Williams, City Manager
AUTHOR: Tim Sullivan, Assistant City Manager
Title
Request City Council to: (1) Adopt Resolution No. 8568 Approving a Side Letter Agreement with Rialto City Employees’ Association; (2) Adopt Resolution No. 8569 Approving a Side Letter Agreement with Teamsters Mid-Management & Confidential Employee Union; and (3) Authorize the City Manager or Their Designee to Execute all Related Documents.
(ACTION)
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1) Adopt a Resolution approving a Side Letter Agreement with Rialto City Employees’ Association establishing a 4/10 Monday through Thursday workweek;
2) Adopt a Resolution approving a Side Letter Agreement with Teamsters Mid-Management & Confidential Employee Union establishing a 4/10 Monday through Thursday workweek; and
3) Authorize the City Manager or designee to execute all related documents.
BACKGROUND
The City of Rialto is party to Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with the Rialto City Employees’ Association (RCEA) and the Teamsters Mid-Management & Confidential Employee Union (TMMU), each of which governs the wages, hours, and working conditions of the respective bargaining group. Both MOUs were adopted in 2025 and are effective July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2027, and each establishes the work schedule for its group: Article 15, “4/10 Work Schedule and Alternate Work Schedules,” in the RCEA MOU, and Article 8, “Work Schedule,” in the TMMU MOU.
Under these provisions, employees work a compressed 4/10 schedule of four ten-hour days totaling forty hours per week. Consistent with the newly adopted MOUs, in January 2026 the City provided notice of the Monday-through-Friday City Hall public counter hours and issued individual schedule assignments, including placing certain employees on Tuesday-through-Friday schedules. This changed the prior 4/10 Monday through Thursday work schedule observed by most members of both bargaining groups.
Since implementing the split schedule, the City has evaluated the public’s use of in-person services against the availability of online alternatives. Staff-maintained visitor logs reflect that very few members of the public come into City offices on Fridays. During the same period, the City rolled out and implemented the EP&L permitting and payment system, which allows residents, contractors, and businesses to apply for and pay for permits and related services online.
In light of these findings, and at the interest of the bargaining groups, City administration met with RCEA and TMMU representatives, both of which expressed a preference to return to a uniform Monday-through-Thursday 4/10 schedule. The parties met and conferred in good faith and reached the Side Letter Agreements, attached as ‘Exhibit A’ to both Resolutions, which returned covered employees to a uniform Monday-through-Thursday 4/10 schedule and closed City offices to the public on Fridays.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
The Side Letter Agreements amend the work schedule provisions of each MOU, Article 15 of the RCEA MOU and Article 8 of the TMMU MOU, to establish a uniform 4/10 work schedule consisting of four ten-hour days, Monday through Thursday, with core operating hours of 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Under the revised schedule, the City offices covered by the Agreements will be open to the public Monday through Thursday and closed on Fridays.
Both Agreements preserve scheduling flexibility for operations that require coverage outside the standard Monday-through-Thursday schedule. Employees assigned to the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department, which operates seven days per week, will remain on a 4/10 schedule based upon departmental operational needs. The RCEA Side Letter Agreement additionally preserves operationally based scheduling for the Building Inspector and Community Compliance Officer classifications. These provisions ensure that recreation programming, park maintenance, building inspection, and code compliance functions continue without interruption.
The Side Letter Agreements also confirm how holidays are administered under the revised schedule. A holiday that falls on an employee’s regular day off which, under a Monday-through-Thursday schedule, includes Fridays is banked rather than lost, and any banked holiday hours not used by the end of the fiscal year (June 30) are cashed out at the employee’s regular rate of pay. The number of holidays granted to employees and their value are unchanged.
Because an employee’s work schedule is a matter within the scope of representation, the change was accomplished through the meet-and-confer process with each bargaining group under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA). The attached Side Letter Agreements reflect the agreements reached with RCEA and TMMU and are presented for the City Council’s approval and adoption.
The City’s unrepresented groups are addressed administratively rather than by these Agreements. The Executive and Management benefits profiles are silent as to work schedule; for those groups, schedule structure is a matter of management discretion under the compressed-work-week provisions of the City’s Policy Manual (Chapter 15) rather than a term of the profiles. Accordingly, unrepresented Executive and Management employees will be aligned to the same uniform Monday-through-Thursday 4/10 schedule under the City Manager’s authority, and no separate City Council action is required for those groups.
Upon City Council approval, staff will implement the uniform Monday-through-Thursday schedule within the mandated timeframes established by each MOU. Implementation will be coordinated with the Finance/Payroll Division and the affected departments, including issuing any individual schedule-change notices required under the applicable MOU provisions.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
The request is not a Project as defined by Section 15378 of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). A “Project” means the whole of an action, which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Pursuant to Section 15378 (b)(5), a project does not include organizational or administrative activities of governments that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment.
GENERAL PLAN CONSISTENCY
The request is consistent with Guiding Principle 3 of the Rialto General Plan: Our City government will lead by example, and will operate in an open, transparent, and responsive manner that meets the needs of the citizens and is a good place to do business.
LEGAL REVIEW
The City Attorney's Office has reviewed the resolutions and approved them as to form.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS
Operating Budget Impact
There is no impact on the Operating Budget.
Capital Improvement Budget Impact
There is no impact on the Capital Improvement Budget.
Licensing
This action does not require a business license.
ATTACHMENTS
1. Resolution - TMMU
3. Exhibit A to TMMU Resolution
3. Resolution - RCEA
3. Exhibit A to the RCEA Resolution