Commission Approves Exception To Anti-Fraternization Policy

An amendment to the Putnam County anti-fraternization policy allows county officials to hire married or dating couples.

County Mayor Randy Porter said the change allows such hires to be made only when department heads or elected officials experience a shortage of applicants for positions.

“I like the way this is written because it still gives me the authority over all those departments that unless they’re having a hard time trying to hire folks, then we’re not going to allow the amendment,” Porter said. “Public safety has to come first so I think EMS needs it to be able to hire more folks and we may need it in the future for some of the other departments.”

The EMS Department had pushed for the policy exception as it struggles with covering certain shifts. EMS Director Tommy Copeland said there needs to be another mechanism to attract people to EMS.

“Over the years we have lost people to the anti-fraternization policy. Right now, I think we could gain a couple people pretty soon if we get this policy,” Copeland said. “I think we do need to do some stuff to try to increase getting people to come in here for EMS.

Copeland said there’s a declining pool of people who are willing to work on an ambulance.

County Mayor Jeff Jones said an anti-fraternization policy is a human resources “best practice”, but exceptions should be made when public safety issues arise.

“This is one of the things that employers enact to try to preclude all of the love triangles and things that occur in the workplace if you have people dating one another,” Jones said. “There is no way that I would stand up before the commission as I did in 2017 and as I am right now if this didn’t have a public safety component to it.”

The county commission approved the policy amendment earlier this week.

The county commission rejected a similar proposal in 2017 with a tie vote.