The DeKalb County Commission adopted a couple of new policies at their last meeting on Monday, January 23, making new rules for employees of the DeKalb County Solid Waste Department attendance, as well as rules for how county gas cards are used.
The county adopted an attendance policy for the Solid Waste Department at the request of County Mayor Matt Adcock and new Solid Waste Director James Goff. While there was already a county-wide personnel policy in place, which included solid waste employees, Adcock said the policy did not include rules about attendance.
The department also lacked a policy and procedure manual. Efforts are underway to establish such a manual for the solid waste department, which will include a provision for attendance.
“In the past there were no rules of enforcement to discipline employees for not showing up to work, and according to Director Goff, the Solid Waste Department is having some attendance issues. Some employees have not been coming to work, nor even taking the time to call and explain to management that they will not be there so that someone can be scheduled to cover their absence. This new attendance policy will give Director Goff the leverage he needs to get his employees to work,” said Mayor Adcock.
The new attendance policy includes discipline based on a points system. One absence occurrence will have a value of one point. A tardy will be 1/2 point. A no call, no show will be four points. A point will remain on the individual’s record for 6 months from the date that the point was assigned. After 6 months, any points accumulated would be dropped from an employee’s record provided there are no further policy attendance violations. At four points, an employee would be issued a verbal warning. Five points would require a written warning and at six points the employee would be terminated.
The commission also adopted new procedures concerning fuel cards after a former solid waste employee had allegedly used a card for his own benefit last year.
“This fuel card policy is to keep the fuel cards safe from theft and hold employees accountable for their assigned fuel card,” Mayor Adcock said. “In the past we had an incident with an employee who took a fuel card home and purchased fuel for his personal vehicle.”
“This policy covers areas like storing the fuel cards in safe and secure locations, that they should remain in that position and never be taken home, that every employee has their own PIN number that can’t be shared with any other employee, and each vehicle fuel card is assigned to a vehicle and cannot be used with an unassigned vehicle. We also made miscellaneous fuel cards for portable gas tanks, chainsaws, or etc.”
“This policy requires lots of documentation like a department vehicle fuel log with vehicle mileage, the amount and type of fuel used, and the name of the operator doing the transaction. This information documented should match what we receive back from the fuel card action report at the end of the month”.
“This is a countywide policy that will be implemented for every department that uses a county vehicle and operates off of a fuel card,” said Mayor Adcock.
