Commissioners discuss vacation time policy


Western District Commissioner Layne Nance Eastern District Commissioner Jim Britt Presiding Commissioner Terry Newton

During Monday morning’s Ozark County Commissioner’s meeting, officials decided to revert the county’s vacation time procedure back to what it was prior to 2020. 

“Our policy says that employees can rollover 40 hours of vacation. But during covid, we decided to give them the option to allow employees to roll more than 40 hours,” Ozark County Clerk Brian Wise said. “They used to only be able to roll over 40 hours. So if they got past 40 hours, they’d lose it. Like if someone had 48 hours, they would lose those extra 8 hours. When covid came... we extended it. All we needed was a letter from everyone who had employees saying that they wanted them to be able to roll over 40 hours.

“The main reason [to revert it back] is... we had a liability of 30-some thousand dollars, and the auditors despised it. We didn’t like it either. Road and bridge is one, and the sheriff’s department too, that tends to get vacation time rolling. If you have two or three guys [who quit or retire], then you’re paying out a lot of money,” Wise said. 

Western District Commissioner Layne Nance said that there are employees on the road and bridge crew who plan to take their vacation during deer season. A big flood came through last fall, and the county guys had to work during the time they had planned to take off. So, they couldn’t use it. He said that they were OK with it, because it would roll over. He wondered how that would work if employees saved their vacation time, but then were required to work due to a big storm. The answer was that they would lose time if it ended up accruing to more than 40 hours, per the policy.

Eastern District Commissioner Jim Britt said that while he was employed with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, he once lost more than a week of vacation time due to a similar policy. “It happened once, and you know what, it didn’t happen again,” he said, inferring that he’d learned to use the vacation time as it came instead of building it all up toward the end of the year and risking losing it.

“That’s the thing, say we have three guys to quit or to retire. We have to pay them 100 hours of vacation, that could really screw up our budget,” Nance said. 

All three county commissioners were in favor of reverting the procedure back to the pre-2020 rules where employees can only have 40 rolling hours of vacation time. 

County employees will have the rest of this calendar year, through Dec. 31, 2025, to use their built up vacation time, taking it down to 40 hours or lose the remainder. Wise said that a memo will be included in with an upcoming payroll to inform county employees of the change. 

In other news, Presiding Commissioner Terry Newton said that the commissioners were meeting with two or three additional departments that morning to discuss budgets before they planned to finalize the budget. An article about the county budget will be included in an upcoming edition. 

After the commissioner’s meeting, county officials met with the South Central Ozarks Council of Governments (SCOCOG) for a public hearing planning the framework process, transportation issues and priorities within the county to present to the Missouri Department of Transportation. For more information on that topic, contact Brent Lidgard at 417-256-4226.

Ozark County Times

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PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
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