Manteca Municipal employees — unlike a growing number of private sector workers facing mandatory vaccination requirements or risk losing their jobs — do not have to receive COVID-19 shots.
However, the City Council has dangled a $400 incentive for rank and file municipal employees in recognized bargaining units if they are fully vaccinated by Dec. 15.
Tonight the council may extend the same incentive to executive management, public safety mid managers, and confidential mid managers many of whom earn more than $100,000 a year.
The council meets at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.
In a report to the council, staff states “in accordance with the City of Manteca’s duty to provide and maintain a workplace free of hazards, City Council recently approved the use of American Rescue Plan Act funds to incentivize and encourage employees to protect themselves and become fully vaccinated as defined by the Centers for Disease Control.
According to the city, only 52 percent of the municipal staff is fully vaccinated as opposed to 72.4 percent for the overall Manteca community,
The staff memo notes the city is striving to reach the “federal goal of a 70 percent vaccination rate.”
The vaccination incentive, according to the report, will cost about $200,000. Given the report indicates the incentive at $400 per person will apply to 240 employees citywide that comes to $96,000 there apparently are costs associated with the effort not delineated in the staff report.
Manteca Unified earlier this year offered a similar incentive that was $50 less than the city’s offer to its employees using federal COVID relief funds to encourage staff to get vaccinated
That effort resulted in 891 staff members being paid a $350 bonus. It helped push the ranks of fully vaccinated MUSD staff past the 50 percent mark in June. The incentives cost the district $315,000.
Manteca Unified has 2,329 teachers and classified support staff.
Starting this week a state mandate goes into effect requiring all Manteca Unified teachers and support staff to be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
The latest directive by Governor Gavin News issued last week takes the testing option off the table by the start of the 2022-2023 school year. At that point unvaccinated school personnel will not be allowed to work nor will they be paid.
City employees also
seeking COVID stipend
for staying on the job
The vaccination incentives for city employees is in addition to a push by municipal workers to tap into the $13.7 million in COVID relief funds Manteca received from the federal government to reward them with one-time stipends for staying on the job in the early stages of the pandemic.
A video clip from a citywide virtual call former City Manager Miranda Lutzow conducted with all city employees in March 2020 promised there would be a “bucket of money” to reward them with one-time stipends for staying on the job. The “bucket of money” was the COVID relief funds that had not yet been formerly authorized.
A number of cities in the valley paid stipends to essential workers to keep them on the job. Essential workers go beyond just firefighters and police. It included street workers, solid waste truck drivers, finance, IT, parks maintenance, lab workers at the wastewater treatment plant — virtually every worker on the payroll to keep the city up and running.
Manteca municipal workers were also requested to step forward in the event emergency staffing was needed for situations that might arise.
One city employee recently died from COVID while a number of others have been sickened by the coronavirus.
Manteca Unified used $6.55 million of their $49 million in federal COVID relief funds for one-time stipends for those who worked during the pandemic. It included $2,350 for teachers and most classified employees. Those classified employees that are noon duty workers received $1,160.
The City Council has yet to receive staff recommendations on how to spend the balance of the federal COVID funds.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
