ATCEMS workers much less doubtless than APD to be lined beneath employee’s comp for COVID-19

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Austin Public Safety Department reports have shown a significant difference in the percentage of employee compensation for EMS employees in Austin-Travis County with COVID-19 versus Austin police officers with COVID-19.

Of the sworn ATCEMS employees who tested positive for COVID-19, only 33% were covered by employee compensation, while 72% of APD employees who tested positive for COVID-19 were insured.

The comparison between the two departments happened accidentally at the Austin Public Safety Commission’s virtual meeting in January when ATCEMS Chief of Staff Jasper Brown started showing his department’s data but then stopped halfway when the statistics did not doing seem right. It soon became clear to everyone that the graph he was presenting was APD’s data from the previous month. When the corrected ATCEMS chart was successfully submitted, the commissioners focused on the difference in employee compensation coverage between the two divisions.

That led them to take a closer look at the differences and make a decision to address them.

What the data reveal

At the Austin Public Safety Commission meeting Monday, Jasper Brown, EMS chief of staff of Austin-Travis County, presented data on COVID-19 exposure, positive cases and the accommodation of ATCEMS employees. The data, Brown explained, includes the department’s records from the start of the pandemic through December 30, 2020.

Data presented by Austin Travis County EMS at the January Austin Public Safety Commission meeting on COVID-19 in employees. ATCEMS chief of staff Jasper Brown said these data include totals from the start of the pandemic through December 30th. City of Austin PDF screenshot.

During the pandemic, ATCEMS reports 45 employees who tested positive for COVID-19, including 39 sworn employees and 6 civilian employees. Of these employees, only 13 sworn employees and zero civilian employees were covered for their COVID-19 positivity by employee compensation.

The ATCEMS rate of employee compensation coverage for COVID-19 is lower than the rate the Austin Police Departmen reported for their officers the previous month. Rick Randall, director of health and wellness at APD, told the commission at the time that the data in the table he submitted showed the totals from the start of the pandemic to December 7th.

COVID-19 data among Austin Police Department employees presented at the December Austin Public Safety Commission meeting. Rick Randall, director of health and wellness at APD, said the table shows totals from the start of the pandemic through the morning of December 7th. City PDF screenshot.

During this period, the APD’s figures showed a total of 109 COVID-19 cases among employees in the department, 75 cases among sworn employees and 34 cases among civilian employees. Of these employees, 54 sworn and 23 civilians had their positive COVID-19 covered under workers’ compensation.

How Workers Compensation Works in Austin

City workers’ compensation claims, such as the need to take paid time off after a positive COVID-19 test, will be processed through the OJI or on-the-job injury evaluation process. Brown stated that a third party makes decisions about OJI based on records submitted by ATCEMS and other departments. Brown stressed that it is not the department that classifies someone as incapacitated, but the third party that the city works with that reviews all the records.

However, there seems to be a difference in what ATCEMS and the Austin Police suspect when they hear of positive cases among their employees.

Brown stated that if an ATCEMS employee was exposed to COVID-19 while on a call, the department would review the call to see if the employee was wearing protective equipment or if there was some sort of “injury” to the protective equipment.

“We will hand in every such call [with OJI] If they encountered a patient with COVID, and even if there is no potential disruption of the PPE, we would look to see if that falls under the employee’s compensation, ”Brown said, adding that an employee is being quarantined because their family member is if tested positive, the department would not submit such a case to OJI because “it would not be covered by workers’ compensation”.

Brown said that under these circumstances, employees can still request that their case be reviewed by the OJI team.

“If someone has brought up and said that their family member or someone else has COVID, they have already left three, five, [or] Seven days in quarantine and then they contract while in quarantine. The chances of catching it at work are decreasing, and the more likely they are getting it from a family member or something else, “Brown said.

Troy Gay, Austin deputy chief of police, was also present at the meeting of the Virtual Public Safety Commission and was asked by commissioners about this divisional difference. While Gay said APD follows the same processes Chief Brown mentioned, he noted a difference: “We’ll assume it’s an occupational injury unless otherwise noted.”

“We’re still pushing it and pushing it as a worker claim when someone has exposure,” Gay continued. “Obviously, if someone tells us that exposure did not happen at work, that would not be an employee claim, but we assume it will happen at work unless otherwise stated.”

Brown told commissioners that ATCEMS “will certainly welcome anyone who investigates how we deal with employee compensation,” whether it be the city’s human resources department or some other party.

Gay agreed, saying, “We should go back with HR and maybe have a chat with all of the public safety agencies to make sure we are capturing and performing the same processes.”

The commissioners then passed a resolution recommending that Austin city council instruct the city administrator to cause all three public safety departments (police, fire, and ambulance) to suspect that an employee positive for COVID-19 was tested, was injured at work. The commissioners also urged the city to provide all three departments (and ATCEMS in particular) with additional human resources to help staff manage compensation.

KXAN reached out to all three public safety departments to learn more about their workers’ compensation policies regarding COVID-19.