DOVER, Del.- Kent County Levy Court commissioners voted this week to cap essential workers like paramedics and staffers at its wastewater treatment facility to two weeks of overtime pay during the state of emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Levy Court approved the measure 5-2 on Tuesday, amending a county policy that allowed essential county workers to earn time-and-half overtime pay or comp time during an emergency situation. The provision was triggered when Gov. John Carney issued a state of emergency to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

However, County Administrator Mike Petit de Mange said the policy was intended for short-term emergencies like serious weather events and not for long-term scenarios like the ongoing pandemic.

"This is an un-budgeted cost and, while we always plan some margin in our budgets, we did not anticipate some catastrophic situation that could take months to resolve," he said.

Petit de Mange said the additional cost to the county under the original provision was more than $30,000 and that figure did not include comp time that was awarded to employees who opted to accept the time off, rather than the pay bump.

Levy Court Commissisoner Jeff Hall voted against the measure on Tuesday, which was retroactively applied to work conducted during late March.

"Changing the policy mid -stream was unfair without giving them some notice," he said. Capping them at 80 hours seemed an arbitrary figure."