The Boone County Commissioners will delay one week of employee paychecks in October to bring county payments to two weeks in arrears.
By delaying payments, the county will comply with state and federal laws requiring most municipalities and businesses to have payments two weeks in arrears – when a payment is made two weeks after the completion of a pay period.
“We have been one week in arrears on our payroll,” Boone County Commissioner Jeff Wolfe said during a county commissioners meeting. “Generally that causes no issues whatsoever. But at given times in the year when holidays fall at the right time, it creates a situation where people are estimating payroll instead of hours worked.”
The commissioners said that by moving the county payroll to two weeks in arrears, the county would avoid all instances of estimating payroll before hours worked.
But the shift will mean employees don’t see a paycheck for one week of work in October until they retire, quit or their employment status changes, the commissioners said. Paychecks will continue as normal after the shift in October.
To correct the problem while mitigating the financial burden on employees, the commissioners said they would take advantage of the three paychecks scheduled to be issued in October. By choosing to shift payments during a month when employees receive three paychecks, the commissioners said they hoped to lessen the financial cutback employees would need to make that month. And by scheduling the shift three months in advance, they hoped to give employees enough time to financially plan for one less week of pay.
Boone County Sheriff Mike Nielsen said during the meeting he understood the need for the shift, but he said it was unfortunate it needed to occur during a year with so much financial uncertainty.
