Legislative Committee - Regular Meeting

want everybody home. Yes, sir.

All right. So, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is March 30th at 6:01 p.m. This is the legislative committee. Um going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. We do have a quorum. Um we've taken role. Uh the only member absent is Commissioner Chambers. Um so we do not have a printed agenda. Our um they did not leave our packet. Um so but on the agenda is to review the um sick leave policy that has been forwarded to us by the policy and procedures committee. Um I would like to also make an amendment to the agenda. Uh Commissioner Todd Malone has uh not Todd Malone.

Yeah, it is. That is um I know for some reason I thought it was wrong. Uh but Commissioner Todd Malone had called and asked to be added to the agenda. So, we would put that under new business um um for him to speak about a u a law that he would like to have uh endorsed by the uh county. Um I guess that'd be the correct way to put it. Used yes. Um above and beyond that, can I have a motion to approve our agenda? I'll make the motion. Okay.

I second. Commissioner Dwight with Commissioner Roseanne. Any discussion? All those in favor? I

Okay, we have uh we don't have the amendments. Um those were in the supposed to be in the folder and we don't have those. We'll get that on our next meeting. U Todd, we have no public here except for Commissioner Malone. So, uh, nobody for public comments, no unfinished business. So, we're on a new business, which is the revised sickly policy that was forwarded to us by the policy and procedures. Um, I've handed everybody out a copy of that. um according to the uh boarding form um and I'm going to probably ask Dwight to help a little bit with it since he's on policy and procedures um is that they've revised this um regarding um some verbiage that was in the old policy uh by uh revising um some of the current um that um on this is the actual revisions. The copies you have that have the actual revisions on them. Um, and I'm the way I'm taking it. Some of these are, it's not actually marked. Uh, but in this form, it says the revisions of the current sick leave policy change the first sentence of the policy as stated in the revision, which the first sentence says, um, sick leave shall be considered a benefit and privilege and not a right. Um and then as far as on um where it says sick leave abuse under that um they removed the entire second uh paragraph uh reading of instances and then down to doctor's certificate. The first paragraph, last sentence, changed the wording to uh note the do the department head may require a doctor's certificate after three consecutive days.

Is that how you understand it there, Commissioner Miller? Pretty much. I'm not sure I'm read all this, but uh what ended up happening is we had some people in the uh audience which were employees of the county. Sure.

That uh had some I don't know whether you'd say objections or considerations or whatever from their employees about some of the wording. And it turned out as uh Andy came out and said, this is basically verbarium for uh the policies through uh TAC. Oh, CASS

TAS, I'm sorry. And uh so we made some minor adjustments again and it got changed twice about the wording so that it didn't sound quite so in-your-face type thing. But basically it came back saying uh sick leave is uh a benefit not a right. Sure.

Which is the way it was worded uh anyway from the state. So, and we took a few more things out uh to make sure it cleaned up some other things. We thought we had it done before and then uh took some of the stuff out because uh some of the employees didn't like the wording and so it ended up going back pretty much back to where it was to begin with. Just made the wording sound a little softer.

Gotcha. Okay. And then the the latter part about the doctor's notice and all that. Sure. It really gets down basically to the supervisors. Basically, the elected officials, whoever is going to take care of whatever anyway. Sure. I got you. But it does give them some guidance and some actual teeth to if they choose to enforce enforce this andor uh Yes. But they weren't required to do that. I got you.

Could you explain what the difference is of the old policy and the way it is now?

I don't have the old one in front of me. I probably should have brought it, but it really ended up it went back and forth a couple of times and had two meetings actually to get around to where it is now to try to make everybody uh think it was the best policy. But, uh, it was basically real similar to the old policy. It just cleaned up some of the terms and got rid of some of the requirements that couldn't be enforced anyway. So, like what the reason I'm asking is because I've had a lot of count employees that don't like the sick leave policy. I mean, they said if you're sick, you're sick. You shouldn't have to go to the doctor and get a doctor's note.

