EAST RAMAPO, New York (WABC) — A group of health care workers for Rockland County school districts told Eyewitness News they still haven't received the $3,000 COVID bonus the state told them years ago it would give them.
“We feel very disrespected by this,” Deirdre Davis, an occupational therapist assistant for the East Ramapo School District, told investigative reporter Christine Thorne.
Davis and dozens of her colleagues, including occupational therapists, speech therapists and psychologists in the East Ramapo School District, have been lobbying for two years to get the district to properly file paperwork with the state and receive the taxpayer-funded $3,000 bonus.
“It was frustrating to hear that neighboring school districts and neighboring colleagues were getting it and why we couldn't get it,” said Raquel Nieves, a school psychologist in East Ramapo.
In 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the Health Care and Mental Health Bonus Program https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-launches-health-care-worker-bonus-program to not only thank those working on the front lines of the pandemic, but also to recruit and retain health care workers across the state. Eligible workers who earned less than $125,000 per year and held their positions for at least six months were eligible to receive a bonus of up to $3,000 from the state.
The program required employers to submit paperwork on behalf of their employees. The state distributed funds to employers, who then had to pass the funds on to employees through payroll. The state said it provided important guidance and education to employers on how to complete the process.
Melissa Booker, a feeding therapist in East Ramapo, said the idea of receiving a bonus for working with students during the pandemic has been helpful.
“When I went back to in-person practice, I was working in the mouths of unvaccinated children, and it was so scary coming to work every day, and just feeling the support of knowing that I was doing a hard job and at least getting a little extra pay really helped me mentally,” she said. “Every year saying, 'Sorry, there was an administrative error,' makes you feel less important.”
Earlier this year, East Ramapo employees contacted the New York State Office of the Inspector General for Medicaid (OMIG), the agency that oversees bonus payments, to say they had not received their bonuses.
Eyewitness News obtained a copy of the letter OMIG sent to the district last April https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25041910-omig?responsive=1&title=1 informing the district that it had made a technical error in submitting forms for 46 eligible employees and instructing them to resubmit. The letter stated that district officials could ask the state for assistance with resubmission.
The state said districts never resubmitted the documents. The portal was closed on July 31.
“Why should we be punished for other people's mistakes?” Davis asked. “It's time for us to get our money.”
“All employees who were determined to be eligible for this benefit will be paid, and we apologize, along with the state government, for the delay,” the school district said in a statement to Eyewitness News.
The East Ramapo workers are part of a group of 168 people from 40 employers across the state who have not received health care worker bonuses totaling about $504,000, according to the state Medicaid inspector general.
When Eyewitness News asked Governor Hockle's office about the $500,000 in taxpayer money that has not been distributed to eligible employees, a spokesperson said the Governor's program has provided more than $2 billion to 800,000 employees statewide.
“To address cases where employers have not yet completed the verification process, the state will provide an additional filing period to ensure workers are paid while maintaining appropriate standards for the responsible use of taxpayer funds,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesman said the next deadline for submissions would be January 2025.
Investigative reporter Christine Thorne asked Hoeckle's office how it plans to ensure employers like the East Ramapo School District properly submit paperwork for eligible employees in January, but the office did not respond to the question.
In a statement to Eyewitness News, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) said, “At this time, we are working directly with the East Ramapo School District to determine the number of affected employees, their current employment status, and how many employees remain owed bonuses that have not yet been identified by OMIG.”
The Department of Health said it cannot process bonus payments until employers accurately complete the application process to ensure taxpayer funds are used responsibly. The Department of Health said the East Ramapo School District applied for employees multiple times, corrupting the data and that the Department of Health cannot process the applications until the district corrects the error.
“Personally I don't care where the error occurred,” Davis said, “I just think out of respect for the number of people we have and how hard we've worked during such a critical time in the pandemic, I deserve a better answer than saying there was a technical error.”
The health department said the state paid a $75,000 bonus to the East Ramapo School District but did not say which employees received it.
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