Over 600 Muscogee County School District employees will receive coronavirus hazard pay
Hundreds of Muscogee County School District employees will receive hazard pay for various duties they perform amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The school board unanimously approved the recommendation from superintendent David Lewis during its monthly meeting Monday night, conducted via videoconferencing due to COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions.
According to the plan attached to the meeting’s agenda, 644 MCSD employees will share in the estimated total of $133,150 funded through the federal CARES Act.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, signed into law March 27 by President Donald Trump, is the bipartisan congressional package of more than $2 trillion in assistance for American workers, families, small businesses and local and state governments.
MCSD nutrition staff, bus drivers, police officers, information services technicians and school-based employees who are considered essential personnel during the public health emergency declared last month by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will be paid at the flat rate of $50 per day for documented service.
The following breakdown is based on calculations through April 30, when Kemp’s extended stay-at-home restrictions are scheduled to expire.
- $64,600 shared by 15 bus drivers, 38 nutrition workers and 15 police officers, who helped provide free meals for students five days per week March 17 through April 17.
- $50,000 shared by 500 employees (10 at 50 schools) who staffed the April 15-16 sessions for families to pick up packets of lessons for their children to do at home during the distance-learning period.
- $18,250 shared by 15 bus drivers, 43 nutrition workers and 15 polices officers to continue providing free meals for students when the program switched to three days per week for April 20-30. Students still are receiving the same amount of food as five days per week, but this schedule reduces the chances for exposure to the virus.
- $300 shared by three information technology technicians to enable the board’s April 13 work session and April 20 meeting to be conducted via Zoom videoconferencing and livestreamed on MCSD’s YouTube channel.
Lewis thanked the board for its approval and praised the employees for “working diligently to provide for the academic and particularly the nutritional needs of our students during this time.”
He called them “true heroes” for putting themselves at risk of getting the deadly virus while continuing to serve students.
This past week, Lewis said, MCSD served more than 18,000 free meals to children in Columbus.
“I think that’s significant,” he said.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
