It’s back to the drawing board for the Shawano County employee handbook.
Two hours of debate about the proposed new handbook Wednesday night by the County Board ended in a 12-12 deadlock, which means the Administrative Committee will have to revisit the handbook to consider revisions to gain the support of more supervisors.
Two supervisors, Jerry Erdmann and Milt Marquardt, abstained from the vote because they have family members who work for the county. Supervisor Dennis Knaak left the meeting prior to the vote.
The deadlock occurred, in part, because some supervisors were concerned that certain items previously contained in union contracts, such as on-call pay, were not addressed. They questioned whether employees would be expected to work beyond a standard work week without being compensated.
Supervisor Robert Krause suggested an amendment that would allow individual departments’ “past practices” to remain in effect until the County Board could address them. That amendment was defeated 14-9.
Prior to the vote, Krause said he would vote against the handbook if his amendment did not pass.
Supervisor Bonnie Olson said the departments should bring the past practices to the board for formal approval if they wanted to keep them.
“If it’s taken away, it will immediately inspire either department heads or employees to bring it forth,” Olson said. “It may only be gone a month because they want it that bad or they want it fixed.”
Erdmann pointed out that the handbook can be revised when needed. The handbook, if it had been adopted, would not have taken effect until Dec. 1, giving officials two more months to make changes.
“We’re never going to get a policy that will last forever,” Kautza said. “There’s always something that will have to be changed and will come up.”
The handbook needed to be updated after Gov. Scott Walker signed Act 10 into law two years ago, limiting public employee unions’ bargaining rights to wages and leading most county unions to disband. Employment issues previously covered in union contracts were to be addressed, supervisors said, in the new handbook.
Supervisor Ken Capelle, a member of the original Transition Committee created in 2011 to rewrite the handbook, voted against the proposal Wednesday, saying the handbook was a complete rewrite of what the committee had originally approved.
Supervisor Kathy Luebke did not like the tone of the handbook.
“A lot of our at-will employees are taxpayers, who are ultimately our boss,” Luebke said. “I am finding a lot of stuff in these manuals very disrespectful to them. A lot of things in here have to go to committee (for changes). Let’s let our department heads do their job. If not, let’s get rid of our department heads, and all 27 of us can come here every day and run this county.”
The Administrative Committee’s next meeting is Oct. 7. An agenda has not been posted.
Categories
