Simple business solution #2: tell City Council to "stick it" and make it stick.
My place of employment figures sick time in with pto time, at the rate of 16hrs/quarter for a 1.0 fte. They used to separate sick time and pto. I really think putting the two together must work at getting fewer 'sick' calls since it has continued.
Separating the two (as is done at another similar institution) seems to ensure that most employees will call in sick enough times to make sure they don't lose the extra hours, which seems to punish those who never call in sick even tho they lose that 'extra' time off and end up taking up the slack for those that do.
I kinda like the way my employer does it better, since i seem to be healthy enough not to ever actually have to call in sick.