I don't think it requires that now. Well, I thought I read it here. No, it says May. No, it says May. May. It just it used to say it used to say shall I do know that parts used to say shall so now it's May for three days and there again it's up to the supervisor to decide is this person abusing this or not and if they are they have a chance to address it but if you've got sick time can't you use it not as vacation it it's never been what allowed or defined really for that purpose What if you claim you're sick though? You can do whatever you want and probably can get by with it. Okay,

nobody's probably going to be able to enforce it. But if it does get down to the point where your supervisor, who may be an elected official or whatever, decides you're abusing it, they can do something about it. That's why it says may. And that's why instead of sh it's reiterated that it's a benefit and not a right. That's how I've read it. I've watched the meetings. So,

did that answer or not? Well, I don't know. Since Frank works for the county, what does the deputies have they talked about it or is it I just don't want to put them restrict them if they're sick because there's one company in town that I know if you miss a day you lose points. You miss so many days you get fired. I mean, I I would like to say that typically we have not had probably in my tenure a handful that have had that's really been abusing sick time.

Um, typically most of them do. I mean, they're out one or two days, they come back, no big deal. Uh, typically if they're out more than three, they're going to the doctor anyway, so they bring back a note. And most places are like that. If you're out three days, they figure you should have gone to a doctor probably. So I wait five then I always get better. I understand the next day.

But there are if you're not government, there are a lot of employers who do three year days, you got to bring a a doctor's note. That's not hard to get. No, unless you just don't want to go to the doctor because some people just think they're going to get better when they stay home. Yeah. But fortunately, they've also got uh insurance. So, how much how much sick time does a county employee get now? 3.69. It's unpaid 19. Is it 3.69? I know that's what we get.

We talked about it back and forth. Sick leave. That's what it says. 3.69 for a 40hour week. Uh, per bi-weekly pay. Oh, yeah. So, 3.46 for those that are 37 and a half weeks, 3.69 for 40hour work week. Yeah. 3.69 for Yeah.

hour work week. So they get pretty close to a day every pay period if that's I'm reading that right. That doesn't sound right but well they don't say hour. Well it says 3.69 69 for a 40hour week work week number of hours and that takes care of the difference between 37 and a2 hours and whatever and 40 hours

which I've never completely understood where the difference is between the people but two and a half hours yeah it was set up some time ago I don't know why they're not all 40 myself. What about unused sick time? Unused sick time. Anybody who And you can sell it back or how do you know? No, you can't. Um, no. Anybody hired after July 1 of 2014 is um is uh compensated for based on the criteria on page which technically it's our second page, but it's 20. uh they get five years is 25% that they get

vested. They get vested. They get paid out 25% of their time. Six is 30, 7 is 35, 84, 9, 45, and 1050, which is the max. Anybody prior to that TCRS is kicked in, they don't get compensated back. They get it rolled into their TCRS for years of service. Anybody on TCRs is on a better deal anyway? Exactly.

So I just want to be clear before I make my mind up. Where does it say May? We was talking about last page. It's the very last page. Last 21 doctor certificate 21 under doctor certificate highlighted. It says department head may require a certificate after three consecutive days. It used to say will it used to say will require a okay or shall or whatever. Yeah, it was but yeah it was that was one of the things softening.

So it actually I mean you you don't have to have one if it just says whenever possible an employee should but don't say you have to. Right. Let's back that to discussion that uh nobody's forcing you to go to a doctor, but you probably should be going anyway if you've got insurance. Okay,

why not? There were some people that came to the committee basically that said they knew they had some employees that abused and they didn't want to make it so soft that they couldn't address it. Okay. Any other discussion or questions?

