Charlotte city workers could get $250, or more, to get the COVID vaccine

Charlotte will not require its nearly 8,000 city government employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — for now. But those who do could get $250, or more, as an incentive.

Roughly 2,380 city workers have not gotten their COVID shot yet, city officials said Monday, though that number could be higher when more information is released later this week.

City Manager Marcus Jones said Charlotte will focus on offering vaccine incentives until Sept. 30, before rethinking the city’s “leniency” on immunizations and potentially imposing a requirement.

Charlotte wants to pursue two types of vaccine incentives, assistant city manager Brent Cagle told City Council members on Monday afternoon.

Individual employees who are already vaccinated — or become vaccinated — by Sept. 30 could get $250, Cagle said. Employees who are only partially immunized with either their first shot of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine by that date would still be eligible for the reward, Cagle said.

All vaccinated city employees could receive an additional $250 payment, if the workforce vaccination rate reaches 75% by Sept. 30.

But City Council member Braxton Winston said he’s concerned about that timeline. He emphasized that Charlotte is “waist deep in the throes of a tidal wave of COVID-19” and must mandate vaccinations sooner. And Council member Ed Driggs questioned if the incentive could truly make a difference for city workers, considering COVID vaccine have been widely available for months.

“A significant portion of our workforce has office space that extends into the living room of our constituents…” Winston said. “We should not be perpetuating a pandemic that we have a duty to put down. This is a matter of public safety.”

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said the incentives should be viewed in “totality,” including whether the reward could motivate employees’ family members also to get vaccinated. The mayor said there’s a trade-off for Charlotte needing to cover healthcare costs for employees who contract severe cases of COVID and are unable to work.

Sheila Simpson, Charlotte’s human resources director, said 800 people on the city’s healthcare plan have been hospitalized for coronavirus complications. She estimated that has cost the city $2.8 million.

The City Council did not vote on approving the incentives on Monday.

The individual vaccine reward would cost $1.5 million — as would the team reward, if the goal is met. The city would likely use federal COVID relief money from the American Rescue Plan.

Separately, North Carolina is offering $100 prepaid Mastercards for people ages 18 and older who get their first vaccine shot at participating sites, including in the Charlotte area, through Aug. 31.

Vaccination rates

Earlier this month, amid growing fears over the highly contagious delta variant, the city asked all workers to complete a vaccine verification form. Employees had to specify if they were fully or partially vaccinated, or not yet immunized, Cagle said.

The vaccination rate is 66% among the 7,000 survey respondents so far, Cagle said. When the final number is announced Friday, Cagle said the rate could be closer to 60%.

Cagle said the rate is “very, very good.”

But the city’s employees vaccination rate varies dramatically across departments.

Of the 75% of city employees who work on the frontlines and come into direct contact with the public, only about half are vaccinated, Cagle said. The remaining office-based workers posted a vaccinated rate of about 81%, he said.

In Mecklenburg County overall, 56% of residents are at least partially vaccinated, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

By the end of September, Cagle said, he wants the vaccination rate among city employees to be 20 to 25 percentage points higher than Mecklenburg’s.

As coronavirus conditions deteriorate in Charlotte, the city is also reinstating programs to help frontline employees — regardless of their vaccination status. That includes emergency medical leave for employees diagnosed with COVID and 5% premium pay for eight weeks.

New COVID rules

Last Wednesday, Lyles imposed a temporary citywide mask mandate as coronavirus metrics, including cases and hospitalizations, skyrocket. It is an interim measure before a countywide indoor mask requirement can take effect later this month.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center once again closed to the public last week due to the COVID spike. Most City Council members remotely attended Monday’s meeting.

For weeks, the city of Charlotte has lagged behind Mecklenburg County in announcing coronavirus protocols for employees who choose to forgo vaccination.

When Charlotte announced the vaccine verification form on Aug. 5, for example, city officials stopped short of imposing a weekly coronavirus testing requirement if employees did not get inoculated by a certain date.

Unvaccinated Mecklenburg County government workers, by contrast, will need to produce a negative COVID test each week starting Sept. 7, County Manager Dena Diorio wrote in her “board bulletin” to the community on Aug 2.

County health department employees must also provide proof of vaccination by Sept. 7.

Pfizer approval

The city’s evolving vaccine policy comes the same day that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its full approval for Pfizer vaccine for people 16 and older.

Dr. Katie Passaretti, medical director of infection prevention at Atrium Health, told reporters Monday that she hopes more residents will now get vaccinated. Pfizer is the first of three COVID-19 shots to be upgraded from an emergency use authorization to full approval.

“Hopefully this will be seen as a good move in the right direction and will provide some people with comfort in the vaccines,” Passaretti said.

Jones, the city manager, said this full approval was extremely important.

On average, Mecklenburg is logging nearly 550 new coronavirus cases each day, according to an Observer analysis of state public health data. Two months ago, the new daily caseload had dropped below 40.

Average hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Mecklenburg are approaching 370, compared to 55 patients two months ago, according to county public health data.

This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 8:05 PM.