The Baxter County Personnel Committee met Wednesday to discuss several issues including how the County will handle payroll functions currently under the office of County and Circuit Clerk Canda Reese. In December’s meeting of the Quorum Court, two different proposals emerged for handling the placement of a staff member who would be in charge of Human Resource duties for the county and whether payroll functions would be kept in-house or outsourced.
County Judge Mickey Pendergrass proposed that the HR staffer be under his office and that payroll functions be outsourced at an estimated cost of slightly more than $35,000. County Clerk Canda Reese presented a counter proposal to the Court’s Budget Committee on November 21st, 2016 that the HR position be included in her office and the current in-house payroll operation currently housed in her office be kept as it is.
In the December meeting Justice Bill Lucas, then chairman of the Personnel Committee and elected to take the same position this year, said his group had approved the HR position during a meeting on November 2nd, but had not fully addressed “chain of command” issues for the HR position and whether the in-house payroll operation would be moved or remain as is.
In Wednesday’s meeting Reese proposed the issue be dealt with immediately due to her concerns for the employee currently handling payroll and what would happen if those duties were taken away. Judge Pendergrass said the discussion was a moot point because the issue was a budget decision under his authority and not a personnel issue. He said when the Quorum Court approved the budget for 2017, they approved the $35,000 to be outsourced. He also said the employee Reese is concerned with has also been approved under the same budget. The position was not in jeopardy however duties could change.
Justice Lucas says the Quorum Court knew they were approving an HR position, currently filled by Ryan Robb, in December when they passed the budget however, he wasn’t sure they were fully aware they were approving the outsourcing. He said he wasn’t sure Pendergrass had the authority to make such a move without the court’s approval.
Pendergrass quoted Arkansas state code as evidence he had such authority and the HR position should be under his office.
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It was eventually agreed the matter would be tabled for 60 days, at the most, to give Robb, Reese and Pendergrass time to reach a conclusion.
In other committee news Robb says during the 60 day time frame he is working on evaluating the Personnel Policy Manual to add HR verbage and responsibilities. His HR experience has been industrial in nature, so he is reaching out to other counties and Quorum Court members for input.
Robb said the first thing he wanted to do was to strike asking the date of birth and social security number from the online Baxter County employment application. He said the question could open a potential lawsuit for the County. The committee agreed to white the question out until the legality is figured out.
Robb will put together a rough draft of the revisions and present them to the Personnel Committee when finished.
The committee also heard a proposal from County Collector Teresa Smith
asking for approval to designate Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a county holiday. She says Baxter County is the only County in the state which doesn’t take that day off. According to Smith, there are problems trying to reach other counties when they are closed during the holiday. She and her staff is unable to check if an individual has back taxes due in another county, creating a customer service issue.
Judge Pendergrass says the decision was made, some time ago, between taking Martin Luther King Jr. Day or President’s Day off. He said it could
create some minor payroll issues. The committee requested he look into the issues and decided to incorporate the holiday into the personnel manual if
it was feasible.
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