The Washington County Board of Supervisors decided to go by the county’s employee handbook when it comes to holiday pay for the new county-operated ambulance department. The new county department will officially begin at 12:01 a.m. July 1st, just days ahead of the Independence Day holiday. The county handbook states that employees must work 30 days for the county before receiving holiday pay. The employees who currently work for the private ambulance company went through a hiring process to become county employees and will now work under the county’s employee handbook.

Under the handbook guidelines, if one of the observed 10 holidays in a year falls on a weekend, then daily county staff receives eight hours of pay and services are closed either on the previous Friday or following Monday. However, Michelle Hyman from the county auditor’s office explained that those who work on weekends during holidays still receive payment at a holiday rate regardless of when they start the job, “I want to clarify something, if they actually work on a holiday they get some extra pay. So, they do get paid for working the holiday. It’s just if they don’t work, don’t have that day off, they’re not eligible that the first 30 days [of employment].”

Supervisor Chairman Jack Seward made a motion to allow holiday pay for the staff members of the new department, but the motion failed due to a lack of a second.

The supervisors voted to set the ambulance employees’ beginning employment date as June 30th so that they qualify for the county’s health insurance on July 1st. The supervisors made no decisions on an ambulance facility, but Seward did say that the Washington County Ambulance, Inc. facility no longer has a lease option.