Subject:
Title
Recognizing the Essential Work and Contributions of County Employees During the COVID-19 Pandemic
End
Fiscal Impact:
N/A
Dept/Office:
Dist. 3
Requested Action:
Recommendation
Board passage of attached resolution
End
Summary Explanation and Background:
The Board of County Commissioners previously recognized the essential work and contributions of first responder employees who had contact with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The attached resolution recognizes other employees of the Board of County Commissioners as essential as well.
During the pandemic, County employees have worked tirelessly to ensure that the public is being served by County government. There are many facets to this critical work, and in many ways this work goes unnoticed by most. After all, most people don’t think about the operation of sewer lines until they fail, nor do they notice the state of their roads until there is a pothole or some other problem.
As an example of deceivingly essential work, the Board itself insisted that libraries become operational as soon as possible, recognizing the importance of this service during a period when schools were closed. As such, the libraries department took drastic actions in setting up curbside, sanitized service, before eventually retrofitting libraries in such as way as to allow them to reopen.
After requiring employees to accomplish this task and others like it in the midst of a pandemic, to then insist that this work was not essential would be hypocritical in the extreme. While there is no doubt that first responders who had contact with members of the public are essential, so too are other County employees. The attached resolution simply recognizes this basic truth.
Clerk to the Board Instructions: