Our commissioner's court at it's last regular scheduled meeting voted to reduce the sick time hour cap from 384 hours to 240 hours. This resulted in some county employees losing anywhere from 1 to 144 hours of sick time they had already accrued over the new 240 hour cap. I know the commissioner's court has the authority to set the sick time cap, but can they cut already accrued sick hours of current employees who have hours accrued above the 240 hour cap?

Is this legal for the commissioner's court to do?

The commissioner's court has asked me to advise them at it's next scheduled meeting since they asked for no advice from my office on its legality prior to implementing the change. Any help or direction in finding answer would be greatly appreciated.

I can't find my research at the moment, but I think that the short answer is that they can do it. Unless sick time is a "paid" benefit, that is, when people quit they are paid for sick time as well as vacation - in which case there would be a problem.

One thing to consider to salve moral - create a "sick leave pool", and start it with the days that are otherwise going to be washed. That at least makes employees feel as though the days went for something, and would be available if they needed them.

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

Thanks Lisa for the reply. I thought that may be the case because it is not a paid benefit. Employees lose any sick hours that are unused when they retire or quit. Our county does have a sick hour pool thus the reason the commissioner's court decided to reduce the sick hour accrual cap.