The port commission shall have authority to retain
legal counsel, and other professional and technically trained persons, on
general or special retainer, and to create and fill positions, to fix wages
and salaries thereof, to pay costs and assessments involved in securing or
arranging to secure employees, and to establish such benefits for employees,
including holiday pay, vacations or vacation pay, retirement and pension
benefits, medical, surgical or hospital care, life, accident, or health
disability insurance, and similar benefits, as commonly established by other
employers of similar employees, as the port commission shall provide. The port
commission shall have authority to provide or pay such benefits directly, or
to provide for such benefits by the purchase of insurance policies or by
entering into contracts with and compensating a person, firm, agency or
organization furnishing such benefits, or by making contributions to vacation
plans or funds, or health and welfare plans and funds, or pension plans or
funds, or similar plans or funds, as commonly established by other employers
of similar employees and in which the port district is permitted to
participate for particular classifications of its employees by the trustee or
other persons responsible for the administration of such established plans or
funds. The port commission shall have the authority to utilize and compensate
agents for the purpose of paying, in the name and by the check of such agent
or agents or otherwise, wages, salaries and other benefits to employees, or
particular classifications thereof, and for the purpose of withholding payroll
taxes and paying over tax moneys so withheld to appropriate governmental
agencies, on a combined basis with the wages, salaries, benefits, or taxes of
other employers or otherwise; to enter into such contracts and arrangements
with and to transfer by check such funds from time to time to any such agent
or agents so appointed as are necessary to accomplish such salary, wage,
benefit, or tax payments as though the port district were a private employer,
notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary. The funds of a
port district transferred to such an agent or agents for the payment of wages
or salaries of its employees in the name or by the check of such agent or
agents shall be subject to garnishments with respect to salaries or wages so
paid, notwithstanding any provision of the law relating to municipal
corporations to the contrary. |
