Catoosa changes PTO policy
♦ Employees will no longer have to specify whether paid time off is vacation time or sick time. The county is also adding 40 extra hours of PTO for department heads who work outside of normal business hours.
Catoosa County is changing its vacation and sick-time policy for employees to a general “paid time off” policy to give employees more flexibility.
The policy change was unanimously approved Tuesday night, Nov. 6, during the Board of Commissioner’s meeting.
Human Resources Director Ann Cain broke down the changes for Catoosa County commissioners while also addressing one resident’s questions.
“The change will allow county employees to use time away from work as they choose,” Cain said. “They will not have to report whether their time off is vacation time or sick time. The new policy combines the current vacation and sick time allowed into one bank of ‘paid time’ allowed.”
The change also included the proposal department directors to receive 40 hours of paid time off in addition to the regular paid time off accrued based on the accrual rates table in the policy.
Essentially, the county isn’t adding any additional time off by combining the sick and vacation hours into one pool, only the 40 extra hours for the department heads who are already on salary.
“And technically it doesn’t adding anything to the budget because it’s already being used,” Commissioner Ray Johnson asked.
“Right,” Cain replied. “It’s budget-neutral. We’re not adding any money to the budget at all.”
Cain explained that the thought process is to add the 40 hours as a way of compensating the department heads for the time they spend working outside of their normal hours.
“It was proposed that department directors that are considered 24/7 basically to answer their phone whether they’re at work or not — holidays, vacations, whatever.
“Those are the department directors that would be eligible for the 40 hours,” Cain explained.
During Cain’s presentation, she answered questions asked by resident Ben Scott earlier in the night during the appearances portion of the meeting.
“I think that’s a good change,” Scott said.
“It provides employees more flexibility on how to use their time for somebody that’s never sick versus somebody that loses that kind of time,” Scott said. “So, I think it gives the employees more flexibility.”
Scott’s questions included who would be eligible for the additional 40 hours, and if the county had done analysis before proposing the change.
“Is that a new benefit? Is it going to be people who are called directors? Is it going to be the fire chief? Will it be elected officials? Who does that apply to,” he asked.
Cain explained that the county’s commissioners would not fall under the same policy.
“The elected officials do not follow Board of Commissioner’s policies, so this doesn’t apply to them,” Cain said. “They have their own policies.”
Cain added that her office did a lot of research and that the changes fall in line with what other counties do in their policies.