Tuscaloosa's Workforce 'Stable' After Coronavirus Spike: Mayor

TUSCALOOSA, AL —Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox on Tuesday said the city's workforce position is the best it's been in at least two months, following drastic impacts to staffing due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the most recent data provided by the mayor's office, the city's departments are currently 86% staffed — a number that is expected to improve as more city employees receive vaccinations.

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"[Monday], we only had 30 employees out on COVID leave," Maddox said in his weekly update to the Tuscaloosa City Council Tuesday. "We haven’t seen those numbers in a long, long time. I certainly feel like our situation is much, much improved and with the other trends we're seeing, this will continue to move in a very favorable direction for the city."

The Tuscaloosa Police Department continues to be the hardest hit in the city, as it is currently operating at 74% staffing, while Tuscaloosa Fire Rescue Service has made drastic gains back up to 92% of its employees on the job. Other data provided by the mayor did show of a high number of TPD employees who had already received the first shot in the vaccination process, at 129, while 79 fire department staffers had finished the first round. Of those TFR employees who had finished the first round, 61 had completed the two-shot process as of Tuesday.

Maddox said the workforce position was also much improved for Tuscaloosa City Schools and reminded the public that this weekend will be Educators Vaccination Weekend at DCH. He said more than 800 of the city school system's 1,400 employees have already volunteered to be vaccinated.

In looking at the present situation, as new inpatient cases have trended down for DCH Health System in recent weeks while still remaining in triple digits for the total number of hospitalizations, Maddox said the improvements would likely continue as the vaccine is made available to the wider public.

"I think you’ll see our numbers [of vaccinations] start to increase and I think overall the community’s numbers will continue to follow suite," Maddox said.

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