These Kansas City area employees are being paid $250 to take COVID-19 vaccines. You?

Is your employer offering to pay you to get a COVID-19 vaccination? Sounds like a sweet deal, especially for those of us planning to get the vaccine anyway.

But at least one Kansas City area employer is paying its employees a heady $250 to do it. And though it’s using money that doesn’t come from taxes, it just happens to be the tax-supported Johnson County Community College.

That’s quite a shot in the arm, and I’m sure JCCC faculty and staff appreciate it. Yet, isn’t $250 a bit over the top? And is it even necessary to pay someone to get vaccinated?

The funds come from a $765,000 health insurance refund for 2020, according to Chris Gray, vice president of strategic communication and marketing for the school. JCCC leaders, Gray explains, decided to use that windfall to “reinforce healthy decisions and (to put) dollars back in the hands of our employees and potentially (drive) scholarships for our students for those wishing to donate.” Indeed, employees can either take the cash or donate it to the JCCC Foundation for student scholarships.

That’s all admirable, but again, is it sound money management — especially when a well-known virus has done a fairly good job on its own of “reinforcing healthy decisions”?

In addition, although Gray said two other community colleges have expressed interest in doing something similar, my check of the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and the Kansas Board of Regents revealed no similar plans to provide staff incentives to get vaccinated. Moreover, none expressed any fears whatsoever that staff won’t get vaccinated without being paid.

Actually quite the contrary.

“During our vaccine campaign efforts over the past month or so, we have observed excitement from a vast majority of faculty, staff and students to get the vaccine,” said Jim Parker, director of Lafene Health Center at Kansas State University. “Anecdotally, our community has, by and large, demonstrated a high level of motivation to become vaccinated.”

“We’ve been pleased so far to see our faculty and staff’s overall willingness to seek out vaccinations as they’ve become available,” said Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, KU news and media relations director.

Added Matt Keith, director of communications for the Kansas Board of Regents: “At the March board meeting, the state university CEOs all indicated that they believe