The federal law that allowed residents to claim 80 hours of pay for being off work for COVID-19-related health issues expired at the end of 2020, but the Plymouth City Council members discussed extending that through the end of 2021 without the federal law in place.
Clerk-Treasurer Jeanine Xaver presented a letter to the council from an attorney with New Focus HR where the attorney suggests that an employee who started COVID sick leave at the end of December 2020 continue to be paid COVID leave, but did not recommend new paid COVID leave cases into 2021.
Xaver said there are three employees currently out with COVID-19-related issues and wanted to know how the council wanted to proceed. She commented that she did not recommend extending that paid leave, unless mandated by the government. She noted that $116,000 was paid out in 2020 in paid COVID time off for 66 employees.
Xaver also noted that all current city employees have one week of paid sick leave, one week of paid vacation time and three days of paid personal days that they can use anytime they are sick. Councilman Greg Compton asked about sick bank time and Xaver replied that many employees have almost 400 allowable hours of sick bank time stocked that could be used.
Council members tended to agree that the paid time off should be extended to be fair to all employees who may be experiencing leave because of COVID-19 in the middle of the pandemic. They also agreed that it would be available to those who have not used the COVID leave benefit due to sickness or family quarantine or sickness. In essence, it would be a true extension of the program and it does not reset retroactive to the beginning of the year.
The Plymouth City Council unanimously approved a motion to continue the COVID leave pay as it was deemed in the federal law and create it as a local policy.
