County passes revised vacation policy

The Ozark County Commissioners approved a new vacation policy during the regular weekly commissioner’s meeting held at 9 a.m. Monday.

According to the commissioners, prior to 2020 the maximum unused vacation time employees could roll over into the next year was 40 hours. However, because of the covid-19 pandemic, the county allowed employees to roll over more than 40 hours - and that has led to some employees accruing a large amount of hours.

“Your comp time has a guideline limit…of 240 hours,” said Presiding Commissioner Terry Newton. “And for sick time there’s a guideline limit of 240 hours. That hasn’t changed.

“We kind of discussed some things on the rollover. And you want to reward somebody for longevity [who has] been here awhile, so what we kind of felt like [it needed changed].”

The commissioners determined what they believe is a fair vacation policy for county employees. Those employed with the county for 1-5 years can roll over 40 hours; 5-10 years can roll over 60 hours; and those employed longer than 10 years can roll over 80 hours.

“We feel like that’s probably a fair compromise all the way around,” Newton said. “It makes it more fair to those people [who have been here longer.] We felt like that’s probably a good compromise.”

The amount of time employees can take off at one time will be determined by the department heads, said Newton. That policy remained unchanged.

“I [feel] like we’ve done our due diligence trying to find the right way and the fair way,” Newton said. 

Eastern Commissioner Jim Britt and Western Commissioner Layne Nance agreed and the change passed unanimously.