At last night’s Knox County Finance Committee meeting the sore subject of the time clock issues were brought up and discussed at length.
Adopting an electronic form of record keeping for monitoring county employees working hours has been highly controversial to members of the board, and several departments.
Knox County Board Chairwoman Pam Davidson informed the committee of a letter she received regarding a handful of county offices leaving early on November 22nd – which apparently was not an approved holiday.
“The following offices were closed early: the State’s Attorney, the Public Defender, the Judge Chambers, the Veteran’s Assistance. Employees in the above named (were) allowed to go home early for that day – some (as) early as 1 o’clock.
According to county Treasurer Robin Davis, benefit time was not used in this instance and she says auditors have informed the board that electronic record keeping is needed to properly track benefit time.
She added that the Affordable Care Act mandates accurate record keeping – adding that the county was fined $700,000 in 2015 for inaccurate records. She told the committee that the fine was being waived.
There was a second related issue brought up last night that was also discussed previously at the Sheriff-Jail-Courthouse-Mary Davis Home committee meeting. The issue was relating to a former employee being paid for several pay periods following the end of their career with the Mary Davis Home.
Davis informed the board that the she has been working to get the money back to the county. For tax reasons, the money needed to be returned to the county by the end of the year.
“All I can say about this.. it just emphasizes the importance of accountability and transparency. Because this has been going on for 45 days now, and now I’m down to the wire to get this money back. And I got to tell you, even the administrator at the Mary Davis Home agreed.”
Board member Bob Bondi asked Davis if a time clock had been in place would the issues have happened. Davis’ response was “It would not.”
Davis said by her calculations the county is short about 20 hours – or about $340 from the former employee.
