County should use comp time sparingly
Taylor County needs to stop the spiraling sinkhole of compensatory time and switch to paying out overtime for additional time worked by hourly employees for most county departments.
Under federal labor standards, in the private sector, hourly (non-exempt) employees are paid out overtime for hours worked over 40 hours per week. Government agencies have a loophole that allows these employees to receive compensatory or comp time which is additional paid time off in place of being paid out for overtime.
On the surface, this would seem like a good tool for dealing with the cyclical nature of some government offices which are especially busy at some times and much slower at others. They are most effective during the winter season for road crews trading night and weekend hours plowing roads with time off during the week. The goal is to allow governments to avoid the costs associated with paying out overtime and reduce taxpayer expense.
Despite their best efforts and numerous attempts at one-size-fits-all policies in Taylor County, the comp time system has been an ongoing headache for managers and county board members. This will only get worse as county board members seek to keep budgets low by scrimping and cutting back on the number of workers carrying out departmental tasks, such as the recent decision not to fill a part-time position in the treasurer’s office.
Rather than being a rare occurrence, comp time has become a routine tool used by departments as a way to fill in the gap and get needed work done. With the county’s preference for lean workforce and management, outside of areas such as the highway department, there become few opportunities for workers to take their earned comp time without others within that department earning even more comp time to pick up the extra work caused by the absence.
The overuse of comp time also obscures the true staffing needs of the county. In the private sector, human resources managers work off formulas to determine where the balance is between paying overtime and the need to hire additional staff. Throwing comp time into this mix can hide the actual amount of work hours needed for a department to function efficiently. At the same time, comp time can also exaggerate any time when a department is short staffed by creating a cascading wave of comp time being banked to cover other employees’ use of their own comp time.
In refining its comp time policies, the county must balance concrete benefits of having some flexibility in trading time off to prevent employee burnout, and creating accountability for the actual time needed to get tasks accomplished. It is not enough to wave the magic wand of comp time and pretend those labor needs don’t exist. Taylor County needs to end an over reliance on comp time and get a true accounting of what is needed by departments to get their jobs done.
