Every Wednesday, District Judge Mike Norman conducts court in Sequoyah County. While he’s away, Norman requires his office to remain open and staffed.

Other judges close their offices when they are away, he said.

As salaried employees, the time off work does not count against vacation. Norman wants the discrepancy in office policies clarified.

“I’m not mad at the judges,” Norman said. “I just want my employees to get the same break as anywhere else.”

Norman said District Judge Tom Alford’s office is closed every Friday.

District Judge Norman Thygesen and Alford said their offices aren’t always closed when they are away.

“I require them to do their job,” Alford said of his employees. “If they’ve got work to do, they do it and do it efficiently. When I’ve got something that needs to be done, I know they’re here doing it.”

Thygesen said his employees usually are in the office when he is.

“I don’t like for them to take a vacation when I’m here,” he said. “It’s like trying to work with one hand tied behind my back. My employees know my rules, and they work very well together.”

There’s no requirement that judges’ employees work any certain schedule or 40 hours per week, said Mike Mayberry, administrative deputy director for the state court system.

“There is not a statewide policy,” Mayberry said. “Generally, it is left to the judges to control their hours of their chambers.”

He said the judges’ employees come under Oklahoma Statute 74-840-5.5, which lists offices, positions and personnel that are unclassified service:

“The following offices, positions and personnel shall be in the unclassified service and shall not be placed under the classified service ... All judges, elected or appointed, and their employees.”

Employees of election boards and numerous other state agencies and boards also are unclassified.

There are no time sheets kept for judicial employees. They have state benefits, but they serve at the pleasure of the judge, which means they can be dismissed at any time without appeal, Thygesen said.

He said his employees are often required to stay late.

“If I’m here till 4 o’clock in the morning with a jury, they (employees) are here until 4 o’clock in the morning,” Thygesen said. “If I work through lunch and, sometimes, through dinner, so do they.”

Alford said he believes Norman’s raising the issue of when judicial employees work is politically motivated.

Norman said he remembers the controversy a few years ago over some state agencies having “ghost” employees who were not required to show up for work.

“A few years ago, the first assistant in the court clerk’s office didn’t come in, and the court clerk (Adaina Riley) got in trouble,” Norman said. “If someone will tell me I can let my employees take off every time I’m not here, I will.”

Court Clerk Paula Sexton said that in the 1970s or early 1980s, judges’ secretaries were employees of the clerk’s office and subject to the same rules as other employees of that office. They were required to work 40 hours a week.

Sexton said she believes there is some resentment in the courthouse between employees who must take vacation or sick leave when they are not at work and employees who don’t have to account for their time.

“However, everyone knows these people work for the judges and not for us, and their hours are decided by the judge they work for,” she said.

Norman said he has asked several judges for an opinion about how much time off employees should have and never gotten a definitive answer.

The late Bill Ed Rogers once told him he always told his employees to “take as much (vacation) as you want, as long as you get your work done.”

Norman said he asked District Attorney Larry Moore for an Attorney General’s opinion on the issue but got back a reply that the AG does not give opinions on matters pertaining to the judiciary.

Norman said he will attend a bar conference this month and hopes to raise the question there and get an answer.



Employee policies

The state Office of Personnel Management’s Web site explains the difference between classified and unclassified employees:

• Agencies, positions, and employees that are subject to the Merit System are classified. Procedures for the appointment of personnel to Merit System positions, the conditions of employment, and procedures for removal are governed by the Oklahoma Personnel Act and the Merit Rules of Personnel Administration.

• Agencies that are not subject to the Merit System are called “non-Merit System” agencies or “unclassified” agencies, and positions and employees in those agencies are “unclassified.” There are no universal procedures for the recruitment and appointment of unclassified officers and employees, or for the terms and conditions of their employment, except for performance appraisals; practices vary from one agency to another.