clay county commission 

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Clay County employees will be celebrating two more holidays with paid time off in 2023.

The Clay County Commission approved the addition of Juneteenth to the calendar of holidays for staffers at their Tuesday meeting, along with a four-hour half-day on Christmas Eve. The additional days bring the number of paid holidays to 11 and one-half beginning in the next year, initiating the changes as employee bargaining groups and the commission sign off on their new employment contracts.

The commission approved the contracts of three bargaining groups this week — with corrections staff,, sheriff’s department lieutenants and attorneys. County human resources director Darren Brooke told commissioners that the majority of the remaining units have either approved their agreements or are waiting for signatures. Just three remain unsettled, including the county’s social workers, staff at the detox facility and highway workers.

The contracts also include wage increases and a change to the employment grid, with some two-year step-ups in pay reduced to one year. The new contracts also include a change in policy affecting employees’ access to their earned vacation time and sick leave, Brooke explained.

At the present time, an individual receives eight hours of vacation per month but can’t access it until he or she has been on the job for six months. That will change under the new contracts so that they can use their accrued time in the month after it was earned. “From a recruiting standpoint, this was recommended by the Personnel Issues Committee,” he explained. The change has been negotiated and is or will appear in the settled contracts.