BETHEL — The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted Monday evening to approve waivers for three town employees who have accrued vacation time.
Town Manager Christine Landes told the board that the town’s personnel policy allows employees to accumulate a maximum of 240 hours of vacation time.
“The employees are allowed a ‘once-in-10-year’ (cash) payout of their vacation time,” Landes added.
She said one employee has accumulated 122 hours of unused vacation time, another has accumulated 93 hours and the third has accumulated 28 hours.
“Out of those three employees, one has already had their ‘once-in-10-year’ payout,” Landes said. “The other two have not.
“I’m asking the board to approve a waiver to allow them to use the time up by Dec. 31, 2015. After that, I’ll send a memo to all town employees letting them know that this is a one-and-only-time waiver, and to not let the hours accumulate like that again.”
Selectman Peter Southam said, “Just to make sure I’m understanding this correctly: Some town employees are not taking enough of their vacation time?”
“That’s correct,” Landes said. “I’ve spoken to two of the three employees and told them to start using their time. There’s only one month left this fiscal year, so there’s no way they’ll be able to have four weeks off by then.”
In other business, Landes told the Board of Selectmen that boulders were placed at Veterans Park on Main Street to help “avoid parking issues.”
“This past weekend, there was an overflow of restaurant parking and a lot of cars parked at the Veterans Park,” Landes said. “A complaint was filed, so we put some boulders there to fix the problem.”
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