Overtime bill for first shift of sequestered staff hit $122K

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This article was published 21/05/2020 (1982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sequestering workers inside the water treatment plant came with a high dollar cost for the City of Brandon, but the city’s general manager of development services says the early uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping city services running was worth it.

According to a freedom of information request, the City of Brandon paid out $122,108.72 in overtime to nine sequestered staff —five operators and four maintenance personnel — during the first shift, from March 26 until April 23.

Patrick Pulak said the overtime amount is based on a letter of understanding with the union representing the workers, which he said is based on “extraordinary” circumstances.” Employees worked in 12-hour shifts and had two days off each week.

“We certainly would not see this amount of overtime for the entire facility for the whole year,” he said.

The city is also renting four trailers for workers to sleep in at approximately $1,800 a trailer per month — a total of $7,200 a month. 

“It is fairly significant and extraordinary events, and it really, when you’re talking about sequestering people, there are considerations you have to make when you’re essentially taking away somebody’s freedom. They’re not being able to go home, they’re not being able to do things on weekends.” Pulak said.

Workers also got banked time they can take at a later point, he said.

“Some people would look at that and say ‘unacceptable,’ but what price do you put on a guaranteed water supply? That was the way we viewed it, and we tried to minimize risk.”

Brandon is the only major municipality in the country to sequester water treatment plant workers. Pulak said the city’s size puts the Water Treatment Facility in an awkward position. Larger centres have more staff to work with in case one does get sick, but smaller municipalities aren’t regulated as heavily.

“We’re kind of in that sweet spot where we absolutely require our staff to be healthy to run the facility, and we can’t afford to lose many people,” he said.

The city also spent $16,203.06 on living expenses for the first shift, such as food, exercise equipment and cooking appliances. Included in that total is $5,200.43 for food and kitchen items and $5,466.94 for propane for the trailers.

Smaller items include $427.99 for an exercise bike from Canadian Tire, $16.99 for a Netflix subscription and $25.80 for dishes from Brandon MCC Thrift Store.

Many of the items will be reused after workers are no longer sequestered, and the Netflix subscription will be cancelled.

“We bought a freezer, we bought a fridge … everything we bought, we tried to say ‘OK, we need to find a use for this’ and so nothing will be wasted, whether it’s in the Water Treatment Facility or somewhere else, it will be reused,” Pulak said.

Asked whether the high cost was justified, he said the city would sequester workers again “in a heartbeat.”

“(When workers were first sequestered) we had ever-increasing cases, all we were ever told was how many cases we have in the Prairie Mountain Health region, we never knew how many of those were in Brandon. … In my mind if I had to do it over again, I probably would do it.”

The city is working on plans to streamline operations if there is a second wave of COVID-19. Pulak said the second shift of workers started to leave the facility on Wednesday and will continue today. A new shift will be sequestered, but at this point the City of Brandon doesn’t know how long they will be inside.

“We always knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, and it may come as a shock to some people, but it’s a risk mitigation exercise. If you were to ask me ‘What is our single most important service we provide to residents?’ it would be safe drinking water.”

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_