Cookeville Adds Animal Shelter Employees To Retirement Coverage

City of Cookeville has incorporated the animal shelter staff into the city’s retirement plan.

Finance Director Brenda Imel said the shelter operations were taken over by both the city and the county in 2000 and the animal control board was created. She said the city had been processing payroll but the jobs were technically county positions.

Imel said about a year ago, the animal control board asked the city to explore the potential for shelter staff to be included in the city’s retirement plan. She said the shelter staff had already been on the city’s health insurance for several years.

“TCRS, their attorneys kind of assessed the situation and came back with the opinion that yes the employees were eligible to participate in the city’s retirement plan,” Imel said. “So we got the word last month in April, so they are already participating in our plan. It was very smooth to just get them added to our coverage.”

Imel said having animal shelter employees on the city’s retirement coverage helps boost recruiting and retaining employees. She said retirement is the type of long-term benefit employees look for when searching for jobs.

Imel said because there has been so much crossover between the county, the city and the animal control board when it comes to the shelter, the city’s lawyer is working on a clarifying agreement. She said hopefully that will better lay out which entity influences which operation of the shelter and its employees.

“Those employees can get confused because they have different holidays than what the city employees have, they have accumulated different PTO time than what the city does, their job like I said was on the pay scale of the county, not the city,” Imel said. “So it’s been confusing to them (…) The shelter is very important because it offers services to every citizen of the county.”