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July 2, 2009

Commissioners review draft of personnel policy manual

By Cristin Ross

cross@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Cherokee County officials are taking a page out of Mayberry Deputy Barney Fife’s book and are “nipping it in the bud” — “it” being loop holes, inconsistencies and confusion in the county’s personnel policies.

Court members met Tuesday to review a revised draft of the county Personnel Policy Manual, after the county’s human resources department — the county treasurer’s office — analyzed and made changes to the existing manual. The last time the manual had been updated, according to Treasurer Patsy Lassiter, was October 2004.

“We’ve been working on this since about October of last year,” Lassiter said. “After looking at it, we saw things needed to be added, and I wanted to include procedures along with those new policies, too.”

New policies in the rough draft presented to commissioners last week concerned the county’s sick leave pool; add job descriptions to county positions; outline what constitutes work place harassment; adds an employee dress code; sets the county’s smoking policy; and sets guidelines for certain payroll records. Revisions were also made to the county’s policies on nepotism, meal and convenience breaks, time sheets and vacation and holiday pay.

“Things are changing every day, especially with new technology. We just need to make our policies reflect that and clarify things so they work for everyone,” County Judge Chris Davis said.

Precinct 1 Commission Kelly Traylor said he thought looking at the manual is a good idea.

“We probably need to look at it annually, to make sure we’re current with all the state’s statutes and to keep up with all the changes,” Traylor said. “And this is the perfect time to do it — before we start the budget process and after the state legislative session, so any changes we make will be as current as possible.

“I got a policy when I first took over (as commissioner), and it was pretty thin and basic. The rough draft our HR department presented was pretty thick.”

Davis said commissioners started with the county’s cell phone and travel reimbursement policies and will continue to review changes and additions made to all parts of the manual. Currently the county reimburses employees a set amount to use their personal cell phones for county business and for meals — excluding tips and alcoholic beverages — mileage and motels when county employees travel on behalf of the county.

“(The cell phone policy) seems to work the best, since so many employees require different levels of service,” Davis said. “And of course any employee is required to provide an itemized receipt of expenses incurred when traveling on county business.”

Court members are quick to point out there weren’t any situations that had arisen the current policies wouldn’t cover.

“We just want to fine tune things, in the event a question or situation did come up, we’d have some up-to-date guidelines to go by,” Traylor said.

No action was taken Tuesday, as commissioners are still reviewing other parts of the manual. Court members hope to be able to take action on a new manual by the end of August, so new policies would go into effect Oct. 1.

Lassiter said the court would probably hold at least one workshop to review the updated manual before the matter is presented for approval — time and date to be announced.

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