Commissioners Approve County Employee Pay Resolution
March 31, 2020 at 11:01 p.m.
Commissioners Approve County Employee Pay Resolution
By David [email protected]
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus pandemic was issued March 23 and went into effect at 11:59 p.m. March 24 until at least 11:59 p.m. April 6. It requires all people to stay home except for essential travel like grocery shopping or medical care and for all nonessential workers to not go to work.
The motion that the commissioners approved March 25 was that starting April 7, payroll would go to full pay for all employees that are at work, that are essential employees that are working; and those that are at home would receive two-thirds of their pay for a duration of 10 weeks from that April 7.
At Tuesday’s meeting, county attorney Chad Miner presented the resolution “consistent with the conversation that you all had at our special meeting last Wednesday. So this is on the employee pay.”
He said the resolution would take effect in the event that the county closures continue on beyond the April 6 deadline and would cover the next 10 weeks beginning April 7.
“If things went beyond June 15, then at that point, that would just be something that would have to be looked at to make a determination on how to go forward from there,” Miner said.
He said the resolution provides that full-time employees would get two-thirds pay of their full-time wages if they’re not working; part-time employees would get two-thirds of their pay for the hours they typically would have been scheduled for; and anyone who is able to continue to work, either in person or by telecommuting at home, they will receive full pay for the actual hours worked.
“This resolution would supersede anything else. So what had been provided for the first two weeks of this, the initial shutdown period, this then would supersede that,” Miner said.
During the commissioners’ March 17 meeting, they approved a “Health Pandemic Emergency Closing” personnel policy. The policy stated the commissioners “will identify essential employees that will be required to work or telecommute during the health pandemic emergency closing. ... Essential employees that are required to work will receive payment for hours actually worked at the rate of time and a half.” All other employees for the two weeks will be paid their regular pay.
The resolution approved Tuesday supersedes that March 17 policy.
Miner asked the commissioners if they were going to have a meeting before the April 6 deadline. County Commissioners President Brad Jackson said he thought about that and suggested that instead of having a meeting, County Administrator Marsha McSherry could talk to each commissioner independently and make a determination about county closures going forward after April 6. Commissioner Cary Groninger said they’d have to provide a 48-hour advance notice to the press and public before they could have a special meeting anyway.
Commissioner Bob Conley said he had some people call him concerned about the two-thirds pay for county employees not working during the closure. He said the callers said they weren’t getting paid during the governor’s stay-at-home order, so the county employees shouldn’t be either.
Conley said he replied to them, “We’ve got quality employees that we have to be cautious we don’t lose those employees because of this.” He said the people who have the expertise to do what needs to be done aren’t out there and “beating down our door to come work for the county so we have to be cautious we don’t upset the apple cart to save an apple.”
Groninger added, “For the county employees, this is affecting their pay for not working during that time, but I guess some of the things we’re looking at is, everybody says the dollars are in the budget, so why can’t you spend the dollars that are in the budget? Well, the problem is that budget was decided upon when we thought all revenue streams were going to be coming in as planned. Just because it’s in the budget doesn’t mean the money is going to come in. So, one of dad’s old sayings, you can’t get blood out of a turnip. So, it’s one of those things that if the money isn’t there, we don’t have the money to spend. We have to be good stewards of the money we have. I think right now there’s a lot of unknowns out there. I think it’s good for us to be as frugal as we can at this point, but at the same token, be fair with our employees.”
After the resolution was approved Tuesday, Jackson said assuming Holcomb doesn’t extend his order past April 6, he asked if the county should be closed to the public during the first week it was back open. He said his feeling would be that the order would be extended.
After some discussion about not having the county closed longer than Holcomb’s order, Groninger made the motion that the county “will extend its stay-at-home order for two weeks as long as that’s not greater than the governor’s extension and that the week following us coming back, if that two weeks is enough, then we will be closed to the public for one week with everybody being back working.” That’s contingent on the governor extending his order. The motion was approved unanimously.
If the governor doesn’t extend the order past April 6, then the county employees would report back to work on April 7, but county offices would remain closed to the public for another week.
“Again, this is all subject to change,” Jackson said.
County Surveyor Mike Kissinger later asked if there had been any consensus on how public meetings will be handled.
Jackson said Area Plan Director Dan Richard was looking at using video conferences. Richard said he was looking at using Zoom possibly and was talking to the county’s IT department to see if something like that could be set up. The concern is that not all people who would want to participate in a county meeting would have access to a computer and “would negate any attempt for remonstrance, which negates the whole purpose of the hearing.” If a person says they weren’t able to participate in a hearing, that meeting would be pitched, he said.
Jackson said the person could be given the option of doing Zoom or participate by phone. Richard said they might not have a phone, but Jackson said, “Yes, they do have phones.”
Kissinger said he participated in a Zoom conference about a week ago, and that service is getting overloaded right now.
Jackson said there are other services like Google Hangouts or Meets, which Emergency Management Director Ed Rock said the county already has in its system.
Groninger suggested McSherry work with the IT department, Richard and Kissinger to start planning on how the county meetings can be held without everyone present in the same room. “Even if we’re open for business, I think we’ll really want to try to minimize our gatherings of people that will probably go on for some time even after we reopen. So, I trying to get something like that set up,” he said.
Miner said some guidance has come out of the state’s public access counselor’s office on how to do those meetings and there’s been some changes on what is permitted regarding teleconferencing.
