The Board of Selectmen last week approved a contract with a Larchmont, N.Y.-based company to provide drug testing for new hires and “safety-sensitive” town workers.
The latter group includes those who carry a commercial driver’s license or “CDL,” and they’re tested quarterly, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.
“There are two separate pools in the DOT pool and the non-DOT pool based on their CDL licensing, and then from there, there’s a random draw,” Mann told the selectmen at a special meeting, held Jan. 17 at Town Hall and via videoconference.
He added, “We don’t take the draw. The company itself takes the draw. We just make sure everyone is in the pool. They take the draw, tell us who it is and then on the morning of the test, we contact the individual and tell them to come down for the test and then we get the results back.”
If the test comes back positive, the town is required to have the worker see a substance abuse professional, according to Human Resources Director Cheryl Pickering-Jones. That professional evaluates the worker and typically puts them into a treatment program, while the town continues to pay them, she said. If the person who fails drug test is a driver, “they could possibly lose that status for three to six months, depending on the position and what comes up on the evaluation,” Pickering Jones said.
“And then if it happens a second time they would be terminated,” she said. That’s “very rare,” she said.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Drug Test Compliance. It wasn’t clear from the meeting or publicly provided documents what the amount of the contract is, though Pickering Jones noted that with a 3% increase in some fees, the annual total could rise above $10,000, triggering a need for Board of Selectmen approval. Both Public Works and the police already use the service, Pickering Jones said.
Carlson asked what would be the budget implications of having a driver who goes out for failing a drug test but who remains on staff and payroll.
Mann said if a driver went out and there was a snow storm, then the town might have to hire a driver for that time.
Pickering Jones said that’s never happened in the past.
The contract approval comes one month after the selectmen updated the town’s Employee Handbook, which now includes a cannabis policy (page 57 here). It reads, in part: “The Town prohibits the possession, use or other consumption of cannabis by employees, whether on-duty or off-duty, except as otherwise required by Connecticut law for palliative use.”
Drug Test Compliance’s service agreement with the town makes reference to urine and breath tests, and testing for alcohol.