The county commission and the county engineer this week discussed sending certain road department employees home with vehicles rather than paying them stipends for simply being on call.

Engineer Lynn Ralls said that currently the commission pays around $11,000 a year just to have people on call.

The way the current system works is that two people are on call – one person in the north end of the county and another in the south end of the county.

Rall said the average mileage for a county road department vehicle is 160,000 miles.

Ralls said he would like to change the policy to send 12-13 road department employees home with vehicles.

He said he calculated the mileage from their houses.

“The idea would be for them to go to the motor grader from their house,” he said.

Ralls said the savings of take-home versus on call would be somewhere around $1,600 a year. Those savings are based on current fuel prices, he said.

Currently they are paid $15 per day to be on call, he said.

“If they take the vehicle home, they wouldn’t get on-call pay,” he said. “Not everyone would take home a vehicle.”

Ralls said employees who take home vehicles would understand that they would need to be on call. He said they have a system to work out when someone needs to be off, where there is always a replacement.

Ralls said that there would be grounds for not responding, if it’s an employee’s turn to do so.

“We know there are certain roads that could flood,” he said. “This will allow for quicker response.”

Currently, there is a difference in how employees who get called-out are paid.

The commission plans to discuss pay for the road department and other special circumstances for the entire county.