County board backpedals on handbook changes

In the face of pushback from county employees, members of the Taylor County board on Tuesday backed away from a plan to make significant changes to the county’s vacation day payout policy as part of ongoing revisions of the employee handbook.

In a discussion that included some parliamentary procedure twists and turns, board members divided the policy change resolution into separate items and then merged three of the four proposed policy changes back together in tabling the discussion with the plan to having a working group meet with employees and come to a consensus to be brought back to a future county board meeting for action.

Under Wisconsin Act 10 which was passed in 2011, government boards may only negotiate with employees over base wages. Taylor County employees, like many other public sector workplaces, chose to step away from having union representation in the wake of that law change.

The policy language dates back to pre-2011 contract language that dealt with the accrual of vacation. Under that system employees earned vacation time over the course of the year to be used the following year.

In the face of changing employment market practices and in order to be competitive in hiring and retention, the county has shifted to having front-loaded vacation time with employees having access to that vacation time when hired.

However the county’s vacation policy in the handbook still reflects the language from the accrual vacation in how payouts of unused vacation time are handled when employees retire. Under the current policy, employees are paid out for unused vacation days they have available when they stop employment. They are also paid out “prorated vacation accrued during the year of termination based on a formula of 1/12th earned vacation for any month in which any work is performed provided the employee has completed one year of service.”

For example, under the current system if an employee leaves six months into their work year and did not use any vacation time that year they would be paid out for their current vacation days and in addition, paid out for half of their vacation time based on the accrual language of the policy.

The current process has some board members referring to it as double-dipping with people being paid out for vacation hours they already took that year. Regardless, the payouts under the policy amounts to thousands of dollars in additional wage expenses for the county when people leave employment.

With some in the county pushing for a shift to a paid time off (PTO) system where all sick, vacation, bereavement and personal days are in a pool which can be used by employees for any reason, there is a need to clarify the policy.

The county is also looking at changes to its overtime policy with exempt employees who receive a set salary and are not typically subject to overtime rules, being able to accrue a bank of up to 10 hours of compensatory time if they work beyond their schedule 35 or 40 hour week. Human resources director Nicole Hager, explained there are exempt employees who are on the 35-hour per week schedule.

Under the proposed policy language, for non-exempt (hourly) employees, they would be able to earn comp time for work after their normal scheduled week. For those on the 35-hour schedule work hours between 35 and 40 would be at straight time and for all hourly employees time worked after 40 hours would be accrued at the time-and-a-half overtime rate.

These two issues derailed the policy change discussion which has been going on for several months with the proposed changes having been approved by the finance and personnel committee before going to the full county board.

The first action was to separate out the four changes rather than have them grouped together under one action. This would allow discussion and vote on each one to take place.

“I am not convinced that our policies have kept up with the work environment,” said board member Mike Bub.

Board member Lynn Rosemeyer said it was important to offer flexibility in use of time off as a way to retain employees given the reality that the government cannot pay what private sector pays.

Human services director Suzanne Stanfley agreed, she noted that she had two staff members leave for bigger counties where they got more money, but that they were regretting the move because of the loss of flexibility and the negative impacts on their work/life balance. She also noted that there is a very real financial impact to the county for retention with the cost of recruiting new employees. She said that it was estimated that any time there is a change in social workers it extends placements by six months because it takes the social worker that long to learn the case, this results in additional expenses for the county.

Board member Chuck Zenner focused on the proposed changes to the vacation policy suggesting the county back off from making the change and instead have a discussion group with the employees to come up with a policy. “I think we need to have employees involved,” Zenner said.

Board member Rollie Thums agreed describing the policy change approved by the finance and personnel committee as being a mistake made by the county and that they needed to revisit it.

“Sometimes we have to admit we made an error,” Thums said.

“It should be thrown in the trash,” said board member Bud Suckow after learning the employees were not given input in the proposed change.

A vote to table three of the four proposed employee policy changes, passed 15 to 2 with Scott Mildbrand and Mike Bub opposed.

Among the items tabled was an additional proposed policy change that would clarify the language for business travel with the department head able to authorize overnight stays if the travel time exceeds two hours and is in excess of 120 miles one way with overnight stays not allowed for the last day of travel unless prior approval is granted by the department head.

Another policy change was to clarify the language regarding flex time. This allows the departments to adjust schedules to allow employees to work fewer hours one day in exchange for working longer hours another. This is heavily used in departments such as the highway department where workers may be given time off early in the week when there is a forecast for a snow event later in the week and has resulted in significant savings on overtime costs. The policy change clarifies the language for all departments. Of the four policy changes up for review at the county board session, this was the only one that was passed by the board.

Zenner, who is chair of the county’s finance and personnel committee, made a statement clarifying that the proposed revision of the employment policies had not been prompted by the human resources department, but was something board members had asked for them to do.

“It is [Hager’s] job to do this,” Zenner said.