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Next week the Lafourche Parish Council will readdress how much parish employees should be compensated while responding to a hurricane or other emergency situations.
The proposed ordinance, which was deferred at last week’s meeting, would increase the compensatory rates for all employees who work during a declared state of emergency, pushing one pay schedule as high as three and a half times the employees’ normal base pay.
Employees called in during a declared state of emergency, before the proposed law, received pay equal to time and one-half of hours worked. New law would increase that to time and one-half plus the base pay, essentially bumping the emergency rate to double time and one-half.
The ordinance also proposes adjusting emergency pay during holidays. If called-in employees work during a state of emergency during a holiday – Labor Day, for instance – they would receive triple time and one-half, an increase from double time and one-half.
And employees who are requested to work while a storm is passing would receive hazard pay equal to triple time, an increase from double time. New law also extends the maximum time this provision can be enacted from 12 to 18 hours.
Other than the pay adjustments, the proposed amendments backed by Parish President Charlotte Randolph clean up the policy’s language and solidify the chain of command.
The current emergency pay policy was adopted as a package in 2011. It passed 8-0, with one councilman absent.
In deferring the ordinance, councilmen questioned whether the new rates are too high. They also suggested the new ordinance would give the administration excessive firing power.
The only amendment regarding termination, however, was the addition of the phrase “by the emergency supervisor” to an existing clause. The amendment does not change the policy’s spirit, which permits disciplinary actions up to termination for called-in employees who don’t show up.
Hurricane season began June 1.
