He said hadn’t talked with the board about the issue since it came up at the Nov. 23 meeting. At that meeting, it was noted that Kincaid had 688 hours of vacation time. The county’s employee manual allows just 240 accrued hours.
Kincaid said he couldn’t get an answer when he asked if he would be on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
Board member Hoss Dannehl of Riverdale said Nov. 23 that the board had discussed the issue with Kincaid since 2008, but little had been done to remedy the problem.
http://omaha.com/article/20101215/NEWS01/712169832/0#buffalo-co-weed-chief-fired
KEARNEY, Neb. — Longtime Buffalo County Weed Superintendent Dick Kincaid was fired Tuesday.
Board Chairman Dick Pierce referred to a discussion at the Nov. 23 meeting about vacation time Kincaid had accrued and asked whether there was additional discussion on the issue.
Board member Tim Loewenstein of Kearney moved to fire Kincaid immediately, and the firing was approved on a 6-1 vote.
Ivan Klein of Gibbon, who heads the board’s Weed Committee, was the only member to vote against the firing.
“I think this is a little bit too severe myself,” Klein said. “I think it’s going to hurt the Weed Department, not only putting an individual, taking him out because he’s worked 30-some years for the county and he’s put in a lot of extra hours of his own time. It was just this last year we agreed to let him have some extra help out there so he could back off on this stuff. I guess I don’t like the way this is being done.”
Kincaid said he was blindsided by the decision.
He said hadn’t talked with the board about the issue since it came up at the Nov. 23 meeting. At that meeting, it was noted that Kincaid had 688 hours of vacation time. The county’s employee manual allows just 240 accrued hours.
Kincaid said he couldn’t get an answer when he asked if he would be on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
Board member Hoss Dannehl of Riverdale said Nov. 23 that the board had discussed the issue with Kincaid since 2008, but little had been done to remedy the problem.
“He’s been accumulating more, rather than doing as he agreed to do, which was to reduce them,” Dannehl said of the vacation hours.
Kincaid replied at that November meeting that he had accumulated so much vacation time because his staff is too small and inexperienced to leave for a long period of time.
Board member Sherry Morrow said much of the time was accrued prior to approval of the new employee manual in 2008. There previously was no limit on accumulated vacation hours.
She said then the county couldn’t take away Kincaid’s time but could force him to use it.
County Attorney Shawn Eatherton said the county is obligated to pay Kincaid for the unused vacation hours, but didn’t know how much that would be.
Options for Kincaid to use up the time were discussed Nov. 23, but the issue was tabled until Tuesday.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Kincaid said he’d worked half-days since Dec. 1 while he waited for the board to make a decision about the next steps to be taken. “Apparently, they reached a decision on their own,” he said.
Kincaid had worked for the Buffalo County Weed Department for nearly 32 years, with more than 23 years as superintendent.
Loewenstein declined to comment further on the reasons for Kincaid’s termination or any amount the county might owe him.
This is terrible, something so trivial as extra vacation hours. The county and the individual hasn’t worked to remedy this issue, He has been working on it since the discussion