They work hard and some miss out on their vacation, so if they didn’t use it, the proposal is at least they shouldn’t totally lose it.
“Some of our employees are needed and don’t think they can leave, so for those employees who are up to the limit, who would lose any access to those resources later on, we think it’s a good idea to reward those employees,” says City Administrator Janice Allen Jackson.
The proposal would allow employees with 75 hours of vacation time in the bank sell 24 hours for cash if commissioners go along.
“Our employees are the best friends that the city could have and we need to treat them accordingly,” says Commissioner Bill Fennoy.
“I know we’ve done this before so I don’t know if we need to continue it as an annual thing or evaluate it every year. We’ll talk about it today and make sure it is affordable,” says Mayor Pro-Tem Mary Davis.
If all the workers take part in the proposal the cost would be nearly $400 thousand dollars, $260 of that out of the General Fund.
“I know we have put in some good benefits for employees so we need to make sure we’re not doing too much to hurt the general fund,” said the Mayor Pro-Tem.
Last week commissioners approved adding $250 thousand dollars more to reserves in the 2019 budget to build up the surplus, if commissioners do not approve the buy back all those dollars would also end up in reserves.
“Certainly it would be more money going into reserves if we didn’t do it, but on the other hand sometimes you want to be good to your employees,” said Jackson.
Commissioners increased property taxes in 2014 in part to build up reserves depleted by the ice storm cleanup.
Commissioners are scheduled to debate the vacation buy back next week. If approved, the money would show up in employees December 21st paychecks.
