City workers with excessive unexcused absences won’t gounpunished if the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen has anything to sayabout it.

Aldermen voted Tuesday night, subject to legal review, toinstitute a system of penalties for unexcused absences. Part of thepolicy puts more authority in the hands of the department heads ofthe city.

The policy would lay the groundwork for department heads tosuspend employees without pay for missing work on an unexcusedbasis. A third offense would lead to termination of the worker’semployment, the policy said.

There are still some legal issues to be ironed out, such as whatconstitutes unexcused absences and what time is a fair call-in timefor employees who need to call in to miss work due to illness oranother reason. City Attorney Joe Fernald said there had to be somekind of standard set for exactly when and what counts asunexcused.

“There needs to be a parameter for them to call in,” saidFernald. “We legally need to have a time frame mapped out.”

Ward One Alderman Dorsey Cameron and Alderman at large LesBumgarner both expressed a belief that there should be no warningon the first offense. Suspending an employee without warning is oneof the legal issues needing to be addressed.

Some department heads were in agreement with the aldermen.

“If they’re absent, excused or unexcused, they’re still nothelping you,” said Street Department Director Jimmy Griffin. “If Ihave someone who’s going to miss on Monday, I can do without himall week.”

Under the proposed policy tentatively mapped out by Mayor BobMassengill and amended by the board, when a city employee has oneunexcused absence, he or she would be suspended for a day anddocked a day’s pay. City officials are looking into whether or nota warning must be issued on the first offense.

On the second offense, the absentee worker would be suspendedfor two days and penalized two days’ pay. Upon the third offense ina running 12-month period, he or she would be terminated fromemployment with the city.

The issue of absenteeism was brought to the board’s attention atthe meeting two weeks ago when it was pointed out there was onecity worker who had eight unexcused absences. The department headhad no power under the current structure to terminate the worker’semployment.

“I strongly disagree with an employee having eight or nineunexcused absences and having to wait and bring it before theboard,” said Cameron.

After Ward Four Alderwoman Shirley Estes’ motion, the boardvoted to adopt the policy upon research of the legality of certainaspects of the proposed penalties. Following that research, theboard is expected to finalize the policy at its next meeting and tohave it take effect immediately.

In other matters, aldermen heard from Jonathan Mast of DenburyOnshore, who requested a meeting where company officials couldexplain what procedures would be a part of underground oil and gasexploration the company wants to conduct in the 71 square milesnorthwest of the city.

Mast said the objective is to image the structure below thesurface of the area in order to safely extract the oil beneath.

“The idea of this meeting and of the project is to take everyopportunity to pre-plan and be well-prepared,” said Mast.

The current and proposed procedures will take place onapproximately 48,000 acres, and according to Mast, Denbury willhave to meet with almost 5,000 area residents about theirproperty.

The board set a work session Thursday, March 22 at 5 p.m. tomeet with Denbury officials about the specifics of the project. Theboard could decide then whether Denbury will be allowed toproceed.

Also Tuesday, Ward Five Alderman D.W. Maxwell expressed aninterest in addressing the issues of cell phone towers within thecity limits and proposed a meeting between aldermen and cell phoneexecutives to discuss possibilities.

Maxwell said the cell phone industry is changing due to themassive amount of wireless usage. He pointed out the city ofJackson has 27 cell towers, some of which are actually located onwater towers.

Maxwell was asked to contact cell phone company officials todetermine a time when they and city board members could meet.