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Resources from Livingston County

Published: March 18, 2020

Our friends at the Livingston County Department of Health have been working very hard to put together information and resources for everyone during this difficult time. For more information on Coronavirus/COVID-19, please visit www.livingstoncounty.us/doh.htm or call 1-877-280-6775.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”12472″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

Special Statement from Livingston County Administrator Ian Coyle

Published: March 17, 2020

Update as of this evening –  State Board of Elections/The Governor’s Office has POSTPONED Village elections until 04/28.

The Emergency Operations Center was activated at Level 1 at 8:00 am 3/16/2020 in order to centralize efforts to respond to this quickly evolving crisis.

A script for all staff is in the works and will be available to disseminate to DHs and staff in order to provide a consistent message to inquiries (this may evolve with the Governor’s Order)

Department of Health (DOH)has created a dedicated website for COVID19-related information and all official, external communications from the County: www.livingstoncounty.us/1207/COVID-19

All calls regarding questions about COVID19 should be directed to the DOH toll-free hotline:1-877-280-6775

The CNR has closed to all visitors except for family in the event of end-of-life conditions. Presence of the Sheriff’s Office at entrances has been increased in order to screen visitors, and all departments without Sheriff’s Office presence will start screening all visitors with a questionnaire. Departments have been asked to make reductions in public interactions.

In the wake of Governor Cuomo’s directive to reduce the local government workforce by 50%, Department Heads have been required to evaluate their staff and make determinations of essential and non-essential staffers.

DHs are to report to Bill Mann as soon as possible regarding this directive.  Reports are coming in now and being evaluated tonight. As I said at the meeting, we will not be able to necessarily meet the specifics of the mandate (due to the essential service staff count at CNR, LCSO, DOH, DSS and others that we have) but we will endeavor to meet the spirit of the directive through reductions in on-site staff service provision.

Essential workers are to continue reporting to their work site and will be paid as usual.   If they can perform their functions remotely/from-home then that option will be explored.

Workers deemed non-essential: Full-time employees are to be paid for a period up to two weeks under the paid administrative leave code. This is subject to change.

For part-time employees, it will be a judgment call for each department head on who is indeed essential, but these employees, if sent on involuntary leave, will be paid what they typically would be paid in an average week in terms of hours/worked on average.

Employees may be subject to re-purposing / redeployment and could move to “essential” function pending Department Head / admin direction and change.

Any official quarantine, if mandated/connected with and through our DOH- that individual employee will be paid under the paid administrative leave for up to two weeks.

The County is continuing to work on further policies and guidelines, including remote work, what buildings stay accessible to the public, etc.

We WILL see operational impacts as we look to reduce staff.  County Clerks, Treasurer, clerical staff at many operations, divisions and departments.   We will do our best to work through all of this. There may, however, be a point where certain buildings are closed to public access.

Some examples – the Dansville DMV is closed temporarily. The Geneseo DMV is continuing with reduced staffing in compliance with the NYS directive but suspending extended Thursday hours.  County Clerk is reduced staffing, normal operations.

Your supply requests to Kevin through the OEM are being triaged, prioritized and processed.  Please be patient as your requests are being processed.

A Pennysaver ad is being generated by the Grants and Public Information Officer for publication this week as an update to the public.  Full page back ad if possible.

The BOS and DHs will continue receiving updates via email as soon as information is available.  The Mayors are now receiving e-updates as well.

Superintendents are getting daily updates and resources from Jennifer.

We are pushing out social media regularly.

We are doing multiple-times-per-day check ins with OFA and CNR management.

Your calls and offers to be of assistance are greatly appreciated.  There will be opportunities.  We are assessing best uses of those extensions of help.

Bill, Angela and I will likely be working in and out of the EOC –  so please use cells or emails or call our EOC extension 585-991-5073

We are evaluating if we should or need to do the meetings like we did today (closed with the livestream) and not have public access save for press OR if we need to take an even more precautionary approach.

The question has come up on “who polices the 8 PM bar and restaurant closure and subsequent impacts?”    We are inquiring with the Governor’s Office.  Initial answer from them is “local code enforcement.”

The Hospital System has postponed locally all elective surgeries.  Also practitioners have suspended well visits for the foreseeable future.

I have asked the Governor and the State to give serious consideration to the prospect of significantly repurposing the Livingston Correctional Facility for medical triage, excess hospital capacity, quarantine zone or something similar.   To that end, I have asked for 7 hospital beds from the Federal surplus from the VA in Canandaigua. It sounds post-apocalyptic that we need to be considering the makeshift construction of temporary hospitals but that is where we are and we need to take the lead.

Our goals as I reiterated at the meeting.  Protect our people and their health, safety and welfare: our vulnerable residents especially our OFA clients and general senior population those in our care (CNR, etc) those in our service area (all residents) our staff

Lots of talk on the length of this – weeks or months, etc.  We do not know at this point in time. What you do have as a firm commitment and a firm “known” is that you will have the unwavering support and dedication of the front-line county public service staff in this time of crisis.  You have a great team and we need to keep their emotional, physical and mental well-being top of mind as this drags on.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”12464″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]