The next county commissioners meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. April 14.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus pandemic was issued March 23 and went into effect at 11:59 p.m. March 24 until at least 11:59 p.m. April 6. It requires all people to stay home except for essential travel like grocery shopping or medical care and for all nonessential workers to not go to work.
The motion that the commissioners approved March 25 was that starting April 7, payroll would go to full pay for all employees that are at work, that are essential employees that are working; and those that are at home would receive two-thirds of their pay for a duration of 10 weeks from that April 7.
At Tuesday’s meeting, county attorney Chad Miner presented the resolution “consistent with the conversation that you all had at our special meeting last Wednesday. So this is on the employee pay.”
He said the resolution would take effect in the event that the county closures continue on beyond the April 6 deadline and would cover the next 10 weeks beginning April 7.
“If things went beyond June 15, then at that point, that would just be something that would have to be looked at to make a determination on how to go forward from there,” Miner said.
He said the resolution provides that full-time employees would get two-thirds pay of their full-time wages if they’re not working; part-time employees would get two-thirds of their pay for the hours they typically would have been scheduled for; and anyone who is able to continue to work, either in person or by telecommuting at home, they will receive full pay for the actual hours worked.
“This resolution would supersede anything else. So what had been provided for the first two weeks of this, the initial shutdown period, this then would supersede that,” Miner said.
During the commissioners’ March 17 meeting, they approved a “Health Pandemic Emergency Closing” personnel policy. The policy stated the commissioners “will identify essential employees that will be required to work or telecommute during the health pandemic emergency closing. ... Essential employees that are required to work will receive payment for hours actually worked at the rate of time and a half.” All other employees for the two weeks will be paid their regular pay.
The resolution approved Tuesday supersedes that March 17 policy.
Miner asked the commissioners if they were going to have a meeting before the April 6 deadline. County Commissioners President Brad Jackson said he thought about that and suggested that instead of having a meeting, County Administrator Marsha McSherry could talk to each commissioner independently and make a determination about county closures going forward after April 6. Commissioner Cary Groninger said they’d have to provide a 48-hour advance notice to the press and public before they could have a special meeting anyway.
Commissioner Bob Conley said he had some people call him concerned about the two-thirds pay for county employees not working during the closure. He said the callers said they weren’t getting paid during the governor’s stay-at-home order, so the county employees shouldn’t be either.
Conley said he replied to them, “We’ve got quality employees that we have to be cautious we don’t lose those employees because of this.” He said the people who have the expertise to do what needs to be done aren’t out there and “beating down our door to come work for the county so we have to be cautious we don’t upset the apple cart to save an apple.”
Groninger added, “For the county employees, this is affecting their pay for not working during that time, but I guess some of the things we’re looking at is, everybody says the dollars are in the budget, so why can’t you spend the dollars that are in the budget? Well, the problem is that budget was decided upon when we thought all revenue streams were going to be coming in as planned. Just because it’s in the budget doesn’t mean the money is going to come in. So, one of dad’s old sayings, you can’t get blood out of a turnip. So, it’s one of those things that if the money isn’t there, we don’t have the money to spend. We have to be good stewards of the money we have. I think right now there’s a lot of unknowns out there. I think it’s good for us to be as frugal as we can at this point, but at the same token, be fair with our employees.”
After the resolution was approved Tuesday, Jackson said assuming Holcomb doesn’t extend his order past April 6, he asked if the county should be closed to the public during the first week it was back open. He said his feeling would be that the order would be extended.
After some discussion about not having the county closed longer than Holcomb’s order, Groninger made the motion that the county “will extend its stay-at-home order for two weeks as long as that’s not greater than the governor’s extension and that the week following us coming back, if that two weeks is enough, then we will be closed to the public for one week with everybody being back working.” That’s contingent on the governor extending his order. The motion was approved unanimously.
If the governor doesn’t extend the order past April 6, then the county employees would report back to work on April 7, but county offices would remain closed to the public for another week.
“Again, this is all subject to change,” Jackson said.
County Surveyor Mike Kissinger later asked if there had been any consensus on how public meetings will be handled.
Jackson said Area Plan Director Dan Richard was looking at using video conferences. Richard said he was looking at using Zoom possibly and was talking to the county’s IT department to see if something like that could be set up. The concern is that not all people who would want to participate in a county meeting would have access to a computer and “would negate any attempt for remonstrance, which negates the whole purpose of the hearing.” If a person says they weren’t able to participate in a hearing, that meeting would be pitched, he said.
Jackson said the person could be given the option of doing Zoom or participate by phone. Richard said they might not have a phone, but Jackson said, “Yes, they do have phones.”
Kissinger said he participated in a Zoom conference about a week ago, and that service is getting overloaded right now.
Jackson said there are other services like Google Hangouts or Meets, which Emergency Management Director Ed Rock said the county already has in its system.
Groninger suggested McSherry work with the IT department, Richard and Kissinger to start planning on how the county meetings can be held without everyone present in the same room. “Even if we’re open for business, I think we’ll really want to try to minimize our gatherings of people that will probably go on for some time even after we reopen. So, I trying to get something like that set up,” he said.
Miner said some guidance has come out of the state’s public access counselor’s office on how to do those meetings and there’s been some changes on what is permitted regarding teleconferencing.
The next county commissioners meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. April 14.
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