Brockton Mayor Chris Peabody says a rumour going around about the municipality using taxpayer money to pay laid-off staff isn't completely true.
Peabody said the help the municipality is offering is only for a very specific group of laid-off staff.
"The bylaw was not aimed at all the workers which is what the email going around suggests. It was aimed at the 11 workers that are daycare workers that we laid off. It didn't say that in the bylaw because of privacy concerns," said Peabody.
Mayor Peabody said Brockton is topping up those daycare workers' salaries up to 95 per cent in combination with their EI benefits, and he said the cost is very low to the municipality. He noted that council had a very good reason for deciding to implement this bylaw.
"The purpose of that is we have a very hard time keeping our daycare workers. They could easily go to the school boards and make a lot more money, so we have a hard time keeping and training them. So when the COVID-19 crisis is over, we need to have those daycare workers back," added Peabody.
Brockton owns its daycare centre, which is set to undergo a $1.6 million renovation, and because of that Mayor Peabody said they desperately need to retain the staff they have.
He added that he has explained the situation to some concerned citizens who were confused by the measure, and almost all of them have been supportive of the measure once they learned what it was for.
