BERRIEN COUNTY EMPLOYEES TO RECEIVE PANDEMIC HAZARD PAY BONUSES

By DEBRA HAIGHT
ST. JOSEPH – Berrien County Commissioners formalized giving pandemic hazard pay to county employees-both full and part time at their weekly board meeting last week. Commissioners also heard good news that two Berrien County communities are getting state funds to spruce up their downtowns.
Commissioners had first discussed the topic of hazard pay a month ago in August. They approved the concept of giving $1,000 in pandemic hazard pay to all county employees and retirees who were working for the county during the pandemic, directing the board’s Personnel and Human Services committee to iron out the details.
As noted then, those who have already received pandemic hazard pay such as sheriff’s department employees and other first responders would not be getting any additional bonus.
PHS Committee Chair Robert Harrison said his committee looked into the matter with help from county staff including County Administrator Brian Dissette. They found that 468 full time county employees are eligible to get the bonus, a number that includes four recent retirees.
He said that while the cost of giving the $1,000 bonus to the full time employees is over $500,000, the cost to the county will be offset by using available special revenue funds in the public defender, health, parks and road departments. Using those funds will bring the cost to the general fund down to $345,211, he said.
Harrison also said his committee then decided that part-time and temporary county employees who were working in 2021-22 also should be considered for hazard pay. Those employees will get a hazard bonus of up to $500 based on hours worked during the year.
Dissette noted that they had originally thought of targeting those who were working at the start of the pandemic in March, 2020 for the hazard bonus but discovered that the county didn’t start adding staff until 2021. “We were trying to cast the widest net we could,” he said. “We have run multiple variants of dates and can continue to do so.”
Dissette and Board Chairman McKinley Elliott said that the price tag for the hazard pay bonuses for part-time employees is expected to be around $27,000. The resolution approved by the county board authorizes the PHS committee to spend up to $35,000 for the part-time bonuses without having to come back to the full board.
County Commissioner Jim Curran said he liked how the PHS committee had resolved the issue to give bonuses to both full and part time employees. “This will take care of the situation and people won’t come back and say we missed some,” he said.
“I like this resolution,” he added. “It demonstrates that we really do care about our employees. As I said before, when we were in the midst of talking about essential employees, I regard all our employees as essential.”
Curran noted that while some people may say that the county is getting $30 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds and can afford to give out this hazard pay, that’s not the whole story. “Some people say that we can do whatever we want with it (the ARPA money), well no, it’s not quite that simple,” he said.
“We’re making a conscious effort to do this and finding the resources to make it happen,” he added. “I think it is the right thing to do.”
Commissioners got good news about economic development efforts at their Committee of the Whole meeting earlier last Thursday. Community Development Director Dan Fette reported that the cities of Benton Harbor and Niles will be getting $2.6 million to split between them.
The funds come from the Michigan Strategic Fund through its Revitalization and Placemaking Program. A total of 22 grants were approved, totaling $83.8 million. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation had received 185 applications requesting $500 million to fund projects.
The RAP grant program had been allocated $100 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding to address the negative impacts of COVID-19 on Michigan cities. The goal was to invest in community projects that will “promote population and tax revenue growth,” according to the state.
“The state encouraged communities to look at community public improvements and streetscape projects as well as private residential and mixed use developments,” Fette said.
“We had identified $10 million worth of projects originally and had asked for $5 million from the state,” he added. “We didn’t think we would get all of it but we got word that we would get $2.6 million. So I think we will be able to do $5 million worth of work in downtown Benton Harbor and Niles.”
“What those projects will be, we aren’t quite certain yet but we have a list of projects that we had submitted to the state,” he said. “Obviously we will have to pare that down because we received less than we applied for.”
“We’re not looking a gift horse in the mouth at all, we’re very happy to get the $2.6 million and will probably be able to get around $5 million worth of projects done,” he added.
Fette said he would be meeting with representatives from Niles and Cornerstone Alliance on behalf of Benton Harbor over the next two to three months to start looking at the list of projects. “We want to see which are viable and can be done in the timeframe given which is basically only two years to get the money spent,” he said.
He said if he had to guess, he thinks the money Niles is getting will be spent on the downtown streetscape as the city has pledged to use their own ARPA funds for such a project. In Benton Harbor, he said the redevelopment of a downtown alleyway is a likely project to be done.
In addition, he said there could be private commercial/residential redevelopment projects in both downtowns that could get some of the funding.