Supervisors set department‑head workshop to advance county handbook rewrite; staff to incorporate addenda and legal checks

Supervisors continued discussion on revisions to sections 2.1–2.2 of the Kossuth County Employee Handbook and agreed on next steps to finish a clean draft.

Human resources and payroll staff explained that prior markups and annotations had made the draft difficult to follow. The auditor’s office and HR staff suggested extracting a clean version and adding a concise chart of work periods and overtime triggers by department to reduce repetition and confusion. Staff identified specific questions needing legal review—particularly whether paid leave (sick, holiday, vacation) should be counted as hours worked for overtime calculations for certain employee groups—and agreed to verify statutory requirements with legal counsel before finalizing the text.

Supervisors directed staff to gather department heads for a focused workshop to tackle remaining sections. They set a board agenda item for Tuesday, August 5, to continue the handbook discussion with department heads present; staff set a broader target to have revisions finalized and presented by September. The board emphasized that department heads should work with payroll to identify exempt vs. non‑exempt employees and produce job descriptions that list overtime status to avoid future confusion.