'Heroes Bonuses' approved, but Tuscaloosa worker vaccine incentive dies in committee

A proposal that would have offered $250 to each vaccinated Tuscaloosa city employee died in committee Tuesday.

After three weeks of discussion, the council’s three-member finance committee decided not to move forward with the vaccine incentive plan.

After the committee meeting, however, the full City Council unanimously agreed to spend more than $2 million of the city’s American Rescue Plan allotment on “Heroes Bonuses” – a measure separate from the vaccination incentive proposal – that will reward employees who worked during the early months of the pandemic.

Mayor Walt Maddox initially proposed the $250 vaccination incentives, arguing that more vaccinated workers could mean lower healthcare costs for the self-insured municipality.

More vaccinations also could save taxpayer money, he said, by reducing employee absences due to illness and exposure-required quarantine, while reducing overtime costs for departments like police and fire.

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Maddox said these overtime shifts start at about $50-per-hour, meaning a full eight-hour shift would run at least $400.

“I believe it’s the prudent thing to do,” Maddox said Tuesday. “When you do the math, it can be very expensive.”

But ultimately, committee chair and District 4 Councilman Lee Busby, vice-chair and District 3 Councilman Norman Crow and District 1 Councilman Matthew Wilson remained reluctant to incentivize employees’ choices about whether to vaccinate.

Wilson, a pastor who told of recently comforting a family that lost an unvaccinated relative to the disease, appeared to support the vaccine in principle, but still chose not to bring the matter up for a vote.

“This child had to lose their mother for them to realize they needed to get vaccinated,” he said. “But if I have to pay you to do what’s right, then that makes me question your integrity and your character.”

While the committee elected to take no action on the vaccine incentives, DCH Health System was reporting that, as of Tuesday, 87.7% – 128 out of 146 – of COVID-19 patients hospitalized within the system’s medical centers were not fully vaccinated, according to the health system’s latest update.

The remaining 18, or 12.3%, were vaccinated against the disease, the health system said.

While around 500 employees have received the vaccine, the remaining 800 or so, or about 61%, of the city’s overall workforce have not.

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The most vocal council member in support of the incentive program was District 7 Councilman Cassius Lanier, who is not a member of the finance committee and therefore had no vote.

“If we have to spend some money to save lives, then let’s put it on the table,” Lanier said.

The matter can still be brought before the full council for consideration by a City Hall department head or other mechanism of the city’s bureaucracy.

However, those employees who worked during the dawn of the coronavirus pandemic can expect the “Heroes Bonus” on their Oct. 29 paychecks. These are for workers who were employed beginning from March 1 2020, when vaccines weren’t yet available, through March 31, 2021.

Level 1 workers, of which there are an estimated 566, will get $1,250 each. These are the city workers who worked at City Hall or offices during the pandemic but did not face extreme or daily dangers.

The estimated 674 workers classified as Level 2 will receive $2,500 each. These are the workers who were on the front lines of the epidemic – police officers, firefighters, emergency crews and sanitation workers, among them – who worked in uncontrolled environments, in close contact with the public or otherwise were put at higher risk of encountering infected residents or contaminated materials because of their city-based jobs.

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com.