Town board reviews draft employee handbook covering hours, attendance, testing and timekeeping

The Town Board met in a special session to review sample employee-handbook language and discuss a package of personnel rules intended to clarify hours, attendance, pay practices and workplace safety.

The meeting opener said she had collected job descriptions and handbooks from other jurisdictions to use as models and proposed inserting town-specific rules on hours, attendance, conflict-of-interest and discipline. Board members broadly supported drafting a handbook that would spell out expectations for department heads and hourly employees, and commit to circulating a draft for legal review before adoption.

Why it matters: board members said clearer written policies will help the town document flex/comp time, protect the town in termination situations and provide consistent rules for travel reimbursement, leave and discipline. Members repeatedly cited problems in practice—unclear hours for street and sewer crews, inconsistent time sheets, and department heads who sometimes miss meetings without an established substitute or remote check-in procedure.

Key proposals and discussion points

Hours and scheduling: The board reviewed department-specific schedules and agreed on a proposal to formalize seasonal hours for the street crew (example proposal discussed: April 1–Sept. 30, 6:00 a.m.–2:30 p.m. with a 30-minute lunch; Oct. 1–March 31, 7:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m.). The town office hours were described as roughly 8 a.m.–4 p.m., while police and other shift work would remain tailored to operational needs.

Attendance and meeting expectations: Members proposed requiring department heads to attend board meetings or to call in/send a qualified substitute for agenda items that concern their operations. They discussed recording meeting attendance in time sheets so that department heads who are hourly are paid for meeting hours and salaried workers can take flex time in lieu.

Timekeeping and payroll integration: The board asked staff to obtain estimates for a time-clock system compatible with the town’s payroll software (Keystone) to reduce manual time-sheet mismatches and simplify comp/flex-time tracking.

Drug testing and workplace safety: The group discussed expanding the town’s pre-employment drug screen policy to include testing after accidents and testing based on reasonable suspicion. Members emphasized proper chain-of-custody for samples, supervised collection at an approved facility or with law-enforcement oversight, and clear consequences for refusal. The board also discussed allowing an employee who volunteers for help to be treated differently from someone caught in violation.

Leave, disability and pay: Using county handbook language as an example, members reviewed vacation, sick and short-term disability mechanics (including a commonly used waiting period before short-term disability pay begins) and discussed adopting an approach that requires employees to use accrued leave by their anniversary date or forfeit it unless an exception is approved by a supervisor.

Uniforms, dress and vehicle use: The board considered narrowly tailored dress and safety rules (e.g., long pants and steel-toe footwear when mowing or operating equipment), badges or department shirts for staff doing work on private property, and restricting take-home vehicle use to commuting and approved circumstances (with snow or emergency exceptions).

Travel and training reimbursement: Members favored adopting state board of accounts rates for mileage, per diem and lodging (lodging allowed for events beyond a mileage threshold) and requiring board approval for nonmandatory training travel.

Next steps: The board asked staff to prepare a draft handbook that incorporates the discussed items, to collect cost estimates for time-clock options, and to schedule follow-up conversations with department heads where needed. The draft will be circulated to the board and then sent to counsel for review prior to formal adoption.

Attribution: Comments in the meeting were made by the meeting facilitator (identified in the transcript as the person who circulated the draft materials), multiple board members and department staff including Jason (street department) and Chris (sewer), and Nancy, who was cited as the recordkeeper for service records. Several participants urged clarity on pay and recording procedures for hourly versus salaried positions. Quotations in the record are attributed to the meeting facilitator or referred to generically when a specific speaker could not be reliably determined from the transcript.

The board did not take a formal vote in this session; rather, members agreed on a set of drafting directions and asked staff to return a written draft for additional review and legal vetting.