Cape Girardeau County commissioners will ask other county officials to require harassment awareness training

Cape Girardeau County commissioners agreed Thursday to ask elected officials to require sexual harassment awareness training for their respective employees.

Though the commissioners did not vote on the matter, they discussed at length whether they could compel attendance for two sexual harassment prevention classes scheduled in September.

"I think we're all in favor of the same thing," Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said. "The only difference is, do we say the officeholder encourages their employees to attend or do we say we mandate it?" But if employees don't attend mandated training, he said, the county doesn't have the authority to fire them.

The scheduling of classes is one result of the county auditor's acknowledgment he inappropriately used his county computer to view images of women, making two female employees uncomfortable.

Second District Commissioner Jay Purcell said any such mandate by the commission would set an expectation that attending the training was "a function of the job."

He also said a mandate was one way the commission could show a commitment to providing a safe work environment free of sexual harassment, which Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle and consulting attorney Diane Howard previously told the commissioners they were responsible for providing.

Purcell added that a larger issue was determining what the commission's authority is in applying across-the-board policies to county employees, even for such issues as safety training. He and Jones agreed to ask for Swingle's opinion on the matter.

First District Commissioner Larry Bock said he'd asked Swingle earlier this week for such an opinion, and Swingle had said the commissioners could require employees to attend. But County Clerk Kara Clark told the board she'd talked to other first-class counties and learned that elected officials oversee their respective offices. County commissioners have no authority over the county's other elected officials, other than reviewing and approving budgets, Clark said.

It was, Jones said, another case of the commissioners having "all the responsibility but none of the authority" to show the county was committed to addressing the sexual harassment issue.

Bock had to leave the meeting to attend a funeral but said on his way out he would agree with the decision made by Jones and Purcell.

Ultimately, Jones and Purcell took a suggestion from Treasurer Roger Hudson to ask elected officials to mandate training within their respective offices.

The training, part of a contract with Regional Counseling and Employee Assistance Services Inc. of Cape Girardeau, includes a Sept. 9 class for supervisors, department heads and elected officials and a Sept. 23 class for employees. Each class lasts 90 minutes.

Clark and Hudson have other commitments Sept. 9 -- state-required training for their respective offices.

"We have to have alternatives for people who cannot attend the training," Clark said, suggesting that the county could use videos, which could become part of new employee orientation as well as annual training. She said she expected all her employees to attend the training.

Jones asked the commissioners' administrative assistant, Donna Oldham, to schedule additional classes for two reasons. He said there was not enough space in the administration building for the county's nearly 100 workers to attend a single training session. Adding sessions would also allow county offices to continue to operate while training was underway.

The commissioners also agreed new employee orientations will include sexual harassment awareness as well as safety training.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127

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