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Judge asking county for increased court employee benefits

HARRISVILLE — The Alcona County Board of Commissioners moved a request for increased benefits to court employees to the county finance and personnel committee during a meeting held Wednesday.

This was after a letter outlining the requests was submitted to the county by Alcona County Presiding Judge Laura Frawley.

According to the letter dated Jan. 12, Frawley was requesting that increased paid time off benefits be given to part-time court employees who are scheduled for more than 28 hours of work a week.

“They are here 80 percent of the time that other employees are scheduled but do not receive any benefit when offices are closed for holidays and they are unable to work,” she stated in the letter.

She requested a policy change where those workers receive the same time-off benefits as part-time employees in the union with similar hours.

She said like the union employees, the non-union employees should get eight days of vacation, 5.6 hours of sick leave each month and paid holidays off.

“Providing this benefit to employees does not increase the overall budget of a department and provides part-time employees with a measure of gratitude and appreciation for their work,” she wrote.

Other topics of the letter included amending the court budget to reflect changes made by the county and increasing the salary of a low-paid employee of the court system.

Court Administrator Alysa Pichler was present at the meeting when the letter was presented in board packets to the commissioners, but they did not take action on the request and the matter was not discussed with her.

Board Chairman Craig Johnston said the council would not take action on the matter during the meeting.

“We are going to send that to personnel and finance to see how they can proceed with that,” he said. “It’s a little more complicated than us hashing it out here.”

In other business, the board voted unanimously to transfer $29,000 into an account so Technology Director John Hartley can purchase new BS&A financial software for the county.

Under the purchase agreement the company will train county employees on the software, as well. The the total cost of the software is $54,000 with the first payment being $29,000.

Jason Ogden can be reached via email at jogden@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Jason on Twitter @jo_alpenanews. Read his blog, Sunny side up, with Jason at www.thealpenanews.com.

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