The Lampasas County Commissioners Court will consider tightening limits on the amount of paid time an employee may draw from the county’s sick leave pool.

Sick leave pool policies limit an employee’s paid time to one-third of the hours in the pool or 90 days, whichever is less. An amendment approved in 2008, however, allows employees to request payments from the sick leave pool for longer than those amounts.

Commissioners, along with County Auditor Jack Clark, said the policy should be amended to require Commissioners Court approval for extensions. They also said once an employee begins drawing from the sick leave pool, the worker should not be allowed to use holiday pay, vacation time or sick time. Such use of accrued time, Clark said, can stretch an employee’s use of the sick leave pool beyond the one-third or 90- day thresholds.

“That could jeopardize the number of hours available for other people who might need the hours in the sick pool,” the county auditor said. “It would be very easy for one person to use all the time.”

Clark noted that the sick leave pool, which employees can join by voluntarily donating at least 16 of their paid hours, was created to assist multiple ill workers -- not just a few employees with extended sicknesses.

The Family Medical Leave Act, Clark added, requires the county to continue providing health insurance and to leave a staff member’s position open for 12 weeks if an illness keeps the employee from working. The 12-week period -- during which the county is not required to pay a salary, Clark said -- begins after the employee has exhausted the time that can be drawn from the sick leave pool.

If an employee cannot resume work after 12 weeks, the person for 18 months can pay to continue receiving the health benefits the worker had when employed, Clark said. Commissioners will consider changing sick pool leave policies at its Jan. 11 meeting.

In other business, commissioners voted 5-0 to advertise for bids for furnishings and fixtures for the Lampasas County Office Building and the new annex building under construction on Pecan Street. Commissioners will consider awarding bids during their Jan. 25 meeting.

Clark noted that because of a change order in the construction project, walls in the new annex will be painted instead of being covered with wallpaper. Painted walls require less maintenance than those with wallpaper, Clark said.

Also at the recent meeting, Commissioners Court voted 5-0 to approve Precinct 3 Commissioner Lowell Ivey as Lampasas County representative on the Central Texas Council of Governments’ Executive Committee Board. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack B. Cox is the alternate.

In another item, Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Vincent noted that two of his constituents phoned him to say they do not support charging Cedar Creek subdivision residents a fee to raise funds for road repairs in the neighborhood. At a previous Commissioners Court meeting, Vincent asked for property owners to comment about a possible street assessment, as Vincent said the county does not have enough road and bridge funds to apply hot-mix on roads in the subdivision off Farm-to-Market Road 2657.