Victory for El Paso County!

February 10, 2020
El Paso, TX

Sgt. Rick Aguilar (left) and Pete Faraone.

When two members of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Officers’ Association were facing financial hardship due to catastrophic illness, they turned to the county sick leave pool for help.  Even though the pool had over 60,000 hours available, the employees could not get help because the County of El Paso said they did not qualify.

“Our members were suffering through the fight of their lives without a paycheck. There was this huge resource available to help them, but the County bureaucracy and red tape was making it impossible for them to get hours from the sick leave pool,” Pete Faraone said.

“The County policy was very restrictive, and employees who were in the throes of a catastrophic illness could not effectively comply with the policy in order to obtain benefits from the leave pool,” said CLEAT Senior Supervising Attorney Jim Jopling.

“Our relationship with County Government is better than it ever has been,” Faraone said. “Today, the Commissioner’s Court listened to us and did the right thing – not only for our CLEAT members but for all employees countywide.”