Richland County doling out nearly $7 million in COVID hazard pay to frontline workers
Richland County is doling out nearly $7 million in federal COVID relief funds as a form of hazard pay to deputies, utility workers and others who have worked in the public amid the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the time before vaccines were available.
County council approved a measure in late July authorizing county administration to make the hazard pay — also referred to in county paperwork as “premium pay” — stipends to some county employees. The funding is coming from the federal American Rescue Plan COVID relief funding that was signed into law in March by President Joe Biden.
According to county records, about 1,470 employees will receive the one-time stipend, and the total amount paid will be about $6.9 million.
Some county employees are getting a $5,000 stipend. Those include sheriff’s deputies, coroner’s officer personnel, EMS workers, utility workers and others whose jobs often take them into the public with direct contact with other people in unpredictable scenarios.
Other county workers will get a $2,500 stipend. Those would include employees who worked daily in county offices and had interactions with the public and other employees, but had some level of control over the risk they encountered.
County records indicate employees who teleworked from home aren’t eligible for the one-time stipend, per guidance from the U.S. Treasury. County employees hired after March 30 of this year also are not eligible for the funding.
A memo from County Administrator Leonardo Brown to employees said the stipend is “in response to the continuous efforts of those employees who were unable to work remotely as their job required routine direct exposure to the public during a time when COVID-19 vaccinations were non-existent, exposure guidance was frequently changing, and personal protective equipment was in limited supply and difficult to acquire.”
County Councilwoman Jesica Mackey said approving the use of relief money for the one-time stipends was a necessary move.
“I greatly appreciate our county employees who continued to work on the front lines during COVID,” Mackey said. “Their commitment helped the county to be able to provide continued service to our residents. Providing this stipend is the right thing to do.”
Councilwoman Allison Terracio said the county administration and staff were deliberate in their consideration of how the funding would eventually be dispersed.
“I know that administration have been very careful about the way they have looked at the Rescue Plan funds that have come in,” Terracio said. “The last thing we would want to do is expend those funds in a way that wasn’t in alignment with the guidelines.”
Meanwhile, the city of Columbia has been working on its own possible hazard pay measure for essential workers. Councilman Howard Duvall and Councilman Daniel Rickenmann, a mayoral candidate, have each said the matter will likely come up at the Sept. 7 city council meeting.
While finer details of the would-be city measure aren’t yet known, Duvall said he would like to see it tied to vaccination for city employees.
“I’m in favor of (a hazard pay bonus), but I think they should not be able to get that bonus as an essential worker until they’ve gotten their vaccine that would help prevent them from getting sick in the future,” Duvall said.
The issue briefly spilled over into this year’s mayoral campaign earlier this week, when candidate Sam Johnson opened his remarks at a Vista Guild forum calling upon the city to get a hazard pay deal done.
“We’ve had first responders who have had to be out there, who worked to keep us safe here in Columbia, and unfortunately they have done that without hazard pay,” Johnson said. “City council has talked about it. Richland County ... stepped up. They got it done.”
