Officials looking for new methods to enforce vaccination requirement for LA county employees

Los Angeles, California – During the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, officials said they are trying to find new methods to enforce the government’s vaccination requirement for county employees.

County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said they are still struggling to convince county employees to get vaccinated, with only 82,000 being fully vaccinated, despite the executive order demanding employees to be fully vaccinated or face disciplinary action. The Board of Supervisors will talk about the motion on Tuesday when they meet again. They’ll decide if they can give disciplinary responsibility to someone else instead of the heads of each department.

According to Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s response on Twitter Monday night, the county would fire 18,000 unvaccinated personnel, of which 4,000 are from his department, as a result of this potential change in enforcement. According to the motion put forward by Kuehl, fewer than 60% of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have received a complete immunization. Both the words “termination” and “terminate” do not appear in the motion.

Villanueva has already said that he would not sanction employees of his department and that the department would continue to rely on voluntary compliance with the vaccination requirement. Tests for those who had not been vaccinated were still required by the Sheriff’s Office.

The motion will look into ways to move disciplinary actions to the director of personnel or someone chosen by the director. This will take this responsibility away from the leaders of each department.

By March 15, the Board of Supervisors is expected to submit a new ordinance that has been changed.