Gonzales County commissioners to protect employees during pandemic

County commissioners during their Monday, May 11 meeting discussed the latest procedures involving the COVID-19 pandemic, including how to determine and deal with any possible exposure among county employees.

County Judge Pat Davis said he and commissioners are taking whatever measures are necessary regarding any county employees who may have been exposed, and how to work with county officials on ensuring employees’ safety.

“Basically, we just decided that if we have an exposure it’s going to be up between the department heads that we’ll possibly go to 14 days for that employee to go home for [that period of time], depending if they come back with testing saying they can come back to work.”

Davis elaborated that employees are guaranteed their paychecks during this time period, if it were to occur.

“We can’t help what happens to anybody, and our goal is to avoid neglecting our employees. They are valuable to us, and obviously they need their salaries,” he said.

Davis added that in the unfortunate situation that a county worker may have come in contact with the virus, they would immediately be covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

“That is federal law that we all need to follow,” he said.

Davis added that he and commissioners are in the process of researching whether or not the county will need to manufacture its own sneeze guard shields, as seen in local retail stores, or if they will have to purchase them instead.

“Regardless, we have to protect our citizens and employees,” Davis noted. “We are in the process of [doing that] right now, because we need our offices to be open to the public and protect our public at the same time. We also need to work on getting shields and hand sanitizer for our polling places.”

In other business, commissioners:

• Appointed Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo as the individual to calculate and prepare the 2020 No-New-Revenue-Approval tax rates
• Received the 2019 Levy Refund of $40,092.12 from the Gonzales Central Appraisal District
• Approved the Gonzales County Grant Administration and Environmental Services Contract not to exceed $33,354.28 project delivery expense for a housing project not to exceed $166,771.40