Policy manual may undergo changes
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Committee chairman Michael Martin indicated the manual hadn’t been revised for some time.
“It’s really outdated,” Martin said at the meeting.
“We also need to look and see what policies are not being followed,” said committee member Roy Pierce, “because if they’re not being followed then there’s no point in having them in the policy manual.”
Committee members also had questions about how the policies in the manual were enforced.
“Who is supposed to enforce them,” asked Donnie Caldwell. “The county executive or each supervisor of the department?”
“The county executive,” Martin answered.
“Well, to me they should be following these policy manuals,” said Caldwell. “I mean, there’s a liability issue here.”
At which point Martin questioned the distribution of the document.
“You’ve got half the employees who don’t even have the book,” he said. “Haven’t even seen the book, and if you look, the book states that the employee has to sign a copy and have it put in his file, and keep a copy. That’s your liability issue right there.”
“Who is over their personnel file,” asked Pierce. “Is that in Kenneth’s [County Executive Kenneth Roger’s] office?”
Some members seemed to think employee files were probably kept in the respective departments they worked in rather than a single location, and questioned if they did actually have copies of the manual and whether it was the responsibility of the department heads to make sure that was the case.
“A copy should be signed and put in there,” Pierce said.
“It’s not in the individual file,” said Martin.
The county has approximately 225 employees and though the production and publication of a new manual could obviously represent a significant expense, as well as a considerable investment in time to go over the document and make the needed revisions, committee members felt it was important to keep the manual up to date and available to all employees.
“Some employees don’t even have a book,” Martin reiterated.
“With the school system everybody, when they’re hired, is supposed to have a policy manual where they can read it and sign off saying they read it and put that in their file,” Pierce said, “that they know what’s in the policy manual.”
But some questioned if it was the same for county employees.
“That’s what we’re saying, it should be,” said commission chairperson Sally Brock.
There was also some question as to whom was responsible for publishing the document.
“All that falls back under the county executive,” Martin said, though he indicated the Policy and Personnel committee would be involved in any revisions.
“So this committee needs to go through every page on this and see what we want to update and what we want to keep, what we want to throw out,” said Pierce, “and then after we get all that done, present it to the whole court.”
Committee members noted some policy is required by state and federal law and has to be included, but everything beyond that, the county sets for its own employees.
“It’s a complex process,” said Pierce.
Even so, the committee voted unanimously to begin the process.