City of Williams employees who didn’t voluntarily get a COVID-19 vaccine to protect their health – or the health of the public they serve – will now have an opportunity to get the jab for cash.
The Williams City Council has agreed to pay $500 to each employee who has already been vaccinated and $500 as an incentive to those who have not yet received the shot.
The City has about 37 employees, which will cost taxpayers $18,500 if all take the city up on the offer. Officials estimate about 20-24 have already been vaccinated, which is similar to vaccination rates of Colusa County as a whole. According to Public Health, about 50 percent of people ages 20-49 have been vaccinated, with higher rates among those 50 and over.
While not everyone at Williams’ Nov. 18 meeting agreed that paying employees to get vaccinated was the right thing to do, all agreed that mandating vaccines would be difficult on Constitutional grounds and would be the wrong approach to take.
“If the goal is to have as many employees as possible be vaccinated, a financial incentive for employees would be a better option,” said City Administrator Frank Kennedy.
Kennedy argued that a vaccinated workforce would benefit the public because many have close contact with citizens during the normal course of their duties. He also argued that city employees missing work because of infection results in lost productivity and overtime costs for other employees to fill in.
“We’re not trying to call getting the vaccine the right thing or the wrong thing, I just feel that a fully vaccinated workforce would pay benefits to the city, both in the amount of work we can get done – and financially,” Kennedy said. “We have to cover people who are out for an extended period of time on sick leave. That costs the city money.”
Councilman Don Parsons, who opposed paying employees to vaccinate, said he may have felt differently if the city had made the offer when the vaccination first became available last spring, and not after most employees have likely already received the shot.
“The more I think about it, the more I think this is a gift of public funds,” Parson said.
The majority of the council, on a 4-1 vote, felt the $500 payment to city employees for vaccinations was in the interest of the public.
The vote was split, however, on whether to pay themselves the same $500 for the vaccination, which added $2,500 to the total cost.
Councilman Parsons and Councilman Sajit Singh opposed, forcing Mayor Roberto Mendoza to break the tie, voting with Councilmen Alfred Sellers and Santos Jauregui, even though Mendoza admitted he was already vaccinated.
City officials made the same argument that being out sick would hinder productivity, although the City Council meets only once a month, members attend just a handful of public meetings, and the council has continued to allow members to attend meetings of the City Council virtually if they chose not to attend.
City officials said they would not keep a record of who is vaccinated or disclose that information to the public.
Employees need only show an official vaccination card to the finance director for payment, officials said. ■