Agenda - Council - 09/13/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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that the definition of eligible worker, which includes "any work performed by an employee of a ... Tribal government," also include an employee of a "Tribal enterprise" to remove uncertainty regarding which employees are included. Finally, commenters made suggestions for the process by which the chief executive (or equivalent) of a recipient government may designate additional non-public sectors as critical. Commenters asked that Treasury adopt a requirement that Treasury must approve or deny any additional non-public sector identified by the chief executive of a recipient government prior to implementation of the recipient's program. Some commenters asked Treasury to clarify whether their chief executive (or equivalent) could designate particular, and in some cases all, employees of the recipient government as eligible for premium pay. Treasury Response: In the final rule, Treasury will preserve the definition of "eligible worker" as it was defined in the interim final rule with minor modifications to clarify that all public employees of recipient governments are already included in the interim final rule definition of "eligible worker." A more specific eligibility system (e.g., linking eligibility to specific occupational or industry codes) would have provided more certainty but would have been much more rigid. In contrast, the current definition is flexible enough to give recipients the ability to tailor their premium pay programs to meet their needs while ensuring that programs focus on sectors where workers were forced to shoulder substantial risk as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the critical infrastructure sectors defined in the interim final rule already include many of the occupations that commenters requested be added. For example, Treasury received many comments from public workers asking to be included in the definition of "eligible worker" even though these workers already fall within the scope of "any work 223