Summary

Today King County Vice Chair Reagan Dunn introduced a motion that tasks King County with prioritizing the re-hiring of County employees, including deputies and other first responders, who have been fired due to the previous requirement that all County employees be vaccinated from COVID-19.

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Today King County Vice Chair Reagan Dunn introduced a motion that tasks King County with prioritizing the re-hiring of County employees, including deputies and other first responders, who have been fired due to the previous requirement that all County employees be vaccinated from COVID-19.

“Now that vaccination requirements have been rolled back, this is our opportunity to bring back those public servants—especially our first responders, including law enforcement and emergency personnel—who lost their jobs,” said Dunn. “Especially as the county continues to struggle to hire enough deputies to fully staff our Sheriff’s Office, we should focus on bringing back and retaining the high-quality, experienced employees that we very much need to fully staff our work.”

King County ended the vaccination requirement for its employees last week. According to the Department of Human Resources, to date, 281 County employees have separated due to noncompliance with the vaccine mandate, including 33 in the Sheriff’s Office and 103 employees at King County Metro. As of August 2022, 120 deputy positions remain vacant. To date, King County Metro has lost 110 employees to the requirement, and is working to hire nearly 40 vehicle maintenance staff and 100 bus operators.

Last year, Dunn pushed back against the vaccine mandate, pointing to its contribution to ongoing staffing shortages at the King County Sheriff’s Office during a period of record-level violent crime. 

In addition, at the State level, Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, has introduced House Bill 1814, to set a hiring preference for workers who separated from their jobs due to government-imposed COVID-19 vaccination requirements and provide these employees with the opportunity to catch up on missed contributions to their state retirement plan.

“I have been clear on this since the beginning – the vaccine mandate for state employees was an overreach,” said Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, “The loss of nearly 1900 state workers over the vaccine mandate hurt families and damaged the state causing major disruptions to ferry service and exacerbating the staffing shortage at the Washington State Patrol.

“This bill ensures that state workers fired over the vaccine mandate who want those jobs back are prioritized in the application process. It also creates a system for those workers to get their missed pension credit for the time they were off the job,” said Corry.

House Bill 1814 would provide a 10-percent hiring preference for workers who lost their jobs due to government-imposed vaccine mandates and entitles a former employee re-hired after losing a job either voluntarily or involuntarily due to government-imposed vaccine mandates to pension service credit for the time they were unemployed if they pay their normal employee contributions.

Dunn’s legislation will be heard in the King County Council’s Committee of the Whole.

HB 1814 has been referred to the Committee on Labor and Workforce Standards.