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Sarpy County employee says March snow day was recorded as PTO, urges policy change
Summary
Tom Sempek, a Sarpy County Treasurer’s Office employee, told the county’s Personnel Policy Board that a March 19 snow closure was recorded as comp time and paid time off on his time card. He urged clearer inclement-weather rules; the board later approved a new timekeeping policy at the same meeting.
Tom Sempek, an employee in the Sarpy County Treasurer’s Office, told the Sarpy County Personnel Policy Board on March 27 that a March 19 snow day was recorded on his time card as comp time and paid time off rather than as a county closure.
"Imagine my surprise when I found out this snow day was not reflected as a county closure but rather as comp time and PTO in my time card," Sempek said during the meeting’s public comment period.
Sempek said he received a message from his manager at about 5:20 a.m. on March 19 telling staff the office would be closed. He contrasted that with a separate late-start on March 5 that appears on his time card as a county closure and resulted in two hours of credit.
The employee said the county’s inclement weather policy delegates notification to the communications manager and then to department heads and elected officials, and he urged the policy board to consider a change that would allow department heads and elected officials an option to declare a limited number of inclement-weather days per year to avoid similar inconsistencies.
"An option like this would allow a greater level of confidence between the employees, the officials, and our commissioners, reducing the opportunities for the breakdowns that led to this incident," he told the board.
The board did not take separate action on Sempek’s comment during public comment. Later in the meeting the Personnel Policy Board voted to recommend a new timekeeping policy and an hours-of-work policy as part of a package of personnel rule revisions presented by Mary Davis, the county HR director.
Sempek’s remarks came at the start of the meeting’s public-comment period and were recorded in the meeting transcript. He identified himself as a Treasurer’s Office employee and said communications about the March 19 closure had not been reflected consistently across employee timecards.
