It may soon be easier for Pulaski County employees to use their comp time for needed medical procedures. The issue came up during Monday’s county commissioners meeting. It was learned that an employee in the Assessor’s Office is scheduled to have a knee replacement in January and planned to use 42 hours of comp time that she’d accumulated.
Assessor Holly VanDerAa said she’s happy with that timeframe. The problem is that the county only allows 20 hours of comp time to be carried over from year to year.
County Attorney Kevin Tankersley explained the limit was put in place to avoid a large financial hit if employees were to quit or be fired, and monetary compensation was required. “The idea was to reduce the payroll exposure we had going forward, that at the time was large because there were literally thousands of hours of time due our employees that had not been paid,” he said. “So the idea was to reduce that.”
But Commissioner Kenny Becker felt that the county actually saved money by not limiting the amount of comp time that could be carried over, beyond state’s the 240-hour requirement. “There was a councilman that throwed a fit about it because he said the county was liable,” Becker said. “Well, if it’s comp time, they worked it. It’s got to be paid one way or another, but they didn’t stop and realize that it saved us on Social Security and it save on PERF. It was just like having a person on salary. You knew what he was going to get every week, and they took the time off. And then they changed it, and that’s why she’s caught now.”
Becker suggested a new limit of 40 hours that could be carried over from year to year. “There’s a few of us getting older. I mean, there’s some of them in the office that are a little older,” he said. “They’ve got something come up where they need to be off for medical reasons and got the time, why, if they only got 20 hours, that ain’t very much.”
“No, especially for something like knee surgery,” agreed Commissioner Mike McClure. “I mean, cancer and stuff like that’s ongoing. There’s no way to prepare for that, but knee surgery and hip surgery and stuff like that is quite common anymore.”
Tankersley agreed to draft an updated policy. He said it would have to be approved by the county council, as well as the commissioners.
In the meantime, the commissioners decided to grant the employee’s request to carry over the extra 22 hours of comp time into next year.
