Commissioners Approve Additional Pre-Holiday Time Off for County Employees

The Fayette County Commissioners Court voted last week to give County employees some extra time off around the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.

The official 2026 County holiday schedule, which Commissioners approved last October, includes Thanksgiving day and the following Friday, along with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom asked the Court to revisit the schedule at their meeting last Thursday, Jan. 22.

In recent years, McBroom said, some County offices have begun closing for the afternoon on the days before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. In some cases, the department heads have authorized the early closures using paid administrative leave.

“If we’re gonna do this, I want it on the calendar,” Mc-Broom said. “And I’m fine if we don’t. We’re very generous on the holidays. But this is up for discussion if we want to keep doing this. There are a lot of offices that have deadlines. They can’t close. And I just want to try to make it fair for everybody and make it for all the employees. Sometimes, EMS and the Sheriff’s Office are excluded out of this early closure. They don’t get any benefit. The rest of the County does. I’m trying to make it fair, but I’m trying to make people prepare for things because there, like I said, there are deadlines.”

Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff noted that each day of payroll costs the County $48,000.

“It’s a lot of money, and we give a lot of holidays,” Berckenhoff said.

“You get two to four weeks of vacation a year, you get 16 holidays that are paid, and 120 hours of sick time,” McBroom said. “That’s a great benefit for an employee of Fayette County.”

McBroom said problems can arise when an employee takes vacation on a day before a holiday, but then later, their department head closes that day by giving employees administrative leave.

“It throws a kink in the whole thing,” McBroom said. “Like I said, I’m just trying to make it fair for everybody.”

Berckenhoff said the loose policy creates other problems when one department has to work while another department gets paid time off.

“It doesn’t matter what department it is,” Berckenhoff said. “It’s like, ‘They’re off, so why do we have to come to work?’ And they’re getting paid to be off. So that’s how it all trickles down.”

Fayette County Elections Administrator Donna Macik said that in every other job she has worked, administrative leave was used for unforeseen circumstances, such as the icy weather that Fayette County experienced that weekend. However, Pct. 2 Commissioner Clint Sternadel said icy weather would fall under yet another type of leave that is defined in the employee manual.

“That would actually be an emergency closure day,” Sternadel said.

In an interview after the meeting, McBroom said he believes administrative leave should only be used on a caseby- case basis. He gave the following example: “Like when a water pipe busts and an office floods. The employees in that office can’t work, but the whole County doesn’t need to take off.”

During the meeting, Fayette County EMS Director Josh Vandever advised against “micromanaging” the use of administrative leave.

“I use administrative leave when someone goes to our therapist’s office and says that they’re in a bad way, and we just need to give someone a day off,” Vandever said.

“I believe that we should not micromanage every little operation of a County department head,” he added. “But I don’t disagree that the holiday schedule is generous. I worked the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. The holiday schedule is generous. I don’t mind that discussion. I just want to make sure that you guys leave the department heads to the discretion to manage their personnel the way that they need to appropriately.”

“I agree completely,” Mc-Broom said. “And that’s a whole nother discussion down the road. We’ve got to get away from just giving administrative leave because there’s a holiday coming up. I don’t think that’s right. If we’re going to do that, it needs to be on the calendar.”

Pct. 4 Commissioner Drew Brossmann said department heads need to be responsible for their decisions regarding administrative leave.

“If they decide to do something, they’re the ones that have to answer for it,” Brossmann said. “They have to speak on their part. If somebody lets somebody off and gives them administrative leave, well then you need to be questioned. And if they speak up, it’s on them.”

County Auditor Cindy Havelka, whose office handles payroll for the County, suggested either adding time to the holiday schedule or instructing department heads that their employees will need to take vacation or compensatory time if they wish to close an office early before a holiday.

The County’s employee handbook has little to say about what administrative leave actually is. The handbook mentions that administrative leave should be given to employees under investigation following an on-the-job accident that results in property damage or medical treatment. In the section of the handbook covering the various types of leave, under the heading “Administrative Leave,” it only states that, “Department heads or their designees may grant administrative leave on a case by case basis. This leave will be considered physically worked hours and used in determining overtime.”

County Judge Dan Mueller suggested that the Commissioners Court needs to better define administrative leave.

“That would go a long way to solving the whole issue,” Mueller said.

Ultimately, the Court decided to add two half-days to the 2026 holiday schedule, on the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 25, and the day before Christmas Eve, Dec. 23. Sternadel brought the motion, which was seconded by Brossmann. It passed unanimously.