CAIRO — Workdays just got longer for employees of the Grady County Roads and Bridges and Solid Waste departments this summer.

The Grady County Board of Commissioners approved at its Tuesday meeting, 4-1, a request by Yancey Maxwell, superintendent of both departments, to lengthen work days to 10 hours four days a week. This is to utilize extra daylight hours in the summer.

“We’re trying to cut down on the trips we make with the trucks and save on gas,” Maxwell explained Wednesday. “It takes a certain amount of time to get organized. Now, we’ll be staying later so we can get more work done at the site while cutting down on trips with the trucks.”

Crews will go to work 30 minutes earlier and stay an hour and a half later.

Maxwell said no normal overtime will be involved with the schedule change, but crews will still respond to emergency situations. On holiday weeks, he said crews would work eight hours per day.

The new hours are 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Monday.-Thursday) for roads and bridges and 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday-Friday) for solid waste. Each department will take the fifth day off (Friday for roads and bridges and Wednesdays for solid waste).

“We can’t do Fridays for solid waste because it would be days (including weekend) without pickup and trash would build up,” Maxwell explained. “Wednesdays are light days.”

County Administrator Rusty Moye explained to the commissioners on Tuesday that in order to change work schedules the board would have to approve it.

Vice-chairman Bobby Burns, who voted against the request, said he didn’t think it would prove productive for the county.

“I don’t believe they can sustain productivity during 10 hours on a summer day,” he explained. “It’s a very physical job and I don’t think it will be a net benefit to the county.”

Maxwell said Wednesday that hot weather is something crews have to deal with anyway — no matter what the hours — and they are cautious about the heat.

“When there is extreme heat the crews know they need to drink more water,” he said. “We won’t have a set break time. The way we work, when they need to get a drink they stop and get it. We don’t have a time when everyone sits down and runs their mouths. We do whatever we have to do to get done.”

Commissioner Al Ball, who made the motion to approve the request, said he is inclined to feel it is a good idea.

“We can experiment and get some answers in the process,” he said. “We’re not permanently locked into this.”

Maxwell implemented the schedule change Wednesday and said, thus far, it is going well.