Monroe County Board of County Commissioners met March 6.
Here is the minutes as provided by the Commissioner:
The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Chairman Robert Elmore, Commissioner Delbert Wittenauer and Commissioner Vicki Koerber
were present. There being a quorum present the meeting was called to order.
Also present were Dennis Knobloch – Monroe County Clerk, Annmarie Marcuson – Monroe
County HR, Carla Heise – Ambulance Service Director, Mike Fausz – Director, Monroe County
Zoning – Mapping and Platting, Kevin Koenigstein – Monroe County Treasurer, John Wagner –
Monroe County Health Department Director, Ryan Weber – Monroe County EMA Director, Nick
Hoeffken – Monroe County Ambulance Service, Chris Howell – Weed Commissioner, Chris
Hitzemann – Monroe County State’s Attorney, Bob Hill – Monroe County Coroner, Lisa Fallon –
Monroe County Circuit Clerk, Aaron Metzger – Monroe County Highway, Neal Rohlfing –
Monroe County Sheriff and Brian McGovern of the law firm McCarthy Leonard & Kaemmerer.
Chairman Elmore said this meeting was to discuss the Monroe County Employee Handbook, and
Mr. McGovern, one of the new Monroe County labor attorneys, had been invited to answer any
questions of the Department Heads. Mr. McGovern said his firm had taken the existing Monroe
County handbook and made some revisions related to current changes in the law. He asked that
the Department Heads weigh in on areas that are not covered, and topics that could possibly be
removed from the book. Mr. McGovern said all of this is necessary to make sure you have a
Handbook that works. He said it is also helpful for the Department Heads to sit down with their
employees and review the Handbook for any questions they may have. Mr. McGovern said it is
also important to remember that the Handbook is not a contract, and it takes a back seat to any
provisions that are included in the various Union contracts in Monroe County.
All references to the County Coordinator will be removed from the County Handbook.
Mr. McGovern said the new Handbook will include a form that will say the employee realizes
this is a new and revised Handbook, and they have received and reviewed the new document.
This form will need to be signed by all employees and included as part of their personnel file.
John Wagner said his employees have never been able to sign the acknowledgment form in the
back of the Handbook, because the terms and details in the Handbook were contrary to some of
the terms of their union contract. Mr. McGovern said at a minimum the employees need to sign
off saying they have reviewed the Handbook, even if they don’t agree with all the terms. He said
his firm would make a revision to the acknowledgment form to reflect this change. Mr.
McGovern said you have to remember that the Collective Bargaining Agreements of the Monroe
County unions will always supersede the terms and details of the Handbook.
Aaron Metzger said the acknowledgment form says the County can change any of the details of
the Handbook at any time. He questioned why the employees would sign the form knowing the
details of the Handbook could be changed at a later date. Mr. McGovern said the Handbook is
not a contract, and the County is allowed to make revisions whenever they become necessary. He
said most of the time these changes come from changes in the labor law.
Mr. Metzger said he had submitted two pages of comments, and he wondered first – are all of
these comments going to be considered, and second – who would be reviewing these comments
to see which ones would be included in the Handbook, will it be the Attorney or the Board? Mr. McGovern said his intent is to review and include all of these comments in the revised draft
Handbook, and then get that copy back to the County Board and the Department Heads for
review and further comment before adoption of the new version. Mr. Metzger said he was glad to
hear that, because the last time the Department Heads were asked for comments, those comments
were ignored.
Mr. Wagner said he was concerned that the inclusion of the drug policies will make the union
negotiations more painful than they have ever been, because this is something totally new to the
Handbook. Mr. McGovern said the drug policy change is being included because of a change in
the new labor laws.
Annmarie Marcuson said she wanted to know, once the new Handbooks are distributed to the
employees, who is going to be responsible to make sure the employees are following the
Handbook, since some of the Department Heads are elected officials and some are appointed by
the Board. Commissioner Wittenauer said it is the duty of the Department Head to enforce the
Handbook, and the County Board really has no way to penalize a Department Head who is an
elected official if they do not do their job properly.
Mr. McGovern said one of the keys in successful Handbook management is to be consistent on
how employees are handled, especially within each Department.
Mr. Metzger said he feels the individual Department Heads will continue to handle some issues
differently in their offices, but he feels that any issues dealing with money, like vacations, paid
leave, etc. should all be handled the same across the County, because the employees do talk
among themselves, and will know if these issues are being handled differently in different offices.
Ms. Marcuson asked if there can be addendums by office if any of the offices have minor
differences in how they handle various issues. Mr. McGovern said that is possible, but you want
to make sure you don’t have fifteen different policies regarding the same issue – that could
become very confusing and hard to manage.
