Mineral County Detention to hire temp worker

Mineral County Undersheriff Mike Boone gave the Mineral County Commissioners an update on the detention facility during Friday’s regular meeting. 

Undersheriff Boone said that his primary reason for speaking with the commissioners was to inform them that a member of the detention staff was sick with an unidentifiable illness. 

“He has spent a couple days at the hospital, as long as MACO would let him, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him so they sent him home,” Undersheriff Boone said. “He made several trips back and forth to St. Pats hospital in Missoula for testing as well. Now he has testing all over the state.”

The employee is currently “heavily medicated” at home when he is not going to tests and as a result he is not able to work at the detention facility. According to Undersheriff Boone, the employee could be unable to work for up to two months. 

“He is out of sick and out of annual (days off), so we will probably send something around for people to donate, they can donate up to one month,” Undersheriff Boone said. “After that he will be on family medical leave until he can come back.” 

According to the employee’s contract, the Sheriff’s Department cannot hire a new detention employee to take his place. However Undersheriff Boone said that they can fill the position with a temp. 

“That (the employee being on leave), puts us at four in there and we are just going to start racking up the overtime until they say ‘I’m done, I don’t want to work anymore overtime’ and we can’t force them to work overtime,” Undersheriff Boone said. “So we are going to have problems in there.” 

Undersheriff Boone said that if the department can find somebody qualified it will eliminate the necessity to have employees work overtime during the sick employee’s leave. 

The County Commissioner discussed the specifics of the employees contract with Undersheriff Boone – including how long the contract requires the county to continue paying him and what the insurance policy will do as time goes on. 

Eventually Undersheriff Boone stated that with the employee being sick, it creates a series of issues for the detention staff. 

“It’s a chain effect here,” Undersheriff Boone said. “Now that he’s out…in the chain effect there I have one employee who is slated to go to the academy but I can’t afford to send him. We are going to have to file for an extension because his one-year is up. It just keeps snow ballin’ on you.”