The Clay County Commission adopted new personnel policy changes to establish stricter rules regarding employee conduct and dismissal.
Mayor Dale Reagan said the updates were recommended following a past experience with an employee in the Highway Department. He said the goal is to set a clearer policy for the county.
“If said employee is discharged due to criminal conduct listed below, employee cannot be hired back to work as a Clay County government employee in any capacity,” Reagan said. “And that pretty much and Jimmy has looked it gone over that and everything and he says everything looked good to him.”
Reagan said the policy allows the county to take all circumstances into account to determine if an infraction is excusable. The new rules specify that certain infractions will result in disciplinary action, including the possibility of immediate discharge depending on the nature of the violation.
The commission also approved a separate personnel policy update specifically for the ambulance service.
Ambulance Service Director Andy Hall said the department-specific changes were necessary because the 24-hour nature of emergency medical shifts does not always align with standard eight-hour county workdays. He said the new policy includes a formal three-step disciplinary process starting with a verbal warning, followed by a suspension, and ending with termination for a third offense.
“So if you bed in your shift without proper replacement, job abandonment, and automatic grounds for voluntary termination,” Hall said. “I put that in there too just saying that if you’re you know we have to have two people for an ambulance, so if you leave your shift and leave me without nobody on that ambulance I have to shut an ambulance down, there’s going to be some responsibility repercussions to that.”
Hall said the ambulance service policy also addresses sick leave documentation to help manage overtime costs. He said that because replacing a last-minute call-in often requires paying a full-time employee overtime, the policy now requires a doctor’s note to justify the expense.
