Full-time employees in cities across the Inland Empire received similar payments
San Bernardino will award premium, or hero, pay to full- and part-time city employees for their work during the coronavirus pandemic.
Those still at City Hall who started working there between March 13, 2020, and May 5, 2023, will receive the bonus.
Full-time employees will get $5,000 and part-time workers will get $2,500 under a plan approved by the City Council Wednesday, July 19.
About $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding will be used to reward approximately 800 full- and part-time city employees and another 300 or so with the Water Department for their service these past three years.
“The pandemic was extremely difficult for all of us, but not all of us were able to stop when the world did,” Councilmember Ben Reynoso, who proposed the pay structure, wrote in a text message Friday, July 21. “Our city staff kept our local world fully operational for the community and for that, a one-time hero payment is the least we can do.”
San Bernardino joins several other Inland cities in rewarding employees for clocking into work during the pandemic.
Colton, Fontana, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Ontario, Pomona, Rialto and Riverside all awarded full-time workers hero pay. Some of those cities also cut part-time workers a check.
While San Bernardino leaders agreed some sort of hero payment was in order, they debated how much should be awarded.
Councilmember Theodore Sanchez proposed awarding $3,500 to all employees, full- and part-time, arguing that the difference in hours worked between the two is minimal.
“Nobody was at risk of getting part-time COVID,” he said. “Part-time employees still had to put on their uniform and go to work. I have not met a single part-time employee in the city who would not have loved to be a full-time employee.
“They wanted to go out and be in the community.”