The work session began on time without Commissioner Samuel Tran or Mika Milburn-Kee present.
Tran came in while Commissioner David Beerbower was reading the introduction of the resolution aloud.
“The purpose of this resolution is to restore employees’ years of service for vacation and sick leave to their appropriate pre-2026 levels, correcting errors identified during a personnel audit. The resolution further provides updated vacation and sick leave policies that strengthen workforce support, simplify administration and ensure equitable treatment of all full time eligible county employees,” read Beerbower.
Commissioner Gregg Motley pointed out that despite the commission approving pre-2026 numbers for all employee vacation and sick leave, the current payroll clerk is using numbers from Jan. 14, 2026 and needs to be instructed to go back to Dec. 31, 2025.
One change that Beerbower made from the previous versions of the resolution was to remove the vacation time bank. He said that prior to 2026, there was no vacation carryover and that carryover is not a widely practiced policy among other employers. He said that those with carryover vacation at this time will be grandfathered in, but carryover will not happen going forward.
Beerbower said that the Kansas Wage Act calls vacation time earnings and the resolution has the county paying employees for their unused vacation time at the end of the year. County Clerk Susan Walker said that this may cause inflated budget numbers for the 2027.
Beerbower said he tried to keep the policy similar to the historic policies of vacation and sick leave accrual.
He said that the Kansas Wage Act says that if the county frontload vacation, vacation not used by Dec. 31 must be paid as wages. He also mentioned that if county employees were to abuse the system, the solution would be to remove the option of vacation for county employees altogether, since it’s not required by the law.
Sick Leave
Beerbower cut sick leave from 12 days to 10 days in the initial draft of the resolution based on national averages for sick leave.
Motley said he was in favor of less change and advocated for going back to 12 days, as many employees came onto the job with that expectation.
Beerbower asked Tran his opinion.
“It’s your show,” replied Tran.
“It’s not a show. That’s disrespectful,” said Motley.
Beerbower said he would change it back to 12 days of sick leave. Many county officials and department heads in the room thanked him.
The sick leave section had a grandfather clause for all employees hired before Jan. 1, 2026 to keep whatever leave they have already accumulated.
County Attorney James Crux said that the vacation and sick leave scale is very low for his office compared to other counties in the region. He said it’s very difficult to fill positions in his office.
Allen asked what smaller counties in the region offer their county attorneys for leave. Crawford county offers 96 hours of sick leave per year to their attorneys, said Crux.
Motley asked it if could be split for more highly educated hires, such as attorneys.
The EMS director spoke up and shared the leave offered to EMS workers in Miami County.
Beerbower gave a couple of examples of increased vacation leave times to see if it would be possible to get the county into a more competitive position with other employers in the area.
After a 90 day introductory period, new county employees will begin accruing 8 hours of vacation per month with rollover benefits from year to year. Once an employee has been with the county for 2 years, at the beginning of the following fiscal year, accrued leave disappears and vacation days based on the number of years the employee has worked for the count will be front loaded on Jan. 1.
One employee asked how long the resolution would be in effect before it’s voted out, if it was approved. Tran asked why he thought it would be voted out.
The employee cited the turmoil at the commissioners’ table and throughout the courthouse and county as reasons it may be overturned.
“I have no intention of reversing anything,” he said. It would be a bad move for him to make.