Outagamie County’s vaccinated employee perk: Two weeks of extra paid time off if they get COVID. Unvaccinated use their own PTO hours – Post-Crescent

APPLETON - In a 20-11 vote Tuesday night, the Outagamie County Boardvoted to require county employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to receive additional paidtime off if theycontract the virus.

This policy change now offers an additional 80 hours, or two weeks, of paid time off only to fully vaccinated employees. That means if two employees test positive for COVID-19 and both, hypothetically speaking, have five days of paid timeoff remaining, the employee who is not vaccinated will use their own PTO hours while at home recovering.

In contrast, an employee with five days of PTO remaining who tests positive will dip into the additional two weeks of PTO now available to vaccinated employees rather than using any of their five PTO days.

"We take COVID very seriously," Outagamie County Executive Thomas Nelson told The Post-Crescent Tuesday."We want to align incentives with folks taking appropriate cautions to limit the spread of COVID, and to keep themselves safe as well."

Currently about 53% of county residents eligible for the vaccine have been fully vaccinated, according to Outagamie County vaccination data.

The county first began offering theemergency time offin March of 2020 via an executive order issued by Nelson. Last year, the county funded emergency paid leave by using federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act funds.

CARES Act funds must be used by the end of the year, prompting the county to look for another funding source. A likely alternative are ARPA The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds.ARPA funds are the latest in a series of COVID-19-related relief and economic stimulus legislation passed by Congress.

Prior to the County Boardmeeting and approving the paid leave plan Tuesday night, the county'sLegislative/Audit and Human Resources Committee met and unanimously approved the proposal.

Cindy Fallona, a member of that committee said she fully supports the move.

We cannot at this point force people to have a vaccination, but if one chooses not to do that in the face of medical evidence then there have to be some consequences, and these are pretty stark consequences," Fallona said during the committee meeting.

Board member Christine Lamers said she doesn't want county employees to have separate COVID-19leave benefits. She said vaccinated people can still get sick and spread the virus to unvaccinated people.

"I don't think there's aneed to incentivize any more," Lamers said during the board meeting prior to voting against the leave policy. "There's food, money, gift cards.If people haven't taken some form of incentive, at this point I don't think there's anything out there that they will take."

Cathy Spears, chair of the human resources committee,said she does not see this new approach as punitive but rather a good way of utilizing federal money correctly.

She said rather than having federal aid money for COVID-19 paying for someone who has not been vaccinated to be on leave, themoney can instead be spent on another program that helps promote health, such as purchasing more personal protective equipment (PPE).

I dont see this as a punitive thing, Spears said during a committee meeting Tuesday night prior to the full Outagamie County Board meeting. I see this as a smart financial move by the county.

Supervisor Ronald Klemp said while he believes everyone should get vaccinated, he doesn't want to pressure others to do so.

"I don't want to force somebodyto do something that is against their conscience or their belief or whatever it is," Klemp said."Ifthey get COVID,now they're not eligible, even though they're working hard every day through the pandemic."

Joseph Guidote, corporation council for Outagamie County, said there are some built-in exemptions.

"I did want to point out that the executive order does have an exemption for an employee with a valid medical reason not to take the vaccine, orhas a valid religious conviction for not taking his vaccine," Guidote said.

Curt Konetzke, vice chair of the human resources committee, asked Lisa Lux, the countys human resources director, if she had heard anything positive or negative from employment groups or county departments.

Lux said she had not personally heard anything from anyone. She added there have been discussions in terms of what this means for unvaccinated employees.

Our goal with this is really to incentivize employees to get the vaccine, Lux told committee members. The sooner we are able to make those things happen the sooner we can get back to normal operationally.

Board members who voted against the policy include:Dominic Renteria, Christine Lamers, Jason Wegand, Kelly Schroeder, Mike Thomas, Ronald Klemp, Eric Davidson, Bob Buchman, Dennis Clegg, Debbie Vander Heiden and Daniel Rettler.Five board members were not present for the vote.

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Contact Roshaun Higgins at 920-205-1154or rhiggins@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @row_yr_boat.

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Outagamie County's vaccinated employee perk: Two weeks of extra paid time off if they get COVID. Unvaccinated use their own PTO hours - Post-Crescent