City of Waterloo Safety/Health Committee met July 5.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
Meeting to start when Ordinance meeting finished
Members in attendance. Alderman Steve Notheisen Kelli Pace
Mayor Clyde Heller. Kelli Pace
Alderman Kyle Buettner. Tim Birk
Alderman Russ Row. Shawn Kennedy
Alderman Stan Darter. Natalie Steppig
Alderman Jim Hopkins. Michelle Childers
Alderman Matt Buettner. Jessica Rucks
Alderman Jim Trantham
Meeting called to order at 6:59pm
1. Petitions by Citizen on Non-Agenda Items - None
2. COVID Policy – The Federal Government enacted FFCRA – Families First Coronavirus Response Act on April 1, 2020 – December 31st 2020, which provide 10 days (80 hours) of 100% pay if employees were quarantined and seeking medical diagnosis for themselves. Or 10 Days (80 hours) of paid sick leave at 2/3 the employees regular rate of pay because the employee is unable to work to care for an individual subject to quarantine or care for a child whose school or daycare provider is closed due to COVID-19 – There was also an expanded FMLA which provided up to an additional 10 weeks of paid expanded family and medical leave at two-thirds -when an employee is unable to work due to a need to care for a child whose school or daycare provider is closed or unavailable for reasons related to COVID-19. The City of Waterloo enacted the policy and honored the same policy retroactively for all employees that had been out of work prior to the April 1st date if they fit the criteria of the new Act. On January 1 of 2021 Employers were no longer required to honor this policy, the City of Waterloo continued to honor this policy for their employees until March 31, 2021. Later in 2021 the Delta variant of COVID-19 was discovered and was spreading rapidly. Waterloo City Council at that time decided they needed to act to make sure employees had some type of coverage if they had to miss work due to Covid-19. The City of Waterloo paid these days out of their own funds, that policy was effective retro actively starting August 12 2021 – May 27th 2022. It was brought to the committee’s attention on June 27, 2022 that the city had recently had six employees missing time due to Covid-19 and requested that the policy was revisited. Discussion on the topic – It was brought to the attention of the committee that some employees had been fortunate to have never gotten the virus and thus had not used any of the time available under the expired policy. The request to the committee was to enact a new policy that would provide coverage for only the employees that hadn’t used any of the time under the expired policy. The committee discussed that the quarantine time had been reduced from 10 days to 3-5 days depending on which physician the employee went to for medical advice. The questions was brought up that if the committee started a new policy and didn’t include all the employees that might not be possible since the old policy had expired. The meeting was recessed at 7:29pm to accommodate the Waterloo City Council Regular Meeting at 7:30pm Motion to Recess was made by Alderman Steve Notheisen, Seconded by Alderman Russ Row. Meeting returned from recess at 7:50pm Motion made to resume meeting by Alderman Jim Trantham and Seconded by Alderman Jim Hopkins. When the meeting was resumed the committee continued to discuss the Covid-19 policy. It was pointed out that in April 2022 it was announced that the United States is no longer in a pandemic phase, that vaccines and boosters are now widely available and no other municipality from our knowledge had extended the policy past March 21 2021 while the City of Waterloo kept a policy in place until May 27th of 2022. A motion was made by Alderman Russ Row that the City of Waterloo would not extend or put in place any other type of Covid-19 Policy. Alderman Jim Trantham Seconded the motion. Alderman Russ Row, Alderman Steve Notheisen, Alderman Jim Trantham and Alderman Kyle Buettner Voted Yes. Alderman Jim Hopkins Voted No. The motion passed with a 4-1 vote from the committee.
3. Comments – None
Motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:01pm was made by Steve Notheisen, Seconded by Russ Row. Meeting adjourned at 8:01 pm.
https://www.waterloo.il.us/wp-content/uploads/Safety-Health-Cmte-Mtg-Minutes-07-05-22.pdf
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