Several hours of discussion took place regarding changes to the employee handbook at the Washington County Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday.

For a few weeks the board has discussed revisions to the handbook with Human Resources Administrator Amber Day, and at Tuesday’s meeting County Engineer Jacob Thorius presented two options for the board to consider for overtime and holiday pay. Option A states that employees who work on a holiday will receive two times their regular hourly rate for all hours worked on the holiday, which will be considered “premium pay.” This would be in addition to any holiday pay the employees receive, up to eight hours. Thorius says this option would eliminate “pyramiding,” when an employer mistakenly counts toward weekly overtime those hours already paid out at double time, resulting in a few additional hours of overtime premium pay to which they were not entitled. Option B differed largely on call back time, stating that any employee that is called into work will receive a minimum of two hours pay, and call back time will be paid twice the regular hourly rate for all hours worked. It was reasoned that this premium will help entice employees to respond when called into extreme hours. Thorius stated that Option A would be easiest to implement, though it would cost the county more in terms of salaries.

Discussion of holiday and overtime pay lasted about an hour and a half Tuesday morning until they recessed until 1 p.m. and continued the discussion until about 3 p.m. Supervisor Richard Young tells KCII what wording they came to agree upon, “We come up with a pay rate for the first eight hours, they will get paid two and a half times their normal wages, and then if they work beyond eight hours like the ambulance works 24, the last 16 they get time and a half.”

Young says the proposed policy will be reviewed by the county attorney and their human resources contractor before it is brought back to the supervisors for final approval on Tuesday.