Colfax staggers DPW schedules as a precaution against COVID-19
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Colfax Village Board has approved staggering the schedules of Department of Public Works employees, along with paying them for being “on call,” as a precaution against COVID-19.
Different municipalities are handling it differently, said Rand Bates, director of public works, at the Colfax Village Board’s March 23 meeting.
To maintain the recommended distance between people to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the village board met at the Colfax Rescue Squad building on Railroad Avenue.
At times in the past, the village board has met in the conference room at the rescue squad building.
The March 23 meeting was held in the ambulance bay, without the ambulances of course, but with one table for each village board member and one for the village administrator-clerk-treasurer.
Although the village board members and Bates sat quite far apart from each other — with the Colfax Messenger reporter sitting at a desk in the far corner of the ambulance bay — the acoustics were surprisingly good.
In fact, to be quite honest, the acoustics were better in the ambulance bay than in the village board’s regular meeting room at the Colfax Municipal Building when the blower is running for the heating/cooling system.
Bates told the village board he’d had conversations with directors of public works in other municipalities, and all of them were concerned about having enough employees in an emergency, keeping employees safe, and what would they do if one or more employees was exposed to COVID-19 and needed to be in self-quarantine for 14 days?
Elk Mound is planning to have one person work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and another person work Thursday and Friday, with the schedule flipped the next week, Bates said.
Hudson is splitting up the group of employees, with half working one week, and the other half working the next week, he said.
In Menomonie, employees are working three 12-hour shifts on split shifts, Bates said.
Another concern is the small municipalities with only one person working, including Wheeler, Wilson and Knapp, he noted.
Ellsworth has two public works employees and also is splitting the week into two days and three days and rotating between the employees, Bates said.
By week
Bates proposed that the Colfax public works employees each work one week, with the other two employees being off two weeks, although available in case of an emergency, such as a broken water main or a sewer back-up.
By each employee working for one week with two weeks on-call, if one employee is exposed to COVID-19 or becomes ill with the coronavirus and must be self-quarantined for 14 days, there will still be an employee to cover each of the weeks the employee must stay in isolation, Bates said.
Village Trustee Anne Jenson wondered if the two employees who would be on-call should still be paid for their time.
If a business practice changes because of the coronavirus, employees are eligible for unemployment the first week, noted Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer.
If one of the employees wants to go somewhere for two weeks, such as San Francisco or New York, that employee must self-quarantine for two weeks upon return, said Scott Gunnufson, village president.
Several village board members said the employees should use their Paid Time Off (PTO/vacation/sick time) for the two weeks when they are on-call.
If the employees are working one week on and two weeks off and are on-call during their two weeks when they are not working, they should be paid for being on-call, said Carey Davis, village trustee.
The procedure would be when one employees finishes his week, he disinfects surfaces in trucks and work stations, and then when the next employee comes on the next week, he disinfects at the start of work and disinfects when he ends work, Niggemann said.
Preference
“What do you want to do, Rand?” asked Margaret Burcham, village trustee.
Bates said he preferred that the employees each work one week, with the other two being on-call the other two weeks.
Bates said he has weekly water samples that he must take every Monday morning and that he would plan to be at work first thing Monday morning for the water samples, and then the employee for that week could start at 10 a.m.
The Consumer Confidence Report (water report) and the Compliance Maintenance Annual Report (wastewater treatment system) are due soon, and Bates said he could work on those reports at home on his on-call weeks.
“I want everybody to be doing something different so we are not all together at once,” Bates said.
“No one else is putting all of their eggs in one basket,” he said.
“We should continue to pay people,” Davis said.
The library was closed as of March 19, and the part-time library staff are working from home and are being paid for their time when they are not at the library, Niggemann said.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved a motion that each of the public works employees work one week with two weeks of being on-call in case of an emergency and that the employees be paid for their time while on-call.
In addition to Gunnufson, Margaret Burcham, Jenson and Davis voting in favor of the motion, Village Trustees Logan Michels and Keith Burcham also voted in favor.
Village Trustee Mark Halpin was absent from the meeting.