Annual leave cash out memo - approved 12-07-202215 '1,
LEWIS COUNTY
MEMO
Board of County Commissioners
Lewis County Courthouse • 357 NW North Street • Chehalis, WA 98532-7900
TO: Board of County Commissioners (BOCC)
FROM: Erik Martin, County Manager
DATE: December 5, 2022
SUBJECT: Annual Leave Cash -Out Policy
0 360.740.1120
TDD 360.740.1480
bocc@lewiscotintywa.gov
There are several exempt employees in the county that often carry a balance for annual
leave over the 240 max per the employee handbook. Per county policy, if an employee is
over the 240 limit at year end they lose the excess hours unless they submit a request to
their elected or director to carry the balance over into the next year. Many exempt
employees often work over 40 hours a week because of a particular skill set and knowledge
but also to a lack of redundancy in their positions duties. Because of their exempt status,
they are not eligible for overtime and because of their specialized skills they often struggle
with taking extended periods of time off. This has been especially true over the last 3 years.
I am proposing to offer an optional annual leave cash -out policy for 2022, only to exempt
employees with the following criteria:
As of 12/1, if an exempt employee has 200 to 240 hours of annual leave (not over
max), up to 40 hours of leave may be cashed out. If over 240 hours, then up to 80
hours may be cashed out.
At no time may the leave balance for a participant drop below 160 hours due to the
cash out.
The cash out would require the use -it -or -lose it policy to be observed. So if an
employee were in excess of 240 hours, after a cash out they would lose any
remaining hours down to the 240 max.
Erik Martin Sean Swope Lindsey R. Pollock, DVM Scott Brummer Rieva Lester
County blonoyer First District Second District Third District C lerk ofthe Board
This is a one-time only cash out for 2022 due to increased workload over the last 3
years which included Capital Project and Parks emphasis, new and special Public
Works projects (including broadband), ARPA and CARES funded projects and
compliance, and increased law and justice activities directly and indirectly related to
the pandemic, and a general shortage of labor in the marketplace.
I would like to work on a more permanent policy for future years which probably needs
more time to be vetted. We need good practices and policies that will discourage abuse
of this policy. Therefore, I would assume that the use of this policy would DECREASE
over time and not increase based on good management practices.
I have worked with the Auditor's office, the Budget office, and Human Resources on this
policy and there appears to be no issues. A similar benefit is available to some collective
bargaining units currently. It appears that most of the cost of this proposal could be
covered by budget savings due to vacancies but if the board accepts this policy, it
should be prepared to grant some small budget amendments to cover this cost.