When Hurricane Florence smacked Sampson County, many homeowners and their families found shelter inside buildings — a lot of them were schools.
During a Monday meeting for the Sampson County Schools (SCS) Board of Education, a resolution was approved for payment of overtime for 95 employees who served at shelters throughout the county. The duties involved shelter administration, nursing, food service and custodial work. On behalf of the board, Vice Chair Kim Schmidlin expressed her gratitude to the employees who made the commitment and said it was selfless dedication.
“We had 95 staff members who left their homes and left their families to go serve those in Sampson County who could not safely take care of themselves,” she said. “All of us on the board appreciate, so much, the commitment of all of you who did that.”
Several of them were in attendance and received applause when she asked them to stand. As a health care professional, Schmidlin spoke about how it’s a seven-day-a-week job when it comes to taking care of others.
“You know when the weather is bad or when things are worse, you might be called on to be with your patients,” she said. “When you go into education, I don’t think that necessarily comes with the job description.”
To acknowledge the work of staff members, the resolution calls for all employees exempt and non-exempt to receive pay equivalent to a rate equal to 1.5 times their hourly rate for every hour worked at the shelter site during the storm. According to Interim Finance Officer Cyndi Mesimer, the total is more than $50,850. Before the vote and approval, Schmidlin spoke about an issue that arose in late November regarding pay.
“While none of you did this for pay, we certainly assumed that there was some mechanism for emergency pay for those staff members who worked the shelters,” she said. “In late November, we were informed that there was no policy in place that activated emergency pay.”
School officials were unable to fix the matter by late-December before Christmas, but in January, the matter became a high priority for the district. Work was completed with Sampson Board of Commissioners Chairman Clark Wooten, Manager Ed Causey and Finance officer David Clack.
“I’m very pleased to see that they were understanding of the situation,” she said. “They helped take a look, from a policy standpoint, what we needed to do to rectify the situation.”
Next came the resolution to pay school officials for their help during the storm. Between Sept. 12 and Sept. 23, they provided shelter for the Category 3 hurricane which brought catastrophic rainfall and flooding in the area. The Federal Emergency Management Administration declared Sampson County as a disaster area. SCS buildings used included Hobbton Elementary School, Hobbton High School, Hobbton Middle School, Lakewood High School, Midway High School, Plain View Elementary School, Roseboro Elementary School and Union Elementary School.
“We appreciate everything the county did to allow us to essentially retroactively respond to a lack of policy by putting in place this resolution,” she said. “Again, many, many thanks to all of you.”
During the meeting, Chairman Tim Register read the resolution regarding employee contributions and thanked staff members for their work during the hurricane. He also mentioned the board wanting to having a smoother transition if another hurricane comes.
“Whereas, the Sampson County Board of Education, in acknowledgement of the enormous sacrifice made by members of its staff to the citizens of Sampson County, North Carolina, by putting the needs of evacuees ahead of their own personal and families’ need during the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, express its sincere gratitude as a board and on behalf of the Citizens of Sampson to the dedicated service of its employees,” said Register while reading the resolution.