No, I don't have any. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to forward it to the county legislative body for for passing in the CLB. I'll make that motion. I'll second. We worked on it pretty hard. Like I said, we made two two different meetings trying to clean it up and let everybody have their say about what they thought. Do you feel good about this? You asking me? Yes. Okay. I think I think it's very reasonable and fair. Okay. Like I said, if you were a private business, it'd be probably a lot

stiffer. Stiffer be the easiest way to say it. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Any other further discussion? All in favor? All right, motion passes. If you would go ahead and I guess we'll forward it to the

commission. Um, next on the agenda is again, um, Commissioner Todd Malone wanted to, uh, talk with us regarding a, I guess you could say either, uh, sponsoring, endorsing a proposed, uh, piece of state legislation that, um, I know from talking to him that he has talked to our state representative, Rush Bricken, about. Um, so your mic on? It is.

Okay, the floor is yours, sir. So, uh, the handout you have in front of you is a copy of a Florida law that was enacted in January of 25. It's kind of nicknamed the Halo Law, but essentially in a nutshell, what it does is it it was in response to protesters that were um and self-appointed civil rights leaders who were getting in the way of law enforcement and fire and EMS trying to render aid in a situation they were called to. And so, um, they were getting in the way of and impeding their ability to render that aid. And so in an effort to keep people out of a situation that had nothing to do with that situation, they were just observers trying to, you know, film it and everything else. Um, Florida enacted the Halo Law, which is essentially creates a 25- foot, uh, buffer around the operational area anywhere where first responders are handling a situation. First responders being fire, EMS, or law enforcement. It requires it's a misdemeanor violation, but it requires the officer to issue a warning or the first responder to issue a warning to the person that is um you know getting in the way of of the operation and they have to issue them the warning to step back. Now, this doesn't include witnesses, potential witnesses to whatever the situation may be, a potential victim or suspect. If someone has something to do with the situation, this does not apply to them. This just simply applies to observers. Um, and so they have to give them a warning first and if they violate that warning, it's a misdemeanor offense. And so it's very simple legislation. It's not even two pages long. You can see it's just a page

and a half. Um, but anyway, after seeing what I see, you know, a lot of what our first responders have to put up with these days, I personally would like to see uh Tennessee enact a similar law. I'm using just this as an as kind of a go by. Um, but I would like to see um this body uh look into this and then get with our state representatives and uh encourage them to pursue something similar. And it's pretty just as simple as that. Um, having just started this endeavor, I don't really know if this is the if I'm using the proper procedure, but I figured, hey, the legislative committee sounds like a good place to start. So, I figured I would throw this out there for y'all's consideration. So, I guess what you're asking, if we decide we think this is a good idea, we will forward it on to the commission who will send a letter or whatever to uh request a letter whatever to Rush Bricken or somebody

Rush Brick Bricken, Janice Bowling, maybe the governor, whoever. as far as we could take it. That's what we did in the past. If you don't do all three, you might leave something out. Okay. Yeah, that I would like to see that, but and you probably don't know the answer anyway, but it's probably not in a situation that they've roped the place off already. It's just somebody standing 25 foot away. Right. Right. And or maybe getting a little too too close. And of course that's preceded by a warning. Yeah.

Um just because someone wanders within a 25 foot radius of a thing that's going on and it's just we see it all the time. Curiosity or whatever. I need you to step back unless you've got something to do with this particular situation. Of course, I'm mimicking what an officer may tell. Um, and it isn't until after that warning that the person still chooses to come within that 25 foot barrier. And I mean, let's be honest here, it's also meant to address the harassment that's going on with our first responders currently in the nation. And I think this kind of gets ahead of the situation. It's not as bad in Tennessee as maybe in other places. Um, but

not yet. Yeah, not yet. Uh, and this would be something that would kind of preempt that.

It's difficult to do your job when you've got people with their cell phones up in your face yelling at you and, you know, asking for your badge number and screaming at you and everything while you're trying to handle a potentially violent situation. And now you've got to worry about someone who's already within what law enforcement officers call a reactionary gap. You know, you've got people that have nothing to do with a situation all around you when you're dealing with a violent suspect or, you know, a a victim that's distraught and you've got someone that has no business being there all up in their face. This is designed to prevent that. Any questions or anything? So would this just be for Coffee County?

