News Photo by Julie Goldberg The Montmorency County Board of Commissioners discusses employee procedures during its meeting on Wednesday.

ATLANTA — Employee procedures were discussed at Wednesday’s Montmorency County Board of Commissioners meeting after the courthouse was closed on April 16 due to the snowstorm that hit the region.

The board approved pay for full-time nonunion personnel on the day the courthouse was closed.

Another motion was made by Commissioner Stacy Carroll that the part-time people who were scheduled to work on April 16 get paid. That motion was approved unanimously.

“If they were scheduled to work, they should be paid, but if they were scheduled to work and then they ended up picking up an extra day, then no,” Carroll said.

Part-time employees are only allowed to work 27 hours a week.

It was also discussed about employees working after hours or working on weekends, which has been discussed before.

“It’s not safe for somebody to be in this courthouse after hours,” Carroll said. “Our business hours are 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The only exception to that is if there’s probate in the prosecutor’s office or if there’s an emergency type proceeding that has to happen, then those people can be in this building and should be in this building.”

There are special circumstances where employees would have to stay after hours to work. For elections, the clerk’s office would work later or during tax time, the treasurer’s office would have to work later.

“For people to work on a Saturday, there’s no reason to do it in my opinion,” Carroll said. “If something has to happen, I think it should be brought to the board and the board should make a decision before it happens to either approve it or don’t. It’s a safety thing.”

A way to let employees know if the courthouse is closed was also discussed since some employees were not contacted about the courthouse being closed on April 16. The security committee will discuss it with I.T. Right (remote control support) about how to make that available for county employees.

It was also brought up that there should be a way for department heads to have access to their computers or the services if they are not in the building.

“Currently, that is not available,” Carroll said. “This would give them the availability to access information if needed. It’s not going to be an everyday thing.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached via email at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.