WEST SILOAM SPRINGS, Okla. -- The West Siloam Springs board of trustees and municipal authority adopted the state guidelines regarding coronavirus-related sick leave during the town meeting on Monday.
Board of trustees and municipal authority members voted 4-0 to adopt the state guidelines as their own coronavirus sick leave policy. Trustee Marty Thompson was not present at the meeting.
Trustee Linda Dixon put this item on the meeting's agenda because people are getting ill.
"We haven't had anybody test positive yet but we don't have anything in play as far as what we're going to do," Dixon said.
Dixon asked fellow Trustee Sam Byers to check a couple of different places for coronavirus sick leave policies the town could use, she said.
Byers recommended the Oklahoma State Department of Health policy, which Byers said will allow an employee who has the coronavirus to return to work on the seventh day of their quarantine if they test negative on the fifth day of that quarantine.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health did not immediatley return a reqeuest for information regarding this policy.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recently recommended lowering the amount of time spent in quarantine from 14 days to 10 days without a coronavirus test and seven days after receiving a negative test on the fifth day or later, according to cdc.gov.
Byers also brought up Jay Public Schools' policy, which has set aside 10 covid days for staff needing to be quarantined. Once an employee uses up their 10 days, any future quarantine period needed would be deducted from that employee's sick time balance, Byers said.
Jay Public Schools was unavailable for comment.
This was done, Byers said, to keep people from abusing the sick time policy. Dixon said she knew people from school systems in Tulsa and locally who were abusing sick leave policies.
Town Attorney Jot Hartley said he did not have a chance to research what the state policy is for reinfection, which he says has been well documented. Hartley did recommend the board of trustees and municipal authority adopt the state guidelines during the meeting and if changes in the policy need to occur, the board can revisit it in future meetings.
The board of trustees and municipal authority also discussed and voted on the following items:
• Approving the minutes of the Nov. 16 meetings of the board of trustees and municipal authority.
• Hearing reports from Mayor/Municipal Authority Chairman Elaine Carr; Vice Mayor/Assistant Town Clerk/Municipal Authority Vice Chair Rhonda Wise; Code Enforcement Waylon Chandler; Director of Public Works Keith Morgan; and Hartley. Police Chief Larry Barnett was not present so Byers gave the report for the police department.
• Approving a motion to spend $100 for wall plaques for board members and previous board members.
• Approving to roll back the return of loss fund in the amount of $10,858 for 2017-2018 workers compensation plan into the town's escrow account.
• Tabling a discussion on which account code enforcement is paid.
• Approving a vendor's license for Timber Ridge Ice LLC doing business as The Shrimp Express food truck on 412.
• Approving a motion to pay off the old car leases totaling $90,000 for currently owned police vehicles with $65,549 from the coronavirus relief money the town received and $24,457 from the police vehicle fund used for the purchase of new police vehicles.
• Approving a travel and credit card policy.
• Approving a revised personnel handbook for town employees.
• Approving the municipal authority financial reports for November 2020.
• Approving a request from the South Delaware County Regional Water Authority to view the town's monthly financial report for the water department.