Snow Days

Every time it snows decisions have to be made such as whether to close offices or cancel meetings. My preference is to err on the side of safety. That is why I postponed yesterday's Chesterfield County Planning Commission meeting from yesterday afternoon and night to tomorrow. On the other hand, Henrico County's preference seems to be not to worry all that much about safety of its employees. I thought that attitude might change when a new county manager took over but that has not proved to be the case.

Here are two examples. Yesterday in Chesterfield County government offices, including libraries, closed at 5:00 PM. Salaried employees sent home in the middle of their shifts were paid through the end of their shifts. In Henrico County, libraries closed at 7:00 PM reflecting a decision that wasn't announced until 6:15 PM. It remains to be seen whether salaried employees will have to use vacation time if they want to be paid for those two hours off.

This morning Chesterfield County government offices opened at 10:30 AM. Salaried employees who made it in by that time will be paid for a full day's work. In Henrico, employees were allowed to report at 10:00 AM but if they did and wanted to be paid for missed hours, they had to use personal leave time.

Sure, serving the public is important but I'm not talking about emergency services provided by fire fighters, police officers and EMTs. I'm talking about mundane, easy to put off stuff like going to the library. Given last night's weather, there weren't even a handful of patrons taking advantage of the fact that Henrico's libraries were open two hours later than Chesterfield's.

So, Henrico County, I know you're going to say you do care about your employees along with a bunch of irrelevant blah blah blah about serving the public ad nauseam. But, putting employees at risk to provide services that aren't going to be used accomplishes nothing except to cause people to conclude you really don't care much about your employees' welfare.