By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

Twenty years.
It is an important number if you’re a Columbus County employee looking forward to health insurance benefits after retirement.

Under current employee policies (adopted last year), 20 years of service makes an employee eligible for health insurance paid by the county until age 65. At age 65 the county pays a Medicare supplement.

A recommendation given to commissioners recently would add an age requirement of 55 for those wishing to retire with full benefits after 20 consecutive years of service to Columbus County.

At age 50 an employee would be eligible for retirement health benefits only after 30 years of contributions to the N.C. local government retirement system (with the last 20 consecutive years with the county).

Neighboring county policies vary. While the new policy would be similar to Robeson County’s 20 years of service for medical benefits at 50 and 30 years of service for medical benefits at 55, Brunswick County’s policy is far more generous, offering medical benefits after only 10 years of service.

Employees who retire through disability after just five years of service to the county are now entitled to health insurance benefits at the county’s cost. Commissioners are considering eliminating that provision but giving retirees the option of continuing to pay for and keep medical coverage for a spouse or dependants.

Just a month after the county adopted the new policies in 2006, personnel director Virginia Taylor requested several changes to the policy.

Taylor told the board on-call policies required any employee who carried a communication device be reimbursed with one hour of pay per day regardless of whether they were called out or not. Taylor said it could be costly.

Wednesday the county finance office said they could not determine how much the policy was costing the county and that individual department heads would have to be contacted to determine the extra cost.

Though Taylor requested the change more than a year ago the policy has yet to be changed.

The new recommendation is that those employees who work more than 40 hours who are scheduled to be on call be given compensatory time of one and half hours for every hour worked over 40 hours. The compensatory time must be taken within 60 days.

Employees must now use sick time for funeral leave. Under the new policy employees would have up to three days of funeral leave for a death in the employee’s immediate family. Leave to attend funerals other than immediate family may be granted by a department head and deducted from vacation leave under the policy proposed.

At the request of a personnel committee comprised of department heads selected by the county manager, other recommend changes such as more vacation time are up for the board’s consideration.

Under the plan now in place, employees are eligible for 10 to 21 days of vacation per year, depending on the employee’s years of service. Employees with less than two years of service get 10 days paid vacation. An employee of 15 or more years gets 21 days of vacation.

Under the proposed plan employees would be eligible for 12 to 25.88 days of paid vacation each year, depending on the years of service.

Those with less than two years of service would get 12 days of paid vacation.

Employees with 15 but less than 20 years would get 22.4 days and employees with 20 years or more would be entitled to 25.2 days of vacation per year.

Employees would continue to be eligible for 12 days of sick leave and 14 hours of petty leave each year. Under proposed changes any employee could get the permission of a department head or supervisor to take petty leave.

Under the current policy employees may use 15-minute break periods toward their lunch period. Under the suggested policy employees would first be required to get their supervisor or department head’s approval.

Work related travel before or after regular working hours is considered as hours worked under the current policy. Staff is recommending it not be considered as hours worked.

Under hiring procedures the county will no longer be required to publish job vacancies in local newspapers for a minimum of seven days. Instead the county would publish “in a newspaper of general circulation” at least once a week for two weeks or in a regional or statewide newspaper as deemed appropriate by the human resources department.

The benefits and policies up for change were part a 153-page policy manual adopted by the board of commissioners in September 2006. The policy, not made public until adopted, resulted in unprecedented public outcry over benefits that were included for commissioners leaving the board.

In October 2006, commissioners amended the policy that the county pays for a portion to all of commissioners’ health insurance after they go off the board. Under the changed policy, board members have the opportunity to stay on the group health insurance plan if they pay for it themselves. It’s an option not available to county employees, regardless of their years of service.

Under the plan a commissioner who has served on the board for four years can keep his health insurance if he pays for it but an employee with 19 years of services, for example, cannot.

Suggested changes may be discussed at the Nov. 19 commissioners meeting but interim County Manager Leo Hunt said Wednesday that he is going to ask that the board hold off discussing the recommended changes because he will be unable to attend Monday’s meeting for medical reasons. Hunt said he wanted to be involved in the discussion.