Christopher Sadowski
The city Department of Education has turned into Scrooge this holiday season, demanding cash from staffers it fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Social worker Diane Pagen, terminated three years ago for violating the city’s vaccine mandate, received an “invoice” after Thanksgiving from the DOE seeking $2,290, a sum covering her salary for 10 days in 2021 when she was ordered not to work.
Pagen, 54, called it a “shameful extortion” and “a shakedown.”
“What kind of upside-down clown world has NYC’s Department of Education become? This agency refused to allow me to go to work … and now wants to bill me,” she told The Post.
Pagen is one of 1,780 city employees — including 1,100 in the DOE — forced to leave on Oct. 4, 2021, because they would not comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
But the DOE kept them on the payroll until Oct. 15. Now it wants refunds for 10 days of salary from employees the city put on “involuntary unpaid leave” because they didn’t get vaxxed.
Pagen and others worked without pay through the spring break during the COVID shutdown in 2020. The teachers’ union later won an arbitration requiring the city to compensate any employee on duty during that time, even if they no longer work for the DOE.
“Why aren’t they calling Diane about the compensation they owe her?” asked Michael Kane, founder of Teachers for Choice, a group of city educators who oppose forced medical mandates.
“The fact that they are asking her to pay after keeping her out of work for so long is nothing short of an outrage,” said Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola, a Republican.
“I’ll be speaking with the DOE to right this wrong.”
The DOE refused to explain or comment on Pagen’s invoice because she filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging $10 million in damages for violating her rights, wrongful termination and fraud.
Spokeswoman Jenna Lyle said only, “We are grateful to our school communities and city leadership for taking the necessary steps to protect our young people during the pandemic.”
Mayor Adams lifted the vax mandate for city employees in February 2023.
In a related matter, the City Council this week yanked a scheduled vote by the Civil Service and Labor Committee on a resolution calling on the state Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul to enact a law to reinstate Big Apple employees terminated due to non-compliance with the vax mandate.
Republican Staten Island Councilman Joseph Borelli, who supports “Resolution 5,” said an informal poll indicated the nine-member committee lacked the five votes needed to approve and send it for a vote by the City Council.
“It’s not dead,” he said. “We’re going back to the committee in January or February, and figure out a way to get it through. We’re very confident we have the votes in the full Council to pass it.”
Ariola agreed.
“This is a civil rights bill, not an anti-vaccine measure,” the councilwoman said.
Adams continues to fight lawsuits by city employees seeking to regain their jobs along with back pay and seniority.
Jim Walden, an attorney running against Adams for mayor, would rehire employees terminated for refusing COVID vaccines, he said:
“We should turn the page on this injustice by welcoming them back to city service. And I would certainly be open to some form of backpay” depending on the cost, Walden said.