Longer-serving Park County employees will be getting a little more time off in the coming years.

County commissioners decided last week — in a razor-thin 3-2 vote — to increase the amount of vacation time offered to staffers who’ve worked five or more years.

Those in their fifth through ninth years of county employment will now get three weeks of vacation (up by three days) and those working 10 or more years can take four weeks off (two more days than before).

“As I see it going forward, and we think that our revenues are going to start declining, ... we won’t be able to do some other things for our employees,” said Commission Chairman Joe Tilden at the June 16 meeting. “This is just something nice we can do.”

Tilden and Commissioner Bucky Hall felt confident that the county’s other elected officials and department leaders would be able to cover the extra time off without significantly impacting the county budget.

“Even though the county does not seem to be hemorrhaging employees ... having worked for a couple larger companies when I lived in southern California, you did get some of these benefits,” Hall said in support of the proposal, which had been put forward by Assessor Pat Meyer.

Commissioner Lee Livingston, who runs his own outfitting business, initially indicated he wasn’t a fan of the idea.

“Vacation is a foreign subject to me,” Livingston said. “If we’ve got enough staff to get the job done without a few of them around, we have too much. I mean, I don’t know.”

At the last minute, he decided to join with Hall and Tilden and approve the proposal.

Commissioners Tim French and Loren Grosskopf voted against it. They both said they wanted to see how the county’s upcoming budget comes together before deciding to increase employee benefits.

Meyer has been pushing to increase vacation time for years. He said added vacation can boost morale and possibly cut down on illegitimate sick time.

Further, Meyer found the changes will bring Park County in-line with what the vast majority of other Wyoming counties, some comparable cities and a couple large businesses offer.

“It’s not just my belief — it’s what everybody does,” Meyer said.

“Well, in government,” French countered. “Are you going to call the private businesses and ask what they’re doing?”

Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric said in a later interview that he also believes the comparisons should have been made to the private sector.

“That’s what’s wrong with government,” Skoric said, adding, “If government always compares itself to what other governments are doing, that doesn’t always give you good results.”

Park County Sheriff Scott Steward, Treasurer Barb Poley and Clerk Colleen Renner all had voiced support for upping the vacation time.

Before becoming clerk this year, Renner spent nearly three decades as a county employee in the University of Wyoming extension office.

“I felt jilted a little for not getting four weeks (vacation) after 10 years, when you talk to so many other companies and city governments and they all got it,” Renner told commissioners.

In response, French pointed out that she stayed with the job.

“If you’re not happy working for the county under those (benefits), then seek other employment, I guess,” French said, noting the county pays retirement and health insurance premiums for its employees.

“We all know a lot of people that don’t have those benefits that are paying the bills, writing those checks,” he said.

Even with the increases approved by the commission, Meyer said county employees will still get less vacation time than they were getting back in the 1980s. He said commissioners slashed the vacation time offered to those with five or more years of service by roughly a week after the then-treasurer told them “nobody needs that much vacation.”

“It only took one person to say that and I’ve been doing this (lobbying) ever since for the next 20 years, going, ‘This is wrong,’” Meyer said.