The Independence County Quorum Court meets Monday, Feb. 11, and faces a relatively light agenda. The usual reports will be heard including Sheriff Shawn Stephens as he presents a restructuring of the jail pay scale. Court members will also choose a member of the body to serve as a delegate to the April 13 Quorum Court Association meeting.
An item on last month’s agenda that brought out several attendees to the January quorum court meeting regarded changes to be made in the employee’s handbook and the section on “sick leave.”
The policy committee of the quorum court met on Jan. 22 and again addressed “sick leave.” The committee members decided to add to Section 4.33, a requirement which says: “a donee must use the donated sick days given to them in a consecutive manner, not intermittently.” The committee members also voted to send an addition to Section 4.32 on “sick leave” to the quorum court Monday night that says: “A doctor’s note shall be required after five (5) days missed. Patterns of abuse of the county’s ‘sick leave’ policies shall be addressed by the department head based on his/her departmental policies and procedures considering that the department has a ‘written’ policy in place.”
Those two changes will be presented to the full court on Monday night with a do-pass recommendation.
The court will also hear three ordinances. Ordinance 2019-04 will be put forth by Justice Tim Stewart. It is an ordinance cleaning up some maneuvers made in 2017 and 2018 concerning the library construction fund, and what funds the county would use to pay for that construction.
The Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, in its year-end audit of 2017, called the county judge’s attention to some areas where there was noncompliance with state law and accepted accounting practices.
The Independence County Quorum Court meets 6 p.m. in the second floor courtroom of the Jess B. Carpenter Building in downtown Batesville.
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