AG 1994 03 07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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"it's about good government" An on going audit of comp time for Cabarrus County employees that are exempt from overtime regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act is showing the potential cost to the taxpayers of Cabarrus County to be in excess of 500 thousand dollars The question is, Is this real dollars? The answer is yes. After only being with the county for just one month, and with the County Manager's approval Mr. Don Moorhead's first action as personnel director for Cabarrus County was to issue a memo to all department heads allowing them to accumulate comp time. Even today this memo is inconsistent with the current personnel policy, which says, "Employees in administrative, professional or executive positions shall work the number of hours necessary to assure the satisfactory performance of their duties."Was this memo a way for Mr. Moorhead to circumvent the County Commissioners authority? Today Mr. Moorhead defends the practice by saying "It's only a way of keeping track of how much time is worked" If this is the case, then why are those employees including Mr. Moorhead himself, that are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act allowed to be absent from their jobs from days at a time with pay. The answer is quite simple, We only need to look at who approved the deviation from the current county personnel policy , and once again we find the same superior members of county government benefiting. Let their be no misunderstanding This is not meant to paint all department heads with the same brush. The vast majority of our department heads serve us well, They are truly civil servants not self servants. The current procedure for showing comp time of county employees dose not reflect total comp time earned or expended beyond two weeks, like a checking account it only reports comp time balance and actives for the current pay period (two weeks). To compute the total comp time earned or used one must review each pay period individual. A request was made of Mr. Moorhead to produce a written memo or policy that allowed department heads comp time prior to his memo dated April 20, 1992. he has fail to locate one. The following cities and counties do not allow comp time for department heads, Landis -Concord-Kannapolls- Charlotte-Mecklenburg-Stanly-Union. I'm asking this Board of Commissioners to consider a change in the current method of reporting comp time, and to review Mr. Moorhead's policy on comp time for department heads. Kenneth OIio TELEPHONE & FAX (704) 982-9781 P.O. BOX 1147 MT. PLEASANT, NC 28124