Employees can ditch city phone, be reimbursed instead

Peachtree City employees who remain on call when off duty now have the option of using their own personal cellphone instead of a city-issued one.

Those electing to do so will be compensated with a monthly payment that varies between $15 and $50 a month, with the highest amount reserved for directors and chiefs. Also the city will provide a cellphone and service for each council member upon request with the phone only used for official city business, according to the policy.

Current Mayor Harold Logsdon uses his personal cellphone but former Mayor Steve Brown had one provided to him by the city, officials said.

The reimbursements are submitted during the budget process and must be approved by the city manager, according to the city’s cellphone policy, adopted at last week’s City Council meeting.

One of the driving factors for the new policy is an accounting need, as employees who receive any personal calls on their city cellphone must reimburse the city under federal tax code, officials said.

The city is estimating that of 89 employees with city-issued phones, 31 of them will elect to ditch their city phone and use their personal phone instead. The proposed total cellphone reimbursement for 2010 is $16,560, less than half of the city’s projected cellphone bill for the coming fiscal year: $41,748.

The new policy is clear in that anyone with a city-issued cellphone may not make or take personal phone calls. Policing that might be more cumbersome, officials granted, but the city tracks its top 10 cellular service users to check and make sure their usage is not out of line, said city technology director Matt Robinson.

“I hope we won’t act like a gestapo on this,” Logsdon said at last week’s meeting before the policy was implemented.

Finance Director Paul Salvatore replied that according to the Internal Revenue Service, the city is providing a “taxable benefit” anytime an employee receives a personal call on their city-owned cellphone, “and we have to tax it on our payroll.”

Accordingly, the reimbursements for employees using their personal cellphones will also be taxed, officials said.

“I understand the rule, I just don’t agree with it,” Logsdon said.