Medical accommodation and religious exemption forms will be posted on InsideESD soon

From Chief Human Resources Officer Michaela Doelman

Hello everyone,

We’re very close to posting the medical accommodation and religious exemption forms on the vaccination requirement page on InsideESD. The State HR office just notified us that they're making final edits. We’ll let you know as soon as we post the forms.

How we’ll process the forms
We’re currently working on defining the process and hope to have it in place next week. We’ll let you know soon where you can get help and where to submit your form.

Processing the forms will take some time because we want to give each the consideration it deserves. We also want to make sure we’re doing it right, so we’ll be working with the State HR office and the Office of the Attorney General.

We’ll work with you
Many of you have expressed concern about being able to complete the accommodation request by the Oct. 18 deadline. For example, some of you might need a medical consultation to determine if you can receive the vaccination, and that can sometimes take a month or two.

While each case is unique, please know that we’re committed to working with you. The process will be interactive. We don’t want to lose any of you and we’ll navigate this process together.

Impacts of the mandate currently in bargaining
The State HR Labor Relations Office is currently bargaining the impacts of the vaccine mandate with the Washington Federation of State Employees. The mandate itself is not being negotiated, but the effects are.

One of the things that may be negotiated is the vaccine verification process. We’ll have more details next week.

More information coming
As Commissioner Cami Feek said in her message yesterday, we’re committed to communicating whatever we know, as soon as we know it.

We’re working to answer all of your questions, and we’ll post them on the vaccination requirement page as soon as possible. Please submit them to Executive Services Manager Cindi Velazquez. 

Thanks, ESD. We’ll get through this together.