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Dear editor,

Don’t want to get too wonky, but this is just another example of poor management of taxpayer dollars. Fed/State Covid lockdown and travel policies created a mess for businesses/governmental entities offering Paid Time Off to their employees. Mind you – not the employee’s fault. Short story, our county administration/board kicked the can down the road to where they are about ready to cut a $450,000 fatty to fix the problem. See 25 Jan agenda paragraph (H) 21. This all could have been avoided, but here’s what administration/board did to make the problem worse – from the 25 Jan board packet:

The significant growth in PTO liability is a function of several factors, most notably, (1) the initial state-wide restrictions that were placed on travel and (2) the fact that the workload needs in a number of areas were such that staff were unable to utilize PTO. To accommodate these factors, we temporarily increased our applicable leave accrual limits. From December 2019 to November 2021, the number of individuals at, or above, our pre-pandemic accrual limits increased by 16.7% and the number of hours of PTO that were transferred through our PTO donation program to those that would otherwise be taking leave without-pay increased by 51% of the previous year.

I am a State of Wisconsin employee. We don’t have this problem. Imagine if we did – the bailout would be in the millions. We either use our PTO or lose it. We can carryover 40 hours at the end of the year – if we have more, we don’t get cut a check – we lose it. 

If you think our money should have been handled better, please contact your County Board Supervisor or the Administrator. Better yet, show up for public comment at the 25 Jan 2022 board meeting and ask for an explanation. Also, think about your friends and family who never had the option of using PTO to take care of Covid issues – most simply lost their jobs or took unpaid time off.

Dave Dailey     

Candidate 

District 21 Marathon County Board of Supervisors