ND City Looks to Ensure FFs' Sick Time as Coronavirus Spreads

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Grand Forks next week could offer its emergency workers -- and, perhaps, other employees -- a reprieve, of sorts, from the coronavirus.

City Council members voted unanimously on Monday to table a plan that would allow city police, firefighters, dispatchers, nurses and other public safety workers who are hospitalized or quarantined by the virus to use on-duty time, rather than sick leave or vacation days, while they’re laid up. City Attorney Howard Swanson is set to review the resolution and present a new draft of it at the council’s Committee of Whole meeting on Monday, March 23, for final approval.

The plan was introduced at Monday’s meeting by City Council member Danny Weigel, a University of North Dakota police officer. Weigel pushed to have the plan approved at the same meeting, but other council members were reluctant to move that quickly. City Council President Dana Sande thought a similar push in Washington, D.C., might pre-empt the city’s.

“The federal government doesn’t get things done too quickly, these days,” Weigel said. “If it’s a week out, or a day out, or three weeks out, I want to have something in place for our city employees that are going out working every day.”

The city also could extend the same offer to other employees, especially those who regularly work with the public and could, theoretically, be more likely to contract coronavirus: bus drivers, sanitation workers, and municipal court staff, for instance.

“I think the more broad we make it, the fairer it is,” Todd Feland, Grand Forks’ city administrator, told council members.

Weigel’s resolution would more or less overlap with a move made by Grand Forks administrators on Sunday, when Gov. Doug Burgum ordered all K-12 schools in North Dakota to close this week. Throughout this work week, city employees can use administrative leave, rather than sick or vacation time, to stay home to tend to their kids or handle their own illness.

City administrators will consider extending that allowance through next week at the end of this one, Feland told the Herald. The one Weigel presented to the council on Monday would be closer to permanent.

The action council members agree to next Monday would be final, even though most Committee of the Whole meetings are only for giving preliminary consideration to city business.

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