No, I would like to see I would like to see I would like to see the whole state like the county commission to endorse this. Right. Okay. Right. So try to get the official ball rolling. Okay. Starting now. And if it make a state law, it covers Kof County. Correct. Yeah. So that's that's my desire to see that happen. Any other questions? Have I gone through the right channel? I'm not sure, but it sounds good. I don't know, but it sounds good. Yeah.

I don't know if this is actually the place to start or I mean, you could have probably started at any one of the committees as far as you could have started in law enforcement or right ended in law enforcement and start because it's a law or whatever. So because it's a law, it involves legislation. I'm like, well, a legislative committee seems like a good place to start with that. Wherever it goes to the full body anyways, right? Right. And we can propose it to the the law enforcement committee as well. I'm on that, too. There's on that, too. Oh, well then we got it.

All right. Well, feel free to review it and if you got any other questions, um there's a lot of uh references online to the good, bad, and the ugly. Um, of course, there's good and bad to everything or potential concerns, I would rather say. Um, one of the concerns is a violation of a person's first amendment right to free speech. The key answer to that is they're free to speak, speak 25 feet beyond. It's that physical presence close to that officer that diverts their attention or EMS or fire that diverts their attention to the reason they're there. Now, they've got to pay attention to someone who's basically in their space and deal with the situation. So, they can speak and record and make comments all they want. So, it's not really a violation of that. That's the only concerns that have ever been brought up about it. And we're only a year into this. So,

and Frank would probably know better than anybody what about freedom of press because I remember one time I was on an accident scene and the newspaper guy come right up to the car and was taking pictures of the dead guy in the car. Sure. Yeah. And I tried to throw him out and I got trouble for it because they said he's got every right to be there. Sure. So, what I know we've had that occasion before and I mean this will take care of that. I know once even back then I know once we did that if we set up a perimeter then that was our scene. They nobody got in or out period. Um as far what about that initial response of that?

Now have we had like Tim said have we had some of them that beat us to the call? That point you're kind of out of you can't really do anything to it because they're there before you are right. Um, I mean, I've had to run some uh media out before on some crime scenes that they tried to find back ways and stuff to get those kind of call, you know, pictures and, you know, not appropriate

by no means, but, you know, that's where you just have to be more a little bit more savvy than they are to find to close off those gaps that may be into your crime scene. U, but I know you sometimes can't think of all of them. I think this one is designed specifically for those active violent situations where um especially the the high emotional situations where an officer is in the middle of dealing with someone that may be in mental distress and they're focused and fire and EMS are also focused on

trying to deescalate this guy. And at the same time, you've got all these onlookers who are getting all up into the scene and have no business being there. It it actually creates a problem. Do you know what the stage is in the state legislature when they're wanting to act on this? Florida's already enacted it and several arrests have already been made. Yeah. I'm wondering about Tennessee and but as far as Tennessee goes, there's no proposal or this would be the beginning of that. proposal. So there's nothing being dis considered right now. No, that's what I want to get started. Okay. Through this through us. I thought maybe Rush had already started something.

I've talked to him a little bit about it, but Okay. Now, to give him credit, it's only been I only talked to him about it a couple weeks ago. So, I think they are there. They're in session now, aren't they? I started to say, have they already passed? No, they're in the time when they do new bills. This would have to be ne I think so. This would have to be the next session. Yeah, I think so.

But if we could get it started now and then, you know, get it everybody on board statewide um then maybe it starts here. I think uh to me I think a recommendation would be before we do anything is maybe forward this to our county attorney um since this is a relatively new law in Florida uh to maybe have him research to see what constitutional challenges have been brought up. Tried to find them before I came in tonight and I haven't seen any constitutional challenges yet.

