During last week’s Winslow Council meeting councilmembers turned their attention to internal city operations, including whether Winslow should adopt a four-day, 10-hour workweek for municipal employees.
Human Resources Director Kelly Pugh presented findings from a review prompted by employee requests for more flexible schedules. She said the analysis focused on 4-10 workweeks rather than remote or hybrid models. She outlined a potential schedule that would extend daily hours while maintaining public access, describing a possible 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. model with city hall doors closing at 5:30 p.m.
Pugh said outreach to HR peers showed that four-day schedules are common across Arizona, including Page, Springerville, Taylor, Snowflake, Clarkdale, Holbrook and larger cities such as Mesa. Citing a League of Arizona Cities and Towns compensation survey, she said 59 of 91 municipalities operate on 4-10 schedules.
She noted reported benefits including improved productivity, reduced burnout, longer service hours for residents and improved employee retention. Pugh said employees often prefer the schedule after an initial adjustment period. She added that the additional day off can improve work-life balance by reducing commute days and allowing time for appointments, noting that it “allows them that one extra weekday so they can go to doctor’s appointment on their days off.
Pugh also presented results from an internal employee survey distributed to approximately 119 full-time staff members, which received 84 responses. She said work-life balance ranked as the top priority, with 46 respondents selecting it as their number one concern. Career development and technology tools followed on the list.
In a follow-up survey, Pugh said most employees requested flexible schedules, specifically 4-10 schedules. The most common career development request was more on-site training, while technology requests focused on more job-specific tools. Pugh concluded that flexible schedules were “highly requested by employees for improved work-life balance”.
Councilmembers raised concerns about implementation, particularly in small departments and around holiday coverage. Councilmember Darcy McKee, who is employed in the county’s health department, cited the county’s experience with four-day schedules and emphasized the need to maintain weekday access for residents and that the county needed to stagger the work schedules to accommodate all five weekdays. Pugh cautioned that departments with limited staff, such as finance, which she said has only four employees, could face challenges with staggered schedules and overtime.
McKee also raised about eight-hour holidays under 10-hour schedules. Pugh noted that some employees already use two hours of leave to make up the difference. City Manager David Coolidge said holidays would continue to be treated as eight hours citywide, requiring employees on 4-10 schedules to use two hours of their leave to cover the additional time.
Coolidge stressed that no decision had been made and that any change would likely be evaluated on a department-by-department basis due to staffing levels. He said the presentation was intended to inform council and reflect employee input, not to signal immediate implementation.
During public comment, Winslow resident George Gould praised the condition of the city’s transfer station following a recent visit, saying it was “very clean” and “orderly” despite heavy use and called the city’s work at the facility “an excellent job.” Another resident, Raymond Lucero, raised questions about industrial development and infrastructure capacity, citing power limitations that he said prevented a similar facility from locating elsewhere and questioning claims that future developments would rely solely on reclaimed water.
In other business, the council:
* Approved an ordinance setting the dates for the 2026 primary and general election as Aug. 4 and Nov. 3, respectively.
* Approved vacating a property located in a portion of property measuring 0.16 acres near North Park Drive and Desmond to Circle K Stores.
The next meeting of the Winslow City Council will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, in the meeting room located at 523 West Second St.
