Jasper County wrangles with too much saved up vacation time

In order to curb an overabundance of vacation hours accrued by Jasper County employees and avoid enormous payouts, the board of supervisors are working with the director of human resources to update policies that would establish an across-the-board, 280-hour cap on all employee vacation time.

But that still leaves roughly 21 employees who have more than 280 hours of vacation saved up, which could lead to budgeting issues. Jasper County Auditor Jenna Jennings told Newton News this affects a wide range of employees, from department heads to union employees with differing rates of pay.

“Our highest employee would range around $12,000 in payout,” Jennings said.

During work session discussions over the past two weeks, the Jasper County Board of Supervisors agreed paying out all of those employees — some of which have more than 400 to 500 hours of unused vacation time — is unacceptable. Supervisor Denny Stevenson said he was adamantly against payouts.

If the updated policy is approved by supervisors in a future board meeting, employees would not be able to accrue any more vacation time once they hit the 280-hour cap. Those over the 280-hour mark will likely have two years to use their vacation. But supervisors may have to pay up to a certain amount.

Either way, the cap affects all employees in the same way, whether they have worked for the county for 20 years or one year. Jasper County Supervisor Brandon Talsma said some payouts could be provided to employees with substantial accruals, but they would be limited in the amount of hours used for payouts.

“In situations where they’re over a certain threshold, whether they’re over 400 hours or 500 hours, maybe it’s a (scenario where) we want you to burn down 200 hours over the next two years and we’ll pay you out for the remainder to get you down to that 280 balance,” he said. “But we’re not going to pay you for all.”

Supervisors expect if the policy is updated and approved that department heads will have to encourage their workers to take more down time, which Jasper County Human Resources Director Dennis Simon said is something the county is very much in favor of.