Sure. Why don't we go through our mayor and since he goes makes all the contacts typically for the attorney and uh get started there because I mean I would like to see if there has I'm sure there is but any valid ones um maybe have been raised or anything that may u have some caution or some different verbiage that may I say may be able to we don't have to copy this verbatim. This is a go by if we have additional uh concerns or

I I think before we would want to endorse anything, we would want to have some language in front of us to say what we are finalizingly endorsing. Um apparently we have time. Oh yeah, because we can't make the sure legislator right now anyway.

Sure. But yeah, I mean, if anything, I would think if if anything, maybe go ahead and forward this to our county attorney and have him start looking into it on our end. Um, just to see if there's any kind of constitutional challenges that have already been raised in Florida to see how that would go. Um, and see where those are since it is a relatively new law. I'm sure there's probably been some raised um whether or not they're valid or not.

There always there'll always be a constitution. always be raised. I mean, anytime you start messing with anyone's, you know, constitutional rights, ever how they see see it, um whether it's, hey, you know, you can still do what you can do under your rights, just not right here in my space, but over there, there's going to be an argument about, well, it doesn't say that. It says that I can do it anywhere and I want to do it right there. Well, one's person's constitutional rights where another one's begins.

Uh, and that's true. Um, but there again, I I would like to my my personal opinion, I would like to see it. Um, I I do think it's a it's a good law. I do think there needs to be something out there. Um, but I would think maybe forwarding this to through the county mayor to the attorney or straight to the attorney and have him start doing some research on it. Like Dwight said, We I mean we've got some time. Sounds good. So, well, I appreciate y'all's time. When you set up tapes around uh scene, whatever, you already have a right, don't you, to keep people out of there.

Yes. Once I go and establish that scene, I put that up. That's our probably doesn't make a big difference, but I'm not against it. So, this is designed for that initial scene where the initial officer responds or initial group of officers or firefighters and they're still trying to get a handle on controlling an active scene. Tape is usually used after everything is said and done and they want to establish a perimeter around a crime scene. This is not about a crime scene. This is about an active ongoing incident that could be mobile. Well, not just that, but it could be simple as well, it could be as simple as

I make a traffic stop. The way I look at this and have read into this um is this could be as simple as I'm on a traffic stop. Mhm. And some Joe Citizen walks up don't like it. Sure. And and start walking up, hey, why are you what are you messing with my friend? And starts getting right there around the car. The way this law is written is if if it were in Tennessee, sir, you need to step back. Ma'am, you need to step back. There's your warning. Without a If they Yes. And hey, I'm conducting this traffic stop. You'll wait over there. I'll be be with you in a minute. And they don't, then this law kicks in in Florida to where they can make an arrest, issue a citation, whatever.

It's a misdemeanor, but you can do a citation. Sure. and be able to cite them or arrest them for violation of this Halo law. The way I read it,

that's the way I take it. Any any level, it just says in the lawful course of their duties. Sure. So that could be anything from a traffic stop and somebody passes by and wants to get up in the officer's face has nothing to do with that traffic stop for whatever reason or say firefighters are fire, you know, fighting a fire and someone's all up there trying to make a video and they're getting in their way while they're trying to put that fire out. That would apply to that as well. Or render aid to someone who's having a medical emergency and they're, you know, right on top of the EMS guys trying to, you know, render aid. Hey, step back. Same. They would apply to all those situations.

Would have happened in a lot of times in Minnesota. Yes. Very much. All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate the consideration. Thank you. Thanks for coming. All right. Um, um, other than that, that's all we had on our agenda. Our next meeting is, is it still okay with everybody as far as as needed? Yes. Okay. You're just going to let us know. Well, the allimp important I'll have a motion to adjourn. I'll do that.

I'll second. All those in favor? I thank everybody for coming. We need to sign a sheet of some guns. So, yeah, I've wrote everybody down. All of