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FAIRMONT-- At its first meeting of the new year, the Martin County Commissioners heard a brief update on the status of the court challenges on the proposed OSHA mandate on Tuesday.
The requirement applies to companies with 100 or more employees. Employees who are not fully vaccinated will either be terminated or subject to weekly Covid-19 testing, depending on how each entity chooses to proceed.
At the last meeting on Dec. 21, the commissioners chose to go the vaccinate or test route and gave HR approval to proceed with finding out the vaccination status of each county employee.
If the U.S. Supreme Court moves the mandate forward, it will have to be determined whether the county pays for weekly testing of those who are unvaccinated, or those who are unvaccinated will have to pay for weekly tests themselves.
Finding out how many are unvaccinated will help the county make a better informed decision should the time come.
On Tuesday, the board was asked to establish a deadline to have employee vaccination statuses on record. So far about 34 or 35 statuses have been shared out of 134 employees.
Some commissioners asked if they could hold off on setting a deadline.
"We've let it proceed through the courts and waited when we can and acted when we need to," said Commissioner Elliot Belgard.
"We're doing everything that we have to do but not jumping ahead," added commissioner Steve Flohrs.
County Coordinator Scott Higgins stressed that they're just planning in the event that the mandate goes into affect. OSHA has said it would not issue citations tied to its vaccination mandate before Jan. 10
The county faces a $15,000 a day fine if it takes no action.
"We have to have a status so we can make an informed decision," Belgard said.
The commissioners approved setting a deadline of 5 p.m. Jan. 10 for vaccination statuses to be shared. If not reported, statuses will be assumed unvaccinated.