A group of Fremont County employees attended Tuesday morning’s regular meeting of the Board of Commissioners asking that the board modify some planned changes in the county’s payroll schedule. Sheriff’s Sergeants Don Pinover and Trace Hall said a plan to move pay dates forward by one week starting in April to allow more time to calculate payroll would create a hardship on many employees who already are struggling in the current economy. Hall said the employees do not dispute that there needs to be an adjustment in payroll deadlines, they just don’t believe the current solutions offer employees enough relief from a short paycheck. Hall said timing the change to coincide with three pay periods in the month of April is not relevant because it will still shorten the delivery of paychecks by one week. Hall said a plan to allow employees to get a pay advance and then repay it over six pay periods through June also is not a viable solution.
Pinover said the solution the employees want to put forth is to issue all employees a pay advance for 40 hours of work while proceeding to change the deadlines for submission of time sheets to allow the payroll clerk another four days of preparation time. Pinover said that way instead of employees having to wait until they leave or retire to collect the extra check, the 40 hours of advanced pay would simply be deducted when an employee departs.
Sheriff Jim Beicker offered one other alternative for the board’s consideration. He suggested that employees who have accumulated enough hours of vacation or extra hours of comp time be allowed to cash that in for extra pay to soften the financial impact of the one-week shift in payroll deadlines. County Assessor Stacey Seifert concurred, saying cashing in vacation hours would also help some of her employees. County Commission Chair Ed Norden said that had been discussed and that the idea could be considered for further discussion.
Norden said the commissioners recognized at the outset that the shift in pay dates would create hardships for some employees and that’s why they looked at alternatives to lessen the impact. The commissioners invited Sergeants Pinover and Hall to attend a follow up meeting with staff and elected officials to discuss the alternatives. The commissioners also expressed thanks to the employees for understanding the payroll problems and for the way they presented their concerns during the meeting.
Included in the scheduled payroll adjustments planned in April is a shift from deducting health insurance premium costs from all 26 pay periods during the year to deductions from 24 pay periods. That transition would match how the county is billed each month for health insurance premiums. It would that mean that in the future when three pay periods fall within one month, county employees would have no insurance deduction from that third paycheck.