By Brian Wright | Maricopa Monitor
An issue thought to be finished resurfaced at a Pinal County Board of Supervisors meeting earlier this month, and Sheriff Paul Babeu took the opportunity to make some points. But he did not win the fight.
An oversight by legal counsel regarding the county’s reduction in force policy required that the item come back at the board’s May 6 meeting.
The board amended the RIF policy on March 24. The changes involved a ratings matrix to determine which employees stay and which ones leave when budgetary shortcomings require department heads to downsize their staff.
Prior to the changes, the scoring system did not factor in seniority, or continuous years worked at the county, into the equation unless two employees ended up with the same score. Seniority was then used as the tiebreaker; Employee A, with 17 years of experience, kept his job. Employee B, with five years of experience, was laid off.
