In an attempt to deal with continuing budget woes, the Marshall County Board of Supervisors is set to consider a resolution Tuesday that would enable full-time county workers to work as few as 32 hours.
"It would be totally voluntary," said Supervisor Pat Brooks. "But if it were a slow time and they had something else they needed to be doing, this would give them that opportunity, as long as all of their work was still getting done."
Brooks envisions allowing workers to take off up to a day each week in unpaid time off. This would allow the worker some flexibility in their schedule to take care of personal and other matters, yet not use vacation time to do it.
The advantage to the county would be that there would be a reduction in payroll expenses, because some county employees would be getting paid less hours.
Marshall County Auditor Karen Squiers said she is unsure of how well the proposal would work in her office. Most of her employees keep busy and most would rather get paid for the hours they signed on to work, she said.
"I don't anticipate it would work very well for the auditor's office," she said. "Our staff is already down compared to what it has been in previous years."
The county has been looking for ways to trim money from the budget, ever since supervisors told department heads last month they needed to cut an additional 2.5 percent. Though the supervisors said cuts were made by looking at "incidentals," at least one department head noted there was some sacrifice made on the part of county employees.
"It wasn't done without any pain," said Deane Adams, currently the Marshall County treasurer who is running for supervisor. "There were some hours cut and I will pay back part of my salary."
Adams also said he did not feel the proposal for voluntary reduction of hours would work well in his office. He said his office already can be very busy, especially on certain days and certain times of the month.
The county recently approved raises for elected officials and other salaries will be finalized before the next fiscal year begins in July.
The county also approved its budget without an increase in the levy rate for county services.
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Contact Ken Black at 641-753-6611 or kblack@timesrepublican.com