By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – The village board held a special meeting Thursday, April 2, where some members and staff participated remotely to deal with matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including emergency leave.
To comply with federal law related to paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave through Dec. 31 under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the board approved an emergency leave policy in the village’s personnel manual.
Village Manager Allison Swanson said the law allows the village to exempt emergency responders, which include employees who are required for emergency services, such as for public safety and public works, as well as employees deemed essential to ongoing village operations.
Swanson said the emergency leave policy drafted for the village personnel manual excludes them from the provisions related to caring for others or caring for children due to school/child care closing.
“It’s certainly optional under federal law, but the reason for doing so is, if we had, let’s just say, half of our public safety force decides that they need to care for someone else, or they have to care for their children because they’re not in daycare, we would very quickly run out of (employees), and how would we start to balance that?” she said. “We still have the option to try and work with people.”
The list of employees who are exempt from that portion of the policy, and not entitled to two-thirds paid leave for up to $200 per day, include the village manager, village attorney, finance director, director of public safety, director of public works, village engineer, utility operations supervisor, public works operations supervisor, all sworn public safety officers and all public works, parks and water/sewer utility operations employees.
For the employees not exempt, the two-thirds paid leave they would be eligible for would be for up to two weeks or $2,000 total.
Up to 12 weeks of two-thirds paid leave and expanded family and medical leave for caring for a child whose school is closed or childcare provider is closed would be available for non-exempt employees up to $12,000 total.
Whether or not designated an emergency responder, the policy will also provide paid sick leave if an employee is unable to work or telework due to:
• The employee is subject to a federal, state or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;
• The employee has been advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to concerns related to COVID-19; or
• The employee is experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and seeking a medical diagnosis.
In those instances, employees would be entitled up to two weeks of full paid leave up to $511 per day or $5,110 for the total leave period.
Employee pay in April
Regardless of whether village employees are considered essential or non-essential and able to work following Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer at Home order in effect through April 24, the board agreed to pay all village employees through the end of April.
Swanson said the village has yet to bring in any seasonal employees, whose starting date is being delayed because of the pandemic.
She said existing employees for the time being will be handling duties, such as mowing grass, before additional employees are hired.
Of about 120 regular full-time and part-time employees, Swanson said two full-time and three part-time employees are not working or telecommuting.
“All other employees are working on a rotating basis or telecommuting in some fashion at a full schedule or partial scheduling depending on their individual job duties, whether it is feasible to telecommute for their assigned duties, and whether or not it is an essential function at this time,” she said.
COVID-19 budget impact
Finance Director Greg Wenholz provided the board with an update on the effect the pandemic is having on village revenues and expenses.
Wenholz said he projects room tax revenue, which the village receives around $400,000 annually, will be “almost nothing” for the next three months and will likely also be down going into the summer with people being apprehensive about traveling.
However, Wenholz said at this point he isn’t factoring in any loss in room tax revenue that could occur if NFL games scheduled for later this year are cancelled.
“Clearly, that would have a significant impact,” he said.
Because of village employees switching this year from a preferred provider option for health insurance to a health savings account plan, which will be the only health plan offered next year, Wenholz said the village expects to save around $275,000 in 2020.
“That is helping tremendously with all the loss of revenue,” he said.
Overall, Wenholz said the COVID-19 pandemic so far hasn’t resulted in “a huge change to our expense side.”
“Public safety hasn’t necessary bought a lot of COVID-related items at this point, but I am tracking all those costs with its own account code, if you will,” he said. “I’ve already applied to open the relief grant with FEMA, and then there’s a whole process to ask for reimbursement.”
Wenholz said he expects the village will financially “weather the storm here, unless it just blows up considerably, and that’s speculative at best.”