West Penn Township will give its employees a financial boost next month.

The board of supervisors passed a motion to allocate some of its American Rescue Plan (COVID-19 relief) money to people employed by the township in December.

At Monday’s meeting, supervisors agreed that its employees, who were out working every day during the pandemic, deserved some additional compensation.

“This is like something that we’ve never seen before. It’s a virus. It’s something that isn’t going to go away,” said Tim Houser, supervisor.

“Everybody thinks vaccination (and) it’s going to be going away. It’s not going to happen. It isn’t like smallpox, chickenpox or anything else. It’s going to stick with us and it’s going to mutate. This could end up being like a flu shot every year.”

The township has currently received $224,000 in relief money. But unsurprisingly, there are many things it cannot be used for. However, the township determined to spend about $36,000 of the relief money in total on its 19 workers.

“Point blank, they told us, we can’t use it for vehicles, and we can’t use it for roads,” Houser added.

The bonus period will begin on Dec. 1 and last four weeks, with a maximum of 160 hours for full-time employees, prorated at $12 per hour to encompass the part-time employees. Full-time employees could earn up to an extra $1,920 per person.

“It’s a time now where everybody could use a few extra bucks,” added Tony Prudenti, board president.

Prudenti said $13 per hour was the maximum rate that could be paid to township employees under the relief money guidelines.

More assistance

The supervisors hope to allocate more relief money to both the township fire department and ambulance association.

Supervisors said both organizations must document financial losses due to lack of fundraising and events during the pandemic.

“When we had our meeting with our consultant about this, they were talking about making the fire department and the ambulance ‘whole’ again. What he meant by whole, was the discrepancy of moneys since COVID - but they must be documented,” said Prudenti.

Prudenti said the losses, via ARP regulations, can only date back to March 2021. However, an organization can look further back to previous years, to illustrate how much revenue it couldn’t generate due to the pandemic.

“Compared to what you guys did lose, it’s nothing, but it’s still something,” Prudenti said.

“This is an ever-changing plan. We’ve been cautioned - the treasury department is still coming out with new rules and regulations on how to do this. Our problem is, if we do spend the money, and it’s not acceptable, then we have to pay it back ourselves, which is fine. But this board realizes that you guys are on the front lines, and we’d like to try to help you out and make you whole as much as possible.”