Drug testing Elected Officials
Over the years I have heard suggestions that elected officials should be drug tested.
The latest comes from the Town of Seymour in Eau Claire County, WI.
The Seymour Town Board agreed Tuesday evening to delay action on a drug and alcohol testing policy until its next meeting Jan. 20.
Board members are considering extending their testing policy to all employees and even elected officials. Currently the only town employees who undergo testing have commercial driver’s licenses.
After consulting a few model policies, Kranig said, if the town enacts a policy for everyone on the payroll, it likely would require testing before someone is employed but not after he or she has been hired.
“The only thing we would be able to do is a pre-employment one,” he said. Kranig added that policies for testing existing employees are complex and require employers to provide counseling for anyone who would test positive.
Rick Stadelman, executive director of the Wisconsin Towns Association, said he is unaware of any existing policy in town, village or county government that requires elected officials to undergo drug and alcohol testing.
Though Seymour officials said there are no alcohol or drug use issues with the existing board, town Supervisor Sheila Running said they should not wait until there is a problem with alcohol or drug use to create a testing policy.
“I think we need to be a little proactive if we’re going to do something,” she said.
There are drugs which naturally should not be in the system of CDL license holders driving trucks. Not just for the employees safety but for the safety of everyone else on the roads.
Professional sports test for drugs that “enhance” performance. Drugs that give an advantage over those that don’t take them.
If they want to be “proactive” let me suggest them finding a drug that “enhances” performance of elected officials and demand they take it.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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