By Jim Hardin
Herald-Banner Staff
Rockwall County commissioners kicked off the new year Tuesday with a 1 1/2-hour executive session dealing with employee medical leave guidelines.
According to departmental correspondence written by County Treasurer Bill Sinclair, general guidelines state that an employee with less than 10 years of service may be granted two weeks (80 hours) of unpaid leave. Commissioners have approved that these leave hours may be applied to their actual work hours to maintain them as a full-time employee until the hours have been used.
Sinclair’s correspondence stated that combining the planned 20 hours of time worked with 20 hours of unpaid leave would mean an employee could remain on full-time status for four weeks from the start of their return to work. At that time, if an employee’s physician required that an employee would continue to work a limited schedule, the county would have to assess the situation.
After the executive session, Commissioner Jerry Wimpee made a motion that the county medical leave guidelines be modified to allow the available leave hours to be applied to hours worked so that the combination equates to 40 hours per week in the case of a full-time employee returning to work under physician’s direction to work limited hours.
