COVID bonuses approved for Sacramento County essential workers. Here’s what they get
Sacramento County will distribute hazard pay bonuses to county employees who performed essential work during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in the next few weeks.
Qualifying Sacramento County employees will be eligible for up to two installments of either a $1,500 lump sum or 40 hours of administrative time off — one installment for the current fiscal year and one for 2022-23, which begins July 1.
Essential county employees will qualify for either one or both installments depending on their number of hours worked at the job site since the start of the pandemic.
The Board of Supervisors, in a unanimous vote, approved the bonuses on the consent agenda of Tuesday’s meeting, finalizing a deal that has been in the works for several weeks. An earlier version of the resolution included just one installment for the current fiscal year, and had been pending amid ongoing negotiations with labor unions.
The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, a federal coronavirus relief package signed last year by President Joe Biden.
Which essential workers get hazard pay?
The federal legislation defines essential sectors as including “health care, public health and safety, childcare, education, sanitation, transportation, and food production and services,” as well as any other sector “deemed critical to protect the health and well-being of residents” by the state or locality receiving the funding.
In November, the county additionally defined essential work as “work that is not performed while teleworking from a residence and includes regular in-person interactions with patients, the public or coworkers, or regular physical handling of items that were handled by patients, the public or coworkers.”
Essential workers include sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, nurses and other occupations.
The payments will be available to both union-represented and unrepresented employees, so long as they are considered essential.
Who qualifies for the hazard pay bonuses work?
The first installment will be available to those who worked at least 120 hours at a job site between March 5, 2020, and March 8, 2022, and who remain employed by the county as of the latter date, according to agreements reached with unions.
The second installment will be available to those who worked an additional 120 hours between March 5, 2020 and May 1, 2022, on top of the 120 worked for the first installment.
Overtime hours count toward those totals, but paid leave does not.
County employees with an annual pay of $102,318 or less are eligible for the lump sums, but may elect to opt out and receive 40 hours of administrative leave time instead.
Those making more than that amount are only eligible for administrative leave, which must be used by the end of 2024.
Administrative hours will be pro-rated for part-time employees.
When will the bonus payments be sent?
Employees will receive the lump sum or time credit from the first round of installments no later than April 7, according to the agreement.
The second installments will be distributed no later than 30 calendar days after the second round of American Rescue Plan Act funding is formally received by the county, but no sooner than July 8, the first paycheck of the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Where is the rest of the county’s federal funding going?
The Board of Supervisors in November set aside $11.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the premium payments being given to essential workers, which is now being used for the first round of installments.
The premium payments were just one slice of $150 million the county received in the first phase of the American Rescue Plan Act. The largest share, about $59 million, went toward programs combating homelessness, followed by $20 million to health care initiatives and $20 million to economic recovery costs. The rest went toward administrative costs and to each of the county’s five supervisorial districts.
The county is due to receive another $150 million in the second phase this May.
Officials have not yet determined how that money will be spent, but the second installments of lump-sum payments and administrative time off will come from that pool of funding.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 12:12 PM.
