Vermont’s plan to cover the cost of COVID sick time hits a snag

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Vermont’s COVID paid leave grant program was supposed to roll out on Oct. 1, but it’s still sitting on the sidelines thanks to a technical glitch and a misunderstanding with the federal government.

The last time we touched base on the COVID paid leave grant program, businesses were excited for October so they could apply for reimbursement for their employees who had to miss work because of COVID.

Lawmakers passed the bill creating the program in June, paying for it with American Rescue Plan dollars. But now it turns out Vermont’s plan doesn’t satisfy federal guidelines.

“If you have COVID or a child of yours has COVID and you are out of work for a prolonged period of time and don’t have sick days to cover that, that makes you economically impacted. It makes the business economically impacted. We are hearing that the federal guidelines may require a deeper impact,” said Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden County.

Vermont’s program would have allowed workers to get up to $21 an hour and it didn’t matter if their employer offered paid sick time or not.

But the feds say not so fast. Their rules state in order for people to get these funds, each business applying would need to have an existing paid sick time policy and have already paid their workers before they would be eligible for that reimbursement grant.

The Main Street Alliance advocates for small businesses. They say the federal rules leave small businesses and thousands of unpaid employees behind.

“For our smallest businesses who don’t have that financial flexibility, providing that leave creates an undo burden on these that they might not be able to take advantage of. At the end of the day, this is going to hurt their workers and their small businesses and their ability to retain these workers,” said Morgan Nichols of the Main Street Alliance.

Randy George owns the Red Hen Bakery. He says the new requirements mean he can’t pay one of his workers who is a single mom who had to miss work and didn’t have enough sick days to cover it all.

“She had used some sick days in the 10 months she had been with us, so she didn’t have much when she and her daughter got COVID. So we weren’t able to cover most of those two weeks that she missed,” George said.

Thanks to a technical glitch, it’s not clear when businesses will be able to apply for those grants.

“Our goal was to stand up the portal Saturday. It’s not live. It’s not live because it’s not ready. We’ve been doing rigorous testing,” Vt. Financial Regulation Commissioner Kevin Gaffney said.

Now, the state is hoping that the online portal will be up and running in 10 days as they try to find a way to reimburse businesses that don’t offer sufficient sick time.

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Vt. COVID paid-leave program kicks off next month