Lowndes County supervisors took the weekend to explore their options for changing one of the county’s COVID-19 policies, but on Monday opted to accept the recommendation made at Friday’s meeting by Lowndes County Administrator Jay Fisher.
During Friday’s board meeting, Fisher had alerted supervisors of a change in the federal COVID relief program that could impact county employees who contract the virus or are required to quarantine because of exposure to someone who had tested positive for the virus. Under the original CARES Act, Congress had appropriated funds to provide employees up to 80 hours of sick time if they met the policy guidelines. However, the new federal COVID relief package does not include that sick time provision.
On Friday, Fisher recommended the county provide the 80 hours of sick time that had been removed from the federal program, adding that supervisors could use the weekend to come up with other options.
With Fisher absent from Monday’s meeting, Chief Financial Officer Lloyd Price opened discussion on the subject.
“I think what the board has to decide today is if we want to continue the policy from 2020 into 2021 or do something else,” Price said. “It was Jay’s recommendation that we continue the policy, and we have the authority to do that by legislation passed by the state Legislature in March.”
Under the policy, employees would not have to use sick time accrued as part of their county benefits program if forced to miss work because of the COVID-related absences listed in the federal COVID relief package adopted in 2020.
“If we do decide to continue, it was Jay’s recommendation that the policy would be continued for an extended period of time, but I don’t know what that extended period of time should be,” Price said.
Board President Trip Hairston recommended that the board approve continuing the policy “until further notice.”
“Doing that would allow us to evaluate it as we go along,” Hairston said. “The circumstances could change at some point during the year, so this would allow us to continue it only as long as it’s necessary.”
Board members did not suggest any alternatives, but District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders did ask for clarification on the extent of the 80-hour sick time provision.
“One of the things in this is that it gives an employee 80 hours if he is exposed to the virus,” Sanders said. “We have some employees with six kids, nine kids. What happens if the employee is exposed more than once because of the number of people in their household? Is it 80 hours every time?”
Price said that shouldn’t be an issue.
“Remember, the policy says up to 80 hours,” he said. “I interpret that to mean it would be a one-time only thing or up to 80 hours total.”
Price said this morning he didn’t know how many employees used the federal time off in 2020.
“I don’t have the specific numbers, but I do know that we’ve had some departments, like the road department, that have used it a lot and some that haven’t used it at all,” he said.
The board unanimously approved the proposal to extend the 80 hours of sick time until further notice.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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