AAC
LITIGATION LESSONS
Updated AACRMF model county personnel policy released
W
hen I joined the Association of Arkansas Counclasses announced in the future. ties (AAC) as a litigation attorney for the Risk • Anti-Harassment Policy (3D): Management Fund (RMF) in summer 2017, More robust to emphasize that we did not have a full litigation caseload for counties will not tolerate harassme to attack on day one. I quickly discovered that AACRMF and ment, and harassment should the Rainwater Holt and Sexton law firm agreed the AACRMF be promptly reported so it can Colin Jorgensen Risk Management Model County Personnel Policy was in need of a comprehenbe addressed. Litigation Counsel sive review and update. This sort of project takes a considerable • Genetic Information Nondisamount of time — each topic in a personnel policy requires recrimination Policy (3F): New; search and thoughtful crafting of language. required by law. After I completed a first draft, I sent the draft to Mike Rainwater • Political Activity (3H): New; Arkansas law prohiband his team at the Rainwater firm. We updated some more. AAC its political activity by government employees during Executive Director Chris Villines and I sat down with Rainwater work time. This is important to note both to ensure for several hours and combed through every section of the updated the county will not be accused of promoting or allowpolicy. We updated some more. I chased down a few final sources, ing political activity on the clock and to alert employand we updated some more. Finally, in October 2017, we arrived at ees about the prohibition. a new model policy that was updated to address changes in the law • Social Media Policy (3I): New; not required by law but and emerging employment a helpful policy in the trends, while retaining the age of social media, to basic outline of the former make clear that emn October 2017, we arrived at a new model policy for ease of transition ployees should refrain and practice. Most imporfrom improper conpolicy that was updated to address changes in tantly, everybody agreed the duct on the internet. new model policy was ready • Freedom of the law and emerging employment trends, while for release. Information Act I spoke about the new (3J): New; not reretaining the basic outline of hte former policy for policy and provided copquired by law but ies to the county judges at helpful to assist with ease of transition and practice. Lake DeGray in October. I FOIA compliance. spoke about the policy and • C o u n t y provided copies to county Property (3K): New; officials at the Human Resources Seminar held at the AAC in standard language addressing employer property. December. I cannot begin to estimate the number of phone calls • Background Investigations (4D): New; background and emails I have received from county officials with intelligent checks are not required, but if a county wishes to questions and comments as counties have commenced updatconduct background checks, we recommend limiting ing their personnel policies. Please keep the inquiries coming. them to certain positions, including governing lanAnd let me know if you’d like an electronic copy of the policy; guage in the county personnel policy, and adhering to I can even send it to you in Microsoft Word format for ease of the policy to ensure equal treatment. plagiarism. My email address is cjorgensen@arcounties.org. • Drug-Free and Alcohol-Free Workplace Policy Below is a summary of the major changes in the updated (4E): Updated to comply with federal testing reguAACRMF Model County Personnel Policy, as compared to the lations and state laws such as the Arkansas Medical prior version of the model policy circulated among the counties Marijuana Amendment. for years. Topics not addressed below are substantively similar • Employee Classifications, Compensation, and Atto the prior model policy. tendance (5A-C): New sections outlining standard language for counties about topics typically ad• Equal Employment Opportunity (3C): Expanded dressed in personnel policies — counties should feel to include new protected classes required by law and free to adjust details about office hours, pay periods, language automatically incorporating any protected and the like.
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COUNTY LINES, WINTER 2018
