PUSD offers $500 vaccine incentives for all employees

Nelson: Will help district reduce cost of replacing staff due to COVID-19 issues

The Porterville Unified School District is providing a $500 incentive for all of its employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

The district’s school board approved the incentive program as a way to mitigate COVID-19 and to make sure staff and students could return to the classroom in a situation that was a safe as possible, said PUSD superintendent Nate Nelson.

Nelson said money from the federal CARES Act is being used to fund the program. He added no district funds are being taken away from curriculum programs to find the $500 incentives.

“This doesn’t come out of our general fund,” Nelson said. “It’s designed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. It’s designed to get kids back to school.”

He added the district “wanted to be able to have students back in an environment where everybody is protected” in talking about why the district is offering the $500 incentives.

He said another major reason why the $500 incentives are being offered is the loss of staff for a period of time who have to quarantine due to exposure to COVID-19. “That played a role for us as well,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the loss of staff temporarily who have had to quarantine has been a challenge to the district in its effort to reopen classrooms to students.

Unvaccinated staff who are exposed to COVID-19 have to vaccinate for 10 to 14 days. It costs the district $120 a day for short-term substitute teachers and $200 a day for long-term substitute teachers. “That adds up real quickly,” Nelson said.

But fully vaccinated staff don’t have

to quarantine. The district has 1,500 employees so the cost to vaccinate all 1,500 employees would be $750,000, which is what the district has budgeted from the CARES Act funds. But vaccinations are still optional for employees, so the cost will eventually be less as not all employees will be vaccinated.

But Nelson said the $500 incentive program has worked in encouraging employees to be vaccinated. “We’re pleased with it so far,” Nelson said.

Nelson noted a student who is exposed to COVID-19 over a weekend and returns to schools could lead to exposing “multiple staff,” forcing them to quarantine. So he said the vaccination incentive program “kind of funds itself.”

All employees, parttime and full-time, from crossing guards to those on campus, are eligible for the $500 incentive. Nelson said any employee “that comes into contact with kids” is eligible for the $500 incentive.

He said the district negotiated with its bargaining units to come up with the $500 incentive and employees have until April 19 to be vaccinated to take advantage of the program. “We wanted to get them vaccinated quickly,” said Nelson about setting a deadline for employees to be vaccinated to receive the $500 incentive.

Nelson noted many major corporations are offering similar incentives and the district researched what they’re doing and what other public agencies such as hospitals are doing as well. He said hospitals are also using CARES Act funds to pay for incentives for their employees to be vaccinated.

“They have the same issues that we have,” said Nelson about hospitals, adding they have also dealt with “employees that were hesitant to get vaccinated.”