Poster From Songwriters Dream Program At Martin Methodist College

This is the poster advertising the program with a list of supposed $1000.00 sponsors. While this was a very wonderful and worthwhile event should it not reflect the citizens of the city/county instead of Dan Speer since it was our tax money?

How To Get Paid Overtime For Being On Vacation or Sick!

Have you ever considered how nice it would be to take a week of vacation and get paid overtime or be off work with the flu and get paid overtime all in the same week.

Say you take four days (32 hours) of vacation or sick leave then clock in and work a ten hour shift. 32 plus 8 equals 40 with two hours of overtime.

How can that happen when vacation and sick leave can not be counted as work-time but au contraire
the Highway Department policy on Overtime/Compensatory Time states that "A 40 hour work week can consist of approved sick time, comp time or vacation".

Vacation Policy For Sheriff Department

There was a comment on another thread about the vacation leave policy that compared the Highway Department with the Sheriff's Department. I had planned to eventually post the Vacation Policy for the Sheriff but this provoked a need to post now.

3-3 Paid Vacation Leave
We know how hard you work and recognize the importance of providing you with time for rest and relaxation. We fully encourage you to get this rest by taking your vacation time. Full-time employees accrue paid vacation time as follows.

Qualifications for vacation leave.
 Employees will be eligible to take vacation leave after twelve (12) continuous months of service. Full time employees shall earn paid vacation at a rate provided below.

Employees that work Monday through Friday will accrue and be eligible to take ten (10) days of vacation after the initial twelve (12) continuous months of service.

Employees that work rotating schedule (12 hour shifts) will accrue and be eligible to take eight (8) days of vacation after the initial twelve (12) months of service.

Each employee will receive one (1) additional vacation day on the tenth (10) year of service anniversary and one (1) day for every year thereafter for the length of employment.

Accumulation of vacation leave.
Vacation time may not
be accumulated or carried forward to the next year. Any days not used prior to the end of the current calendar year will be lost without compensation for the unused portion. Employees may not receive vacation pay in lieu of time off.

Vacation Leave Or Leave For Vacation?

A man applies for a job and during the interview is told he's hired and he starts work on Monday and will finish his orientation on Tuesday. The man says, "Hey wait a minute  I can be here on Monday but Tuesday is out of the question, I start a weeks vacation on Tuesday. The Personnel Director says, "you can't take a week of vacation after only one day of work". The man replies, "sure I can the Personnel policy is 0-6 months of service and you get 40 hours of vacation". 

Now if that little story sounds absurd, consider how such a policy might sound to most people who have to work a year or more to have a week of paid vacation. 

This is the written vacation policy for the Giles County Highway Department.

1. Qualifications for vacation time - full-time employees (those who work 35 or more hours per week and 1820 per year) Shall earn paid vacation at a rate provided herein: 

An employee is not eligible to use or receive compensation for vacation time until the employee has completed 6 months of continuous service at which time 40 hours of vacation time will be available. Vacation time will be granted beginning July 1 of each year thru June 30 (fiscal year basis). No employee may give or loan vacation time to another employee. Vacation time can not be held over from one year to the next. Part-time employees do not qualify for vacation leave. 

0-6 months of service  40 hours

6 months - 3 years of service 80 hours

4 years - 14 years of service 120 hours

15 or more years of service  160 hours 

2) Use of Vacation Time - The highway Department will have mandatory shut down (1) week for the summer vacation and (1) week at Christmas. Employees who are hired during the year will receive full pay for shut down weeks if (6) months of continued service is accumulated prior to shut down. If this is not feasible the employee will be off without pay. Additional vacation leave for 4 year plus employees may be used only at time approved in advance by the Road Superintendent or it will be paid. Employees with 15 or more years must take 4th week of vacation off or it will be forfeited. Vacation request will be honored to the extent possible. If two or more employees request vacation for the same period of time, it will be the Road Superintendent's decision if this will create a hardship upon the department. If it is determined it is not possible for both employees to be on vacation at the same time, the request for vacation time will be honored at the discretion of the Road Superintendent.   

Now here are some questions that come to mind. 

1) Between 3 years of service and 4 years how much vacation time does an employee have? 

2) If the department is shut down for a week in the summer and a week at Christmas is vacation time charged for these shut downs or are those times in addition to vacation? If they are are not in addition to regular vacation then how does a person only qualified for 40 hours of vacation manage to be paid for 80 hours?

3) Does a full time employee with six months service get 40 hours of paid vacation, 80 hours of paid vacation or 120 hours of vacation? 

More Expenses From Economic Development Director

1. From July 2011, $1,095.00 has been paid for a family membership to the Hillcrest Country Club.
While I understand the need to have an adequate place to entertain and playing golf is an important part of much entertainment, any member can bring a guest or guests to the club.
Why does the Economic Development Director need to have a membership at taxpayer expense when at anytime he could call a dozen different members and entertain as their guests. I can't imagine a situation where the membership or management would object since they are all working for the good of the community and it's development.

2. There is a $4000.00 expense listed as "extra contribution" to Lincoln Financial Services. I know these folks do a lot of financial management of retirement accounts but I don't understand what is meant by "extra contribution".

3. $1000.00 to Martin Methodist College for "songwriters" under dues and subscriptions.

4, $5780.00 for consulting services by WebQA Inc.. Now this may be a very legitimate expense but what I don't understand is why they were fed and entertained at taxpayer expense when they were seeking to do business with the county, shouldn't they have been pay for the meals and entertainment?

5. Why was $574.00 paid for an "Intuit Payroll Computer program then $380.00 paid to Garner & Downs CPA's for quarterly payroll expenses? How many people are on the payroll at the Economic Development Commission that it would require that much to make out the payroll? Why isn't it done with other city or county payrolls?