Several employees at Lowndes County Juvenile Detention Center and the Road Department have tested positive for COVID-19, county officials told The Dispatch on Wednesday.
Five or six employees at the detention center tested positive last week, County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said, and the detention wing has been shut down. All employees in that area of the detention center were ordered to receive a test and some are waiting on the results.
There was only one juvenile detainee, Billingsley said, who tested negative and was released upon the outbreak.
Eight Road Department employees also received COVID-19 tests on Monday, Department Director Ronnie Burns told the board of supervisors Wednesday morning. He said he did not want employees with potential exposure coming back to work.
Burns said he wanted to know what money he can use to pay the employees, which District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders said prompted him to bring up a discussion Wednesday on the county policy for paid leave amid the pandemic.
Sanders told fellow supervisors he hopes the board could draft a policy across county departments on whether to pay employees who are under self-quarantine, as well as discuss the possibility of getting reimbursed with state or federal funds.
Billingsley said the county government has the authority to grant employees affected by COVID-19 paid administrative leave, as allowed under HB1647 passed out of the state Legislature this year. The county is paying affected employees, he said, but he isn’t sure if the money will be reimbursed.
The Legislature is still debating on how to distribute the $1.25 billion allocated to Mississippi under The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
“They passed that special bill for COVID, and that’s the way we’ve handled it from the day they adopted that bill,” Billingsley said. “If we ask them to go out and be quarantined, we are paying them. …We’re going to try to (get reimbursed). I don’t know if we will or not.”
Sanders said during the meeting it is imperative that the county has a detailed policy in place to prevent deceitful employee behavior aimed to receive payment without work.
“It might happen that 25 people in the Sheriff’s Department or the Road Department all of a sudden say, ‘Well, this is a good way to get sick days or seven days off,’ when all of a sudden, they are saying they’ve been exposed,” Sanders said.
Supervisors Leroy Brooks of District 5 and Jeff Smith of District 4 quickly interrupted Sanders and told him there has to be a doctor’s note or other paper documents to prove their sickness before they can get paid.
Brooks told Sanders it wasn’t the board’s job to micromanage employees.
“If the duty excuse is signed by a doctor, we ought to consider it valid,” he said.
Lowndes County Youth Court Administrator Jason Collins told The Dispatch on Wednesday he cannot discuss the detention center outbreak, calling the issue a “personnel matter.” Road Department Director Ronnie Burns did not return several calls from The Dispatch after the meeting.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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