Ways to incorporate employee evaluations into a revised personnel policy may result in hiring a personnel specialist, Warren County supervisors said Thursday.

The idea was broached by Charles Selmon of District 3 in the supervisors’ informal meeting as the board continued to discuss personnel rules.

Selmon cited a lack of a structure for handling issues strictly in personnel and a need to lighten the workload for the county administrator and board attorney.

&#8220This will save them a lot of time and us some money,” Selmon said.

Personnel issues are usually handled by individual department heads, who make recommendations to the board if they deem a termination is in order.

Talks have been ongoing about whether County Administrator John Smith should also serve as a personnel manager or whether his role should be strictly in budgeting and accounting.

District 4 Supervisor and board president Carl Flanders voted against Smith’s appointment, citing the need for someone with personnel experience so that the scope of the job could be expanded.

The notion of adding another employee was met cautiously. &#8220I would just have to see the cost,” District 2 Supervisor William Banks said.

Responding to Flanders’ proposal that a personnel assistant be hired for Smith &#8220as someone we could groom as an heir apparent,” District 5 Supervisor Richard George pointed out that Smith’s office is one of budgetary matters only.

Supervisors have also been talking about adding a field officer to work in the permitting department to help enforce the county’s subdivision ordinance. A job descriptions is still being drafted.

The board also indicated it may approve halving the number of days workers in the Road Department provided through temporary service companies must log before becoming eligible for the health insurance benefits. The number would be cut from 180 days to 90.

As for employee evaluations, the board remains in disagreement. The main hangup is how to configure an incentive pay plan to accompany evaluations.

Banks said raises should be ranked according to performance grades, from 5 percent down to 1 percent. Flanders said such a system could eventually replace &#8220across-the-board” raises for county departments that adopt the board’s policy.

For fiscal year 2005-06, the county’s $12.9 million budget allowed for 5 percent raises for county employees, but also raised taxes across the board by hiking the millage rate from 81.53 mills to to 83.94 mills.

In other business, information systems manager David Rankin told the board that work to smooth out kinks in the statewide centralized voter database continues, but remains a &#8220moving target” because of its ability to be instantly updated for voters who move from one county to another.

The system, called the SEMS system, replaced the previous AS-400 system maintained by the county and tracks voter movement daily. The swift updates have created confusion, Rankin said, as to how many voters will be successfully transferred from the old system to the new one.

Rankin said such issues arose in the Nov. 8 special election in District 2, when 140 voters were not in the new database. Only eight showed up to vote, Rankin said.

The discussion came as supervisors mulled a &#8220memorandum of understanding” from the Secretary of State’s office spelling out the care, use and storage of the new voting machines and the database that needs the board’s blessing by June 1.

The board may put off action on approving its signature, possibly calling another meeting May 30, until further talks occur between the county and the secretary of state’s office regarding specifics in the 17-page document.