But will return to modified schedules should covid-19 infection rates climb again

By Ally Lanasa, Staff Writer

(March 4, 2021) The 71 people who make up the Berlin town staff returned to work full-time in person on Monday after working modified schedules since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020.

Jeff Fleetwood

“Every employee with the exception of the police department has made this hybrid schedule … available to them,” said Town Administrator Jeff Fleetwood.

The department heads were responsible for dividing the staff as best they could “to make sure they have equal capacity and capability amongst both team A and team B,” Fleetwood said.

To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, he preferred town employees not work consecutive days in the office.

“However, employees as they are able, we assigned tasks for them to do at home,” Fleetwood said.

The Berlin town staff planned to return to full-time in person if the covid-19 positivity rate remained below 5 percent for seven consecutive days, which it has from Feb. 20 to present.

“I gave employees a week notice that we were going back to ‘normalcy’ in a week,” Fleetwood said. “Following that, we will re-evaluate and probably go back to the limited attendance public meetings and limited access to public buildings.”

If the positivity rate increases again, he said town staff will return to working modified schedules.

With the plan to open government buildings on March 8, attendance at meetings will be limited to 16 seats for presenters, members of the public and the press in addition to town officials and staff, as was the policy in fall 2020 before the closure.

Currently, the plan is to continue to livestream meetings on Facebook if meetings permit public attendance, Fleetwood said.

Safety protocols, including wearing face masks and using hand sanitizer, will remain in effect.

“Should an employee feel ill, have any of the covid symptoms [or] been exposed to someone with covid-19, we’ll act accordingly with the direction of the Worcester County Health Department,” Fleetwood said.

Between the entire Berlin Police Department and other eligible citizens, about 40 percent of town staff have received their first dose or both doses of the covid-19 vaccine. Fleetwood added that more than 50 percent of employees have expressed interest in receiving the vaccine.

“This has been a trying time for the citizens of the town and the citizens of the county and the entire country and the entire world, but the reality is folks have, I think, handled themselves overall well through this trying time,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons, and we’ve learned from our mistakes.”