COVID 19 Emergency Leave and Support Programs

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Coconino County serves approximately 140,000 residents and provides essential services that create resilient, healthy, and safe communities. Our organization’s commitment to public service is further demonstrated by innovative policies designed not only to benefit our citizens but our employees as well. With this in mind, in January 2022 the Coconino County Board of Supervisors approved the latest in a series of wrap around COVID-19 Employee Supports designed to assist employees encountering a variety of COVID-19 challenges. While other organizations were beginning to wind down their COVID-19 related flexibility, Coconino County received honest and heartfelt employee feedback that employees continued to face challenges. Each person’s pandemic journey has been unique, and the wide range of supports approved by the Coconino County Board of Supervisors reflected the diversity of experience. On January 11, 2022, Coconino County employees received: • 40 additional hours of paid COVID-19 Emergency Leave • Bereavement Leave of up to 5 days for both in-state and out-of-state travel • The vacation cap was raised from 240 hours to 320 hours • Employees can run a negative vacation balance of up to negative 40 hours • Employees may donate up to 80 hours of PTO leave to other eligible employees through Coconino’s Leave Donation Program • A COVID-19 Vaccine Incentive Program was created to pay $200 for full COVID-19 vaccination and $100 for COVID-19 booster vaccination, an incentive which applied to temporary and regular staff. • A floating holiday deadline was extended to June 30, 2022, something Coconino County had never done previously The COVID-19 Emergency Leave Policy originally provided regular status employees with 40 hours of COVID-19 Emergency Leave beginning on October 16, 2021. On January 11, 2022, the Coconino County Board of Supervisors increased the COVID-19 Emergency Leave Policy to 80 hours available for use through June 30, 2022. The COVID-19 Emergency leave policy is to help employees recover from COVID-19 related illness, to work through COVID-19 related issues including quarantining, awaiting COVID-19 test results, care for COVID-19 ill family member or lack of childcare due to COVID-19 related closures. Part time employees receive leave hours in proportion to the number of hours scheduled to work per week. This leave allows for taking the time we need to work through challenges created by COVID-19 and keep illness out of the workplace. Our county leadership also sent out surveys throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to check in on employees and see how they were feeling throughout this challenging time as well as hosting all hands meetings where employees could attend virtually and express concerns and feel heard throughout this pandemic. Coconino County continues to support employees in a variety of ways for a variety of needs. This truly speaks to the continuance of putting our employees first so that we may best serve the public and our citizens. All of this would not be possible without our county leadership and innovative ways of ensuring our employees are cared for, heard and supported during this critical season.