More California state workers might get COVID bonuses. Negotiations are underway

The California Department of Human Resources has begun formal discussions with some state employee unions over pandemic bonuses, according to the department.

The talks come after the U.S. Treasury Department finalized rules last week on how states may spend billions of dollars in federal coronavirus relief Congress approved in the American Rescue Plan Act a year ago.

The final rules clarified that all employees of governments receiving the money are eligible for extra pandemic pay — meaning all of California’s roughly 230,000 state workers.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration agreed last year to hold talks with most of the state employee unions once the guidelines were finalized, setting up potentially difficult negotiations in the weeks or months ahead.

Some state workers have had to report to places like prisons and state hospitals throughout multiple coronavirus infection surges, while others were largely able to work from home for the last two years.

“We were treating inmates and patients that had covid and spread it to us and our families,” said Coby Pizzotti, a spokesman for the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians, whose represented employees work in state hospitals. “We are essential workers.”

California received $27 billion in last year’s batch of federal relief, which the state could spend on everything from food and housing assistance to business grants and infrastructure. Essential worker premium pay was one allowed category.

Premium pay up to $13 per hour, capped at $25,000 per person, may be disbursed to workers in the public or private sectors, according to the guidance, which took effect April 1.

So far, payments in other states and to local government employees in California have been much smaller than that. Sacramento County last month opted to pay essential employees up to $3,000 extra for their work during the pandemic. A few other states have paid or made plans to pay bonuses of roughly $500 to $1,500 to essential workers.

Representatives from several California state employee unions said this week that the employees they represent deserve extra pay for reporting to prisons, state hospitals and offices where the coronavirus has spread.

“Even though the world is going back to normal, these folks deserve the essential worker premium pay for being there,” said Brandy Johnson, a union representative with the International Union of Operating Engineers.

Johnson represents more than 13,000 maintenance employees, electricians, groundskeepers and tradespeople who keep up the state’s prisons, highways, office buildings and water facilities.

Discussions have begun

Newsom and the California Legislature cut state workers’ pay in July 2020, when projections showed a massive budget deficit on the horizon.

Instead of a deficit, California ended up with a huge surplus, and Newsom and the Legislature restored state employees’ pay — and gave them raises — in a round of negotiated agreements that took effect in July 2021.

Those agreements included clauses saying that when the federal government finalized rules for the relief money, the state and the unions would return to the bargaining table.

Those discussions have started, but it’s not clear which state employees might receive bonuses, or where the money would come from.

Last year, under preliminary guidelines from the federal government, California “fully allocated” the $27 billion it had received, Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer said in an email.

The state allocated the money across categories of spending that included boxes of food for people in need, small business grants, education and training grants for displaced workers, legal aid for renters, financial aid for community college students, homelessness programs and broadband expansions, according to a budget outline for the money.

According to Palmer, “there are no remaining/residual federal funds to allocate for premium pay.”

Agreements negotiated by nearly all of the state unions last year, however, said the employee organizations would hold formal talks with the state when the federal rules came out.

Employees represented by unions like the Professional Engineers in California Government have largely been able to telework, but they have the clause in their contract.

Large units of workers within Service Employees International Union Local 1000 — the biggest state worker union representing about 100,000 employees — have been able to telework, but others, such as prison nurses and vocational workers, have not. The clause is in the union’s contract.

“While there are many issues currently on the table for SEIU Local 1000 to address, essential worker premium pay has been and remains a top priority,” union spokesman Brian Nash said in a text. “Our workers played a huge role in keeping California moving and fiscally solvent during a historic pandemic, and their dedication deserves to be recognized and rewarded.”

Some states have used very broad criteria to give premium pay to workers. North Carolina authorized $1,000 bonuses to all public employees, including state workers, plus an extra $500 for those who earn less than $75,000 and those who work in specified fields, including law enforcement, corrections and in state hospitals.

Other states have restricted the bonuses to law enforcement. Most haven’t paid pandemic bonuses to state employees, said Dave Kamper, a senior state policy coordinator who has been tracking the federal coronavirus money for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

“In some ways the state and local fiscal relief funds created a problem by having so many possible uses,” Kamper said. “It’s a good problem, but usually when the federal government sends money to a state, it’s very specific.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "More California state workers might get COVID bonuses. Negotiations are underway."