For Clinton, our Sheriff communicates with the Board of Commissioners and me, it would be extremely rare that we’d be under a Level 3 for an automatic closing so if it is a really treacherous Level 2, the Board President/Board would make the final determination as to whether to close county offices. In the past, we’ve used a call tree, I contact certain Elected Officials, each Commissioner contacts a few and each Elected Official notifies their own staff. I would also add that there have been times when the Board has decided to not close offices and Elected Officials have decided to close their own offices. We will be looking at utilizing the Sheriff Office/EMA notification system to contact Elected Officials beginning soon…we probably will not use it to notify all staff since technically each Elected Official would make their own decision to stay open or to close or there might be additional communication needed from that Elected Official (or Department Head) to their staff (for example, Clerk of Courts might opt for a skeleton crew to accept filings, JFS may change the on-call schedule for case workers, maintenance staff may still report periodically to check for frozen pipes, that sort of thing). For electric or water outages, it just really depends. If we feel it will be a short outage, we generally remain open but most Elected Officials are pretty quick to close their office and send employees home on paid time. If we know it will be a scheduled outage lasting 2 hours or more we try to work with the Elected Official or Department Head for a work at home arrangement for that morning/afternoon/day or for small offices find a different temporary location for them, it just depends on the circumstance and what office is affected. Mary Ann From: CORSA-broadcast <corsa-broadcast-bounces@corsa.org> On Behalf Of Rhonda Slauterbeck Sent: Monday, October 16, 2023 8:19 AM To: randy.paul@hardincountyohio.gov Cc: CORSA question (corsa-broadcast@corsa.org) <corsa-broadcast@corsa.org> Subject: Re: [CORSA-broadcast] closings CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. For Ottawa County - before work - we have a closing committee - which includes one elected official, Sheriff, Engineer, & President of the Board. They make the decision and then we have a phone tree. I contact most of the departments via text message. The closing committee each takes a few of the elected officials and they contact them. Those officials are then responsible for contacting their staff. We are looking into using the Sheriff's office alert system that we can have specific to our purpose and it will send an automated text. We haven't done that yet, but are in the discussions. As far as building issues - we hang tight as long as possible for that specific building. We have a good relationship with our electric provider and we have a specific contact - if it is going to be over a couple hours - we'll send folks home. I would agree, most of the time it's only a couple hours. Rhonda Slauterbeck County Administrator/Clerk Ottawa County Commissioners 315 Madison Street Port Clinton, OH 43452 419-734-6720 On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 8:13 AM Randy Paul <randy.paul@hardincountyohio.gov<mailto:randy.paul@hardincountyohio.gov>> wrote: How do counties handle closings for 1. Bad Weather-before work, during work? 2. When the building has no water or electricity? If the weather is level 3 before work, a commissioner calls me/clerk and I text/call all department heads/elected officials on my personal cell. Sometimes we are told to come in at mid-morning/a certain time to allow for roads to be cleared off. If the weather changes throughout the day and appears to be coming to a level 3. The Engineer or Sheriff will alert a Commissioner and we broadcast thru email a time to leave and go home as long as you can get there safely. If we have no water, our Maintenance makes sure each restroom has a bucket of water for employees to manage the toilet. (some employees will NOT do this-so others pitch in) Each office is expected to have a case of water bottles, hand sanitizer and a couple gallons of drinkable water on hand at all times. If the electric goes out, that is usually building by building. If over 2 hours and doesn’t appear to be coming back on, then the elected official can make the decision to send employees home. Most times it is right back on around the 2 hr. time. If an employee is sent home due to any of these conditions, they are paid-available if needed. Our basic question is how do you contact employees (we are very rural) prior to work to let them know to not come to work, or come in at a certain time. PLEASE NOTE MY EMAIL ADDRESS HAS CHANGED Randy Paul Clerk to the Board Hardin County Commissioners One Courthouse Square, Suite 100 Kenton, OH 43326 randy.paul@hardincountyohio.gov<mailto:clerk@co.hardin.oh.us> 419-674-2205 _______________________________________________ CORSA Broadcast Email To unsubscribe, go to http://corsa.org/mailman/listinfo/corsa-broadcast_corsa.org