A Comprehensive Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act for Public Employers

In the scramble to respond to COVID-19, I forgot to announce that my new book, A Comprehensive Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act for Public Employers, was published on March 16th! I’ve been working on this for a good three years, using your questions as a guide. Read more »

Governor’s Stay At Home Order Extended – What Does This Mean for Local Governments?

On April 23rd, Governor Cooper issued Executive Order 135 extending his statewide Stay At Home Order (Executive Order 121) for another nine days.  The Governor’s Stay At Home Order was due to expire on April 29th; EO 135 extends it to 5:00p.m. on May 8, 2020.  Is this all that EO135 does?  Below is the relevant language from that Executive Order:

Sections 1, 4, and 5 of Executive Order No. 118; Sections 1, 2, 3 and 5 of Executive Order No. 120; and all of Executive Order No. 121 are in effect, and shall remain in effect, until 5:00 pm on May 8, 2020.  Sections 1 and 2 of Executive Order No. 131 are amended to expire at 5:00pm on May 8, 2020.  The effective date provisions of Executive Orders Nos. 118, 120, 1 21, and 131 are amended to have the above-listed sections of those orders continue in effect through the above-listed time and date.  Future Executive Orders may extend the term of these Executive Orders.  An Executive Order rescinding the Declaration of a State of Emergency will automatically rescind this Executive Order.

For those readers not accustomed to interpreting revisions to effective dates, this paragraph might seem Greek to you.  This blog post unpacks EO135 and summarizes those provisions of all previous COVID-19 Executive Orders with effective dates modified or extended under EO135.

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Furloughing Employees During the COVID-19 Crisis

To slow the spread of COVID-19, to comply with Governor Cooper’s stay-at-home order, and to deal with budget stresses,  many local governments are considering furloughs. A furlough occurs when one or more employees are put into a temporary leave without pay status during which they are instructed not to perform any work. There are no federal or state laws that govern when and how local government employers may furlough employees. There are, however, common issues that every North Carolina local government must address when it furloughs employees. This blog post discusses those issues using a question and answer format. Read more »

Disclosing Information about Employees with COVID-19

On Wednesday, my colleague Diane Juffras published What to Do When an Employee is Infected with or Reports Exposure to COVID-19. She addressed a number of important issues, from the leave that must be provided to employees, to the actions that should be taken within the workplace to protect other employees. The post is comprehensive and I strongly recommend that you read it.

Diane also reminded readers that information about COVID-19 is confidential. In this post, I briefly review a state confidentiality law that applies to this information, and explain an administrative rule that addresses how confidential information may be shared with an employer when necessary to control the spread of communicable disease within a workplace. In brief, the rule allows the local health department to disclose information to the employer so that necessary communicable disease control actions may be taken. The rule also requires the employer to protect the confidentiality of individuals’ information.

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School of Government COVID-19 Procurement Resources – We’re Here to Help!

As the fight against the coronavirus wages on, local government purchasing officers, clerks, department heads, and others who handle procurements are scouring every vendor and supplier they can think of to find everything from surgical masks and gloves to rental equipment to sanitizing and cleaning supplies to telework devices, and yes, even the ever-elusive toilet paper.  From the largest county to the smallest town, those in the procurement world are working hard to fill urgent requests for [fill in the blank] in the face of rising prices, market shortages, and fierce competition.  The last thing on anyone’s mind in the current crisis, other than a purchasing officer, is competitive bidding requirements.  And yet, these requirements are important for two reasons.  First, it’s the law, and statutory bidding requirements applicable to local governments have not been – nor can they be –  waived (while the Governor has the legal authority to waive administrative procurement rules for state agencies, which he did in Executive Order 116, that authority does not extend to waiving bidding requirements for local governments mandated by state statute).  Second, FEMA Public Assistance grants are subject to federal procurement rules under the Uniform Guidance (2 C.F.R. Part 200, Subpart D).  If a local government seeks reimbursement from FEMA for COVID-19 emergency protective measures expenses incurred under a contract, such as purchasing supplies or renting equipment, that contract must comply with federal bidding requirements (and, federal law also requires compliance with state law and local policies).  Because violating procurement rules is one of the most common reasons local governments are denied FEMA reimbursement for otherwise eligible expenses, they must pay attention to procurement requirements even in the current emergency.  So where can local governments get information on these requirements? Read more »

A Stay at Home Order is Not a Quarantine: The Case for Semantic Precision

I have been on a quixotic mission to try to get people not to use the word “quarantine” to refer to the stay-at-home orders that have been issued in North Carolina and elsewhere. I’ve lost this argument in popular culture, and I know it. I’m on Twitter so I’ve seen the hashtags and memes, as well as some very useful articles for how to manage the challenges of “quarantine”—everything from keeping children safely engaged with their friends, to cutting your own hair. For popular culture purposes, I surrender: Go ahead and call it a quarantine. It’s a concise term and everybody knows what you mean.

My argument for semantic precision is directed to North Carolina local governments. Everyone in North Carolina is under a statewide stay-at-home order issued by the Governor. Some of us are also under local stay-at-home orders issued by local elected officials or their delegees. And yes, some of our state’s residents are under quarantine (or isolation) orders issued by public health officials.

Why should semantic precision matter to local government? Because these are different orders, issued by different people under different legal authority, with different consequences for the recipients of the orders, and different enforcement mechanisms if they are violated.
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Releasing County-Specific Data about COVID-19

The first case of COVID-19 in North Carolina was announced on March 3. By April 9, the state was reporting over 3500 cases and 65 deaths from the disease.

Rapid spread of a new communicable disease is a historic and newsworthy event. It is understandable that the public and the media will have many questions. Public health officials must provide information that is necessary to protect the public health, and they also have an important role in keeping the public informed about communicable diseases affecting their communities. At the same time, public health officials are obliged to protect the confidentiality of information that identifies individuals, or that could be used to identify individuals.

When a local health department receives a request for county-specific data, may it disclose it? This post describes the relevant parts of two laws that may affect the answer.

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