Kewaunee County committee approves 48-hour vacation carryover, updates on court security and highway staffing

The Kewaunee County Executive Committee approved a request to let a courthouse employee carry over 48 hours of unused vacation time and discussed multiple personnel and recruitment updates affecting courthouse security and highway staffing.

The carryover request, presented as part of the personnel report, asked that an employee in the corporate court office be allowed to carry over 48 hours of vacation because the employee “wasn't able to use it as much as she would have liked because she was covering [brochure sapping] during the period of turnover last year,” according to county personnel staff. A motion to approve the carryover passed with committee assent.

Committee members were also told that the full-time court security position has been filled by John DuBois, though DuBois has not yet started because of other staffing needs in the department. County staff said they are advertising to build a pool of part-time, on-call workers to provide flexible coverage for court security during turnover or increased need. “It makes more sense to have a part time full versus having the slightest, let's say, on overtime. So it's just a better use of resources,” the county’s sheriff said during the discussion.

Highway staffing was addressed after the recent resignation of a highway worker and the death of Ronald Jamie. County personnel said they have selected an existing employee to move into the highway bridge position and plan to fill the resulting vacancies to restore full staffing. County staff characterized the actions as internal promotions and standard vacancy-filling steps; the committee did not direct a different approach.

The committee also heard that building security has been strengthened mechanically (key-fob access and mirrors to monitor lobbies) but that day-to-day personnel response for incidents remains dependent on city officers and available patrol staff.

Other human-resources changes highlighted included a rebooted performance-evaluation form and steps to make the county’s job application process easier to use online; staff said the current form on the county website is a fillable PDF that often requires printing and they are “about 95% of the way done” converting it to a web form that can be completed and submitted without printing.

The committee approved a set of requested vacancies during the meeting; motions on the agenda, including the vacancy approvals, carried by voice vote.