LA County Looks to Enforce COVID Vaccine Mandate in Sheriff’s Department

With Sheriff Alex Villanueva declining to enforce the county’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate among his deputies, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday will consider a proposal that would give the county personnel director overriding authority to discipline any employees who fail to comply with the requirement.

Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Holly Mitchell introduced the motion, saying countywide compliance with the employee vaccine mandate “remains a challenge four months after its issuance.” They noted that as of Feb. 1, 81.5% of the county’s 100,000 employees were fully vaccinated as required by the mandate.

But in the sheriff’s department, less than 60% of employees were in compliance with the vaccine mandate.

“Unsurprisingly, approximately 74% of the more than 5,000 COVID-19- related workers’ compensation claims filed by county employees as of Jan. 29, 2022, have been filed by employees in the sheriff’s department,” according to the motion. “This data illustrates vaccinations’ vital role in limiting the spread of COVID-19 and thus, the urgent need to increase vaccination rates across the entire county workforce.”

The motion, if approved, would direct county attorneys to work with the CEO and personnel director to develop proposed amendments to county Civil Service rules, giving the personnel director “overriding authority to discipline the employees of any county department for noncompliance with the county’s policy or directives related to the policy.”

Those proposed amendments would be reviewed by the board at its March 15 meeting for final consideration.

The authority to discipline — or terminate — employees who violate the mandate currently rests with individual department heads, such as the sheriff. The motion states that such an arrangement “has allowed for inconsistent application and enforcement of the policy and wide variety from department to department.”

Villanueva, who has encouraged people to consider getting vaccinated, has spoken out against the county’s vaccine mandate, saying it would decimate the ranks of what he calls an already depleted department. He said deputies should have the option of undergoing regular testing rather than being forced to get vaccinated.

The sheriff’s department, on its official Twitter page Monday, called the Kuehl/Mitchell proposal “a motion to terminate 18K (county) employees,” including 4,000 sheriff’s department employees.

“These are the same law enforcement professionals, fire professionals, medical and health care professionals, mental health professionals and others who were called heroes just a short time ago,” according to the sheriff’s department, which urged residents to call the board in opposition to the proposal.

Also Monday, an attorney for the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association sent a letter to the board objecting to the proposal, saying it would violate the county charter and amount to an overstepping of the board’s authority.

“Any attempt to take over the sheriff’s ability to oversee the disciplinary process for his employees, it is submitted, would certainly not survive legal scrutiny by the courts who would likely fine the BOS exceeded their authority under well-established legal principles,” attorney James Cunningham wrote.

Citing a 1977 court ruling, Cunningham added, “Such supervisory control by the BOS would directly conflict with the admonition that `the board has no power to perform county officers’ statutory duties for them or direct the manner in which duties are performed.”‘