Last year, raises were rejected, but millions given in hazard pay
May 4, 2021 | 10:13 am
May 4, 2021
File photo
Last year, the Montgomery County Council rejected employee raises, but paid about $89 million in COVID-19 hazard pay.
Now, the Montgomery County Council has approved multiple types of raises for employees for the next fiscal year.
The hazard, or differential, pay was extra compensation for employees who had to work directly with the public, or in an office, during the pandemic. The differential pay began in early April 2020 and ended in mid-February 2021.
Hazard pay was replaced with a deal struck in early March to provide raises for both union and nonunion employees.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday announced new recommendations for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Probably the best known of them is the recommendation that fully vaccinated people are safe to go outside without masks if they’re not in large groups of strangers.
But there are a lot of other provisions to the new recommendations, and they’re not hard-and-fast rules. And in the past few days, states and localities have been issuing new rules. Some are more restrictive than others, and in Maryland for example, some counties, as is their right, are keeping more restrictive rules than Gov. Larry Hogan’s statewide order.
‘Skip the Straw’ Campaign Begins Saturday
The “Skip the Straw” campaign beginning Saturday reminds Montgomery County restaurants and food service businesses to forego the extra plastic.
County Executive Marc Elrich proposed the law which prohibits straws given to dine-in customers, except on request or in compliance with federal disability rights laws. The Montgomery County Council approved the bill in December 2020.
The campaign is sponsored by the County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Single-use plastic straws have proven to be harmful to the environment by littering waterways and streets and jamming recycling machines.
Bill 32-20 will require businesses in the food industry to get rid of plastic straws and instead adopt degradable and compostable alternatives. The straws are said to be comparable in cost to the original plastic straws, according to Elrich.
Montgomery County Will Not Follow State in Lifting Outdoor Dining, Masking Restrictions
On Wednesday, Gov. Larry Hogan lifted Maryland’s outdoor COVID-19 mask mandate effective immediately and lifted all outdoor dining restrictions beginning Saturday, May 1.
Counties are allowed to enforce stricter COVID-19 regulations than the state, and Montgomery County leaders said Wednesday evening that current restrictions in the county will remain in place. On Tuesday, the council, sitting as the Board of Health, passed its latest regulation which implements reopenings based on the percentage of residents vaccinated. The first changes, including increasing gathering limits to 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors, went into effect Tuesday at 5 p.m.
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