Bureau County Health Department workers to get hazard pay

PRINCETON — Bureau County Health Department's frontline workers will be getting hazard pay despite the Bureau County Board shooting down the idea last month.

Under the CARES Act, which provides funding to local health departments for coronavirus-related expenses, workers are eligible and approved to receive hazard pay, but board members last month didn't support the idea.

The board declined to approve a motion to approve hazard pay for the workers, with one fees and salaries committee member calling the ask "greedy," but Bureau County Health Department Administrator Hector Gomez reported this week that the pay is approved by the terms of the grant and the health department's board does not require county board approval.

Because the funds are administered by the grant and do not come from county coffers, approval of the board was requested as a courtesy, not a requirement, Gomez said. If the funds from the CARES Act are not used within the grant period, they are redistributed to other counties.

Reading from a statement at this week's board meeting, Gomez said, "The purpose of this policy is to provide hazard pay for direct service employees in recognition of the importance of our employee’s health and safety while performing their duties during this coronavirus public health crisis accordingly."

Bureau County Health Department is instituting an interim policy to provide hazard pay for direct service employee(s) for their hours worked at health department and at direct service sites (e.g. immunization clinics, food manager courses and direct service sites). This includes supervisors who work onsite at the health department and direct service sites, Gomez said.

All current direct service full-time employees who meet these criteria will receive an additional 10% as determined by the by the board of health.

Hazard pay is a temporary supplement to the employee’s base pay. The hazard pay is included in the employee’s regular rate of pay in computing the employee's overtime pay, as per the Fair Labors Standard Act (FLSA).

Additionally, employees who must go into the office to maintain essential functions of the
operations, including handling mail, server back-up, managing financial duties such as paying invoices and making deposits, will receive a pay differential of 10% as determined by the board of health.

The organization will provide enhanced hourly pay to essential employee(s) scheduled working hours during the state of emergency period identified by the governor, Gomez said.

This additional pay is retroactive to Monday, June 1, the date beginning contact tracing grants.

"Our frontline staff has had to don PPE and assume roles they normally wouldn't in order to assist with this pandemic," Gomez said. "We want to make sure to present this in a public setting so the board knows what is going on."