In order to provide a safe work environment and to support their employees’ health and general well-being, Bingham County has established a drug-free workplace policy.

Believing that if any county employee illegally uses drugs at home or at work; possesses, distributes, or sells drugs at work; comes to work under the influence; or abuses alcohol on the job, they are creating unsafe work conditions for themselves and all the other county employees.

To enforce the policy, the county has contracted with Bingham Memorial Hospital in Blackfoot to conduct drug testing. Every month or two the hospital randomly picks county employees to be tested and notifies the county’s Human Resources Department, which in turn notifies the selected employees. The chosen employees then have two hours to get to the hospital and provide a urine test. If they don’t show up in time, or at all, it is assumed they are avoiding the test and the no-show is recorded as a positive result.

According to Bingham County Human Resources Director Laraine Pope, if an employee tests positive for drugs and it is confirmed that they have used an illegal substance or misused a legal substance, their department head is notified. Any discipline will be determined by the department head on a case by case basis, after first consulting with Pope and the county’s civil attorney. It is perhaps significant that the attorney being consulted is over civil not criminal issues. The discipline being determined involves their work status, not whether they should be arrested.

A positive test is considered a serious infraction, such that even one positive test could mean termination of employment. That is an extreme case, otherwise the department head may choose to “utilize progressive discipline when appropriate and practical,” according to Pope. There doesn’t appear to be an appeal process.

This fall questions arose about the county’s elected officials. Shouldn’t they also be randomly tested for drugs? After all, they are also part of the workplace too. Both Pope and Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney Ryan Jolley conceded it was a valid point.

However, there was one huge stumbling block to adding the names of the nine county elected officials to the testing pool — enforcement — because elected officials answer only to the public whom they serve. In the short term, there isn’t any consequence for elected officials if they decide to use/abuse drugs or alcohol. In the long term, they can be voted out of office, but those elections happen only every four years. If, however, the public considers the elected official a serious threat, they can petition to have a recall vote before his or her term is up.

After much discussion, the elected officials in Bingham County decided to voluntarily sign a Drug and Alcohol-Free Workplace Pledge, declaring their commitment to “create, maintain, and foster a workplace free from substance abuse” and to personally be “drug and alcohol free at our workplace.” No drug tests are required.

The pledge was presented at the county commissioners' staff meeting in November after which all of the county's elected officials signed the pledge sometime that day. Adding their “John Hancock” to the pledge were Commissioner Chairman Whitney Manwaring, Commissioner Mark Bair, Commissioner Eric Jackson as well as Sheriff Jeff Gardner, Jolley, Treasurer Tanna Beal, Coroner Jimmy Roberts, Assessor Donavan Harrington and Clerk Pam Eckhardt.