BELLE — After receiving letters from the Department of Natural Resources regarding its lack of a certified operator to oversee and maintain the public water and sewer system, the city of Belle hired Jason Lewis, a former Bland public works director.

Lewis, who left the City of Bland in February 2022, was offered the position by Belle aldermen after the July 11 meeting. He interviewed for the position on June 6 but turned it down at the time.

According to the July 11 meeting minutes, “It was the consensus of the council that Mayor (Daryl White, Jr.,) contact Jason again since the vacation accrual is being changed and see if he is interested in the public works position. Mayor White, Jr., attempted to call Mr. Lewis during the meeting but he did not answer.”

Lewis later accepted the position and started working for the city on July 12.

“I have been working on patching streets, replacing culverts, and digging out ditches to help drain rain water out of yards and roadways,” Lewis said. “I plan to fix much more in the future.”

More vacation was one of the requests that interviewees mentioned during the June 6 interviews. The board discussed the new vacation policy, presented by Alderman James (Pudd) Mitchell, at the July 11 meeting, the second to last line item.

“I think this will be an incentive for employees to stay and not to leave us,” Mitchell said. “I handed everybody a sheet that tells. It says zero to two years of service — 12 working days equals four (vacation hours earned) per pay period, capped at 192 hours.”

Mitchell went on to say employees who have been with the city for three to nine years will receive six hours a pay period every 18 days, capped at 288 hours. Employees with 10 years of service or more receive eight hours of vacation every 24 working days, capped at 400 hours.

“They would cap at 10 years of service, 400 hours of vacation,” Mitchell said. “But at 10 years you are earning eight hours every 24 days. But if you don’t have time or you miss a day in that time period, you wouldn’t incur the hours.”

City Treasurer Charro Reasor said if an employee doesn’t have time to take off of work, they aren’t rewarded with the vacation time.

“If you called in but didn’t have time to take off, you wouldn’t get the hours,” Reasor said.

Mitchell said there has been an issue around keeping employees and he thinks this would help.

White said he liked it.

Both Reasor and Court Clerk Sheree Berkholder are coming up on their first anniversary. Reasor asked if they would lose their week of vacation. Mitchell said no, they would start accruing their four hours of vacation a pay period at the next pay period.

“Next year you are going to have 12 days of vacation, versus if we stayed this way —,” Mitchell began.

“We’d only have five,” Reasor finished. “Would we still have 16  months to use our vacation? That is the way it is now.”

City Clerk Frankie Horstman asked if it was still “use it or lose it.”

“You can roll it over. But after the first year that you hit 192 hours, you don’t get any more until you use it,” Mitchell said. “You incur it a little a month.”

Alderman Barb Howarth made a motion to accept the new policy. Horstman said it wasn’t final until the board turned it into an ordinance. “So we will have to set this and change the policy,” White said.

The motion was approved with a 4-0 vote and was set to be passed via ordinance at the Aug. 8 meeting.

New equipment.

Aldermen also approved the purchase of new public works equipment including a 72-inch brush cutter, low flow not to exceed $7,500 with a 4-0 vote.

The board returned to open session at the end of its July 11 closed session portion of the meeting to approve a $7,500 purchase for equipment for the public works department. Clay Ridenhour, a public works employee, suggested the equipment. Ridenhour was acting as the temporary public works director at the time.