Mr. Metzger said his question wasn’t answered. Is he going to be the Enforcement Officer for his
Department, or will the HR person take care of that, because if that’s the case, each office will be
handling things differently. Mr. McGovern said there will be an attempt to make things
consistent, but it will be difficult for Annmarie to go around to all the Departments and make sure
everyone is complying with the details of the Handbook. Commissioner Koerber said
Annmarie/HR needs to make sure she is available as a resource if any of the Department Heads
have any questions.
Chairman Elmore said there has been discussion about a designated smoking area. Mr.
McGovern said you can certainly do that, but that issue does not need to be addressed in the
Handbook, that is just a policy and procedure decision.
Ms. Marcuson asked will the wearing of ID badges be included in the Handbook? Commissioner
Koerber said she thought that was a policy that had been adopted. Carla Heise asked if this was
every Department including EMS? Sheriff Rohlfing said the County said they wanted the badges
worn by employees, so if that’s the decision, he is okay with it. The Health Department has all
the supplies and will make them for all of the employees. Commissioner Wittenauer asked what happens if you forget your badge. Sheriff Rohlfing said then you will have to go through the
security checkpoint.
Commissioner Koerber said the new labor attorneys had offered to train the Department Heads on
the new Handbook. Mr. McGovern said once the new Handbooks are completed, they would be
happy to sit down with the Department Heads and go through them to discuss policies, and how
to handle situations to avoid litigation for the County. Ms. Marcuson said one of the new things
is that the County has a new HR consultant, and the Handbook will include a new hotline number
for employees to call in case of harassment, etc. The new HR consultant is the one designated by
CIRMA, the County’s insurance pool.
Commissioner Koerber asked about details of the Department Head training. Mr. McGovern said
he envisioned this taking about two hours, plus any time for questions from the Department
Heads.
Mr. Metzger said he had a concern about including limits on property damage when you talk
about employee accidents, and requiring drug testing. He said he felt there should be no amounts
included, because some accidents are purely that – accidents – while others can be a result of
negligence. Mr. McGovern said the thing you have to be careful of, is that different Department
Heads will perceive similar situations differently. There was additional discussion of the
accident/drug testing policy. Mr. McGovern said the key to these incidents is to document as
much as possible to defend your decisions.
Mr. Metzger asked about the regulation of his employees who carry the CDL license. Mr.
McGovern said the Federal DOT regulations will in most cases control all of the actions related to
these employees.
Mr. Metzger said he wondered if the County should set up a “Drug and Alcohol Committee”,
made up of a group of Department Heads, to review any cases like this that take place, to be sure
that all employees are treated equally when it comes to incidents where drug or alcohol use is a
possibility. Commissioner Koerber said she thought that was a good idea.
Mr. McGovern said his office revised the County Handbook without any input from Monroe
County officials, and now that he has heard and received comments from some of the Department
Heads, he will go back and incorporate those changes into the Handbook.
Commissioner Wittenauer said when it comes to CDL’s, he thought you could set up your own
parameters, where you would allow one, two or three strikes, before any action would be taken.
Commissioner Koerber said you can also set up a zero tolerance policy.
Pre-employment drug testing was discussed. Several Department Heads said they are already
doing that, while others are not. Where employees are being sent for drug testing was also
discussed. Some are sending people to Memorial Hospital and some are sending them to
Midwest Occupational Medicine. There is a possibility that in the future the new Columbia
urgent care facility could do this work. Ms. Marcuson said if it’s a work comp case, it would be
best to send them to Midwest Occ Med, because they handle drug testing, plus there is a Doctor
there that can see them for emergency situations. Mr. McGovern said for the sake of consistency, he would suggest that if some do pre-employment drug testing, all offices should do it. Ms.
Marcuson said she also thought that new employees should get background checks. Mike Fausz
said those can be performed at the Regional Superintendent’s office. Carla Heise asked if the HR
Department would be doing this work for all of the offices. Commissioner Koerber said she felt
things would be done more consistently if all of this activity was sent through the HR office and
Ms. Marcuson.
Mr. McGovern told the Department Heads that if they have not yet submitted their comments on
the Handbook, they should do that as soon as possible so they can be included in the revised
edition of the Handbook.
Ms. Marcuson said that CIRMA/Donna Rogers, would be holding an HR and Employment Law
Conference in Springfield on April 12 and 13, and she encouraged anyone available to attend that
session. She said she has attended this conference before, and it provides a lot of useful
information. Ms. Marcuson said that Donna Rogers would also like to come here to perform an
audit of all of the County offices, to make sure there are no HR problems that need to be
addressed.
There being no further business to come before the Board, motion to adjourn was made by
Commissioner Wittenauer, with a second by Commissioner Koerber. All voting Aye, none Nay
and none Absent. Motion carried.
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