09-28-20 Regular Meeting of the La Porte City Council

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(including state police officers), sheriffs and deputy sheriffs, firefighters, emergency medical responders, correctional and detention officers, and those who directly support such employees such as dispatche Outside of public health and safety employees, it is up to the City to maintain documentation of other employees that may be considered substantially dedicated. To begin creating a proposal for hazard pay, staff needed to identify an appropriate timeframe for eligibility. Staff chose to establish March 24, 2020 to May 3, 2020. To identify which City employees should be considered eligible for hazard pay, the Emergency Management Coordinator began by creating a database of all employees who were physically at work during that period, along with the number of hours worked. In creating the guidelines listed below, staff reviewed CRF guidance, as well as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce that was utilized by Harris County during the Stay Home Order. Staff established the following guidelines to determine which employees could be considered eligible: Public health and safety employees (Police, Fire, EMS, Dispatch, and support staff) Employees who were substantially dedicated to COVID-19 relief efforts (75% or more of their time was dedicated to COVID mitigation or response) Employees who performed a substantially different function due to COVID-19 Critical maintenance staff and field workers who were unable to perform their role infrastructure and operations. They cannot work from home and the City cannot suspend their work for any period of time. Employees who were required to spend a significant amount of time engaging with members of the public due to their role Once this criteria was established, staff requested that each Department Director provide a list of employees who could be considered eligible for hazard pay. This list was then reviewed s Office. Approximately 250 employees are included in the final proposal for hazard pay. Emergency Management staff used this final list to create hazard pay options for each eligible employee that ranged from $1 an hour for all hours worked to $20 an hour for all hours worked. Based on thorough reviews of these options, staff is recommending the City provide hazard pay at a rate of $14.50 an hour for each hour worked by eligible employees during the timeframe from March 24, 2020 to May 3, 2020. The total cost of this proposal is $701,039.79, with a base rate of $565,674.00, and $135,365.79 for benefits. The proposal includes employees from the following groups: Public Safety: $477,719.48 Employees in this category were at a higher risk of exposure from community spread.