By John McLoone

The Hastings City Council decided Monday night not to end the paid emergency sick leave for COVID-19-related absences until Dec. 31.

City Administrator Dan Wietecha asked the council to sunset the leave at the same date the city decides to end its emergency declaration, which likely will be July 31.

Because of uncertainty with COVID-19 variants and the fact that paying the leave can be reimbursed with federal aid dollars, the council voted unanimously to extend the emergency paid leave until Dec. 31.

The emergency paid leave has been extended twice by the council after its initial end date of Dec. 31, 2020. It was set to end June 30 prior to Monday’s vote.

“Staff and I recommend extending it again and tying it to whatever that emergency declaration should be. The paid sick leave would match the city declaration end date,” he said.

Councilmember Tina Folch advocated for not tying the sick leave to the end of the emergency declaration.

“I wouldn’t want to end that. We’re not mandating the staff get the COVID vaccination, and so there is a new Delta variant that’s taking hold,” she said of the latest pandemic virus strain. “Stopping emergency paid sick leave for staff, especially First Responders, makes me uncomfortable.”

“I would disagree in connecting those two,” she said.

Folch initially made a motion to extend it until Sept. 30. Following discussion centered around the leave expense being reimbursed with COVID-relief dollars, that motion was unanimously defeated and a second one was made to extend it out until the end of the year. That passed in the same unanimous fashion.

Councilmember Mark Vaughn posed the question to Wietecha: “Can we use Rescue (the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act) funding for that?”

“We should be able to do that,” said Wietecha. “One of the general pieces of guidance on the ARPA funds, almost anything allowed under the CARES Act should be allowed through the ARPA funds.”

The city did reimburse its coffers for any COVID-19-related sick leave through the CARES Act, he noted.

“I don’t know why we’d put a date on it,” Vaughn said, referring to ending the sick leave. “Don’t tie it together. leave it be, as long as there’s a funding source for it. I don’t know if I’d put an end date on it.”

Said Folch, “I concur with Councilmember Vaughn that we keep it open-ended. This virus isn’t going anywhere soon. We can extend it every quarter, every six months.”

Folch asked if the measure could be extended to an undefined date.

“Does it have to have an end date?” she asked.

“I would prefer to have an end date,” answered Wietecha. “We’re going back to normal, the building is open, we’re going to in-person meetings. How do you justify having to have this emergency sick leave months after all these other actions? I would be reluctant to something open-ended. I would ask you to pick a specific date rather than leave it open-ended. If we hit that date, based on the circumstances at that time, we can extend it.”

Folch pleaded the case for extending it at least until Dec. 31.

“There is still a virus out there. We have over 600,000 Americans dead,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable throwing our emergency responders to the wind. The mutations are still evolving.”