Once every quarter the Cannon County Commissioners meet on Saturday mornings. This past Saturday was the final quarter meeting of the year and instead of meeting on Tuesdays every month, the Cannon County Commissioners decided to move their monthly meetings to Thursdays beginning in November and keep the meetings that fall on the quarterly months to Saturdays the same as it now. County Executive Mike Gannon returns to the chairman of the commission seat after being voted in by 6 commissioners. Those six who voted for Gannon were Todd Hollandsworth, Mark Barker, Karen Ashford, Jamie Holloway, Glenn Steakley and Adam Melton. Commissioners Russell Reed and Richie Hunter voted for Mark Barker to remain as chairman while Jim Bush got two commissioner votes for Chairman which were that of Brent Bush and himself. Mark Barker was elected by his fellow commissioners as chairman pro tem. The meeting got started with Commissioner Jim Bush stating that the County needs to bid on all insurance and fuel for all equipment. He suggested that the commissioners look into enforcing the utilization of county equipment only for county business. Bush also said that the County Policy concerning sick and vacation days as it is presently written is vague and needs to be re-evaluated and re-written. Shirley Young a former worker at the County Trustee’s office was in the audience and she was called upon to explain her situation. She stated that she had accumulated sick days and it was her understanding that she would be paid for those days after leaving her job. Commissioner Jim Bush made a motion to pay Ms. Young for the accumulative sick days but the motion failed for a second. Bush made the motion based on the fact that Ms. Young was told that she would the sick pay for the unused sick days. Upon further investigation by County Executive Mike Gannon it was discovered that no county employee has ever been paid for unused sick days. However sick days roll over into eligible employees retirement pay. Gannon said he had no problem paying Ms. Young for unused sick time. Something that needed to be thought about since no one else got sick time pay was the fact that former employees would be coming back expecting their unused sick time too. But with the motion failing for lack of a second, a motion was made for Gannon to look into seeing if Ms. Young can add those sick days to roll over into retirement and if she can, she can get paid through that. That motion was seconded and passed. Other items on the agenda that were addressed included. The Commissioners passed the budget amendments for the Sheriff’s Department and the Highway Department. The Commissioners gave approval for the Mooretown Fire Department to section off some of the property of the Fire Department for a Fire Auxiliary Building. The funding of the building will be done through fundraisers throughout the year.
