At our March 18, 2020, Board of Health meeting, the Board approved additional compensatory time for exempt staff working over 40 hours during the District’s COVID-19 emergency response.

To recap, On March 4, 2020, Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers and City of Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, in coordination with the District’s Health Officer Dr. Chris Spitters, declared a public health emergency for Snohomish County. Section 4.06 of the District Employee Handbook (Exhibit A) states that an exception to extra pay or comp time will be reviewed in the event of an emergency response.

After Board approval starting with the March 16 work week, exempt employees started earning compensatory time for actual hours worked over 40 hours. For example, if an employee works 44 hours, they will earn 4 hours of compensatory time.

With this, Board-approved compensatory time earned during the emergency declaration must be utilized in the calendar year that it was earned; any unused hours will be forfeited. We are now 10 months into our response and still fully activated. The use of the compensatory time by December 31, 2020, is not reasonable.

Currently we have 25 exempt employees and 14 have earned compensatory hours. We would like to extend the use of these compensatory hours to December 31, 2021.  

At the Oct. 29 special meeting of the Executive Committee, Administrative Officer Shawn Frederick requested that he be exempt from accruing additional compensatory hours. The motion brought forward by the Executive Committee reflects his request.

Consistent with Resolution 19-20 and the revised Division of Responsibilities (10/8/19), the Board of Health has authority over the Health District budget.

MOVE TO authorize the Administrative Officer to approve extension of compensatory time for exempt staff—with the exception of the Administrative Officer—to December 31, 2021.