SAFFORD — “Right now, we have . . . 34 employees that are set to lose 2,240.5 hours,” said Graham County Manager Dustin Welker.
Twenty percent of the Graham County workforce was going to lose vacation time at the end of the year before Welker and the Board of Supervisors took action.
Under the old policy, employees could carry forward up to 320 unused vacation hours into the subsequent year. Anything over that amount was forfeited.
The board voted unanimously to increase the amount of carry-over vacation time to 370 hours, reducing the number of impacted employees to 20, who are now losing 556.5 hours.
“Sometimes is just easier to let things lay . . . everyone put a lot of thought and time into this to our benefit and to our employees’ benefit,” said Supervisor Danny Smith.
The bulk of the surplus was the result of employees — notably law enforcement — working during holidays. Now instead of accruing vacation time that won’t be used, those employees will be paid time-and-a-half for holiday work.
The change also caps the payout for unused vacation hours to 370 for any employees that separates from the county. And employees can also sell back 40 hours of vacation at the end of the year, as long as the employee has at least 200 hours of vacation time accrued.
