City Council Allows COVID Leave Policy to Expire End of February

Monday evening during the Plymouth Common Council Meeting City Attorney Sean Surrisi opened a discussion about the COVID Leave Policy. 

Earlier in the year the council voted to extend the COVID Leave Policy through the end of February.  Surrisi said, “At that time, we were kind of up-in-the-air about where the country would go with some of the proposed restrictions with masking and vaccination requirements.” 

Surrisi said only three or four have used the COVID Leave Policy in the last extension.

The recommendation of Jennifer Klingerman, Human Resource Manager and City Attorney Sean Surrisi recommendation to the City Council the not extend the COVID Leave Policy. 

Councilman Robert Listenberger asked about the current policy and Surrisi said it allows 10 days of leave.  That is what the initial policy allowed because it was a federal law in 2020.  Surrisi said that law expired at the end of 2020.  The Common Council made a local policy to mirror the federal one that had been in place.   The city used that until the end of 2021. 

When asked what the recommendation was Surrisi said if you do nothing the policy expire.

Councilman Greg Compton had concern if an employee were to contract COVID, “it’s a bad deal for them.”  He was concerned the impact to the employee to be off work for an extended period of time. 

The City Attorney said the city has a “pretty robust sick leave policy with 5 sick days per year and they can bank up to 400.”  Surrisi said they have learned to be nimble and responsive and be able to deal with any thing that happens. 

With that, Mayor Mark Senter moved on to the next agenda item and there was no action taken by the Common Council and the COVID Leave Policy was allowed to expire at midnight on Monday, February 28^th.