Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 7
Number 7, consider and take appropriate action regarding Travis County policy section 10.045, leave with pay, as relates to employees who suffered a loss due to the recent wildfires of September 2011.
we indicate this may be taken into executive session if necessary under the consultation with attorney exception.
>> diane blankenship, director of hrmd.
we've had inquiries and the payroll defendant has had inquiries with relation to people who had to be off with regard to the fires.
there is a policy that we want to bring to the court.
it's chapter 10, section 0.45, leave with pay.
it states an elected or appointed official may grant an employee up to five fiscal year per fiscal year when it's in the county's best interest to protect the health and safety of the employee or relieve the employee of his or her duties pending results of an investigation when an employee could be suspended or terminated.
we did consult with the county attorney and they did feel like this would apply to a situation where it was protecting the employee's health or safety if they had to evacuate or if they lost their home in the situation that we had.
so we are coming to the court to verify that in this limited capacity that the court would agree with the elected or appointed officials or for the employees who report to the Commissioners court with their county executive's permission to be able to utilize this time if needed if they had to take off for an evacuation because they lost their home or in limited circumstances such as this.
>> that would make sure that all the employees that have been impacted, how are they informed?
because I'm kind of concerned that there may be some employees that aren't aware of what we're doing here today.
and so to make sure that we exhaust as much as possible, how would those employees actually know the impact of what we -- been suggested here today?
how would that work.
>> one way is reach out to the h.r.
reasons and the payroll liaisons that put in time.
they do know the people who take off and they can consult with management to see if this would be applicable to them.
another way is we've already been in touch with a lot of the h.r.
liaisons and think there's about 130 employees that we know.
>> how many?
>> 130 that were directly impacted.
that's the preliminary numbers that we have.
some it may be just one day, some it could be up to the five days.
some of them have been reporting back to work but have to take off to, you know,
>> [indiscernible] or look at their property and so forth.
>> so this is just a surface number, this 130.
there may be others that may not have --
>> correct -- exactly so this is just a baseline of the employees that we know of at this time that have been affected.
>> correct.
>> so it could be --
>> there could be more, yes.
>> okay.
>> but do you all need any action by the court?
if legal's interpretation is that 10.045 a 1 covers the circumstance, is there any action necessary except to --
>> we need to hear that.
>> we want to hear that you do agree it covers it and also there are the Commissioners court employees, the people that report to the court, y'all are the elected official body.
so you would need to -- our understanding you would need to get permission for people that report to t.n.r., admin ops, this doesn't designate a department head.
>> then I would move that 10.045 a 1 be interpreted by the court as reaching employees who have been affected by this --
>> I'll second that.
and with that second, though, I want to make sure that we make sure that those employees understand what we're doing here and, again, those that have not been notified or have not been informed about the process, we want to make sure we don't leave anyone out.
so that's my concern.
so right now it's 130.
but again, there may be more.
and if so we'll have to deal with those.
so the motion would be for those also that -- not with these just included.
>> right, that doesn't limit the number of employees to whom this would apply.
any employee affected by the disaster would be covered by 10.045 a 1.
john, do you have any issue with that?
>> no.
>> okay.
>> and that in recognition of what diane said, that all employees who are direct report to the Commissioners court, that would apply to them as well.
>> exactly.
>> just from a payroll viewpoint, our concern is everyone is treated the same and we have clear policy direction and that's how the payroll -- there will be -- which I think you need to recognize perhaps in your motion, there will be some real discretion needed I think for elected and appoint officials in deciding who this applies to.
like does it mean that -- or what do you mean?
does it mean if your home was destroyed, this applies to you or, you know I mean there's a lot of disruption that happened with it.
and I guess my question to you is do you have a guideline or an idea that you clearly want to articulate or are you saying we're going to use this action, which we're fine with, but that the elected and appointed officials use their discretion in putting people under it?
>> I would -- just speaking for myself, I would prefer to stick with the language that's in there which is also interpretive.
if it was necessary to protect their health or safety, it was necessary to protect their health or safety.
and up to this point we've always relied on managerial discretion to make that determination.
>> that would be good.
>> but it would be due to the recent wildfires of September 2011.
so it's not throwing it wide open although the policy has been open a long time.
>> yes, judge, and that's a very important distinction because with a workforce of 4400 people, we have employees that have personal tragedies all the time and my understanding it is limited to this.
>> the motion -- in the motion we as a Commissioners court authorize county executives to really function as the court as to implementation of this provision.
we can do that without any kind of special written order or resolution.
the motion is sufficient to do that?
the motion is consistent with your legal opinion?
>> it is.
>> of this policy.
>> right.
>> okay.
anything further?
>> we will be asking the elected appointed officials and the executive managers to provide us with documentation on this.
basically just a list of the affected employees, their employee i.d.
numbers, the dates that are to be changed in the time system, and also the number of hours for each day because payroll hours are already closed for that pay period.
so we're going to ask that they either send us a letter and spread sheet with sign off that this is authorized and then payroll will go in and mainly the changes in the system.
-- make the changes this the system.
>> to clarify, this is up to five days.
>> yes, sir.
>> this -- this cannot exceed five days.
>> yes, and we will audit for that.
>> okay.
any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you all very much.
number 8, and then we will go to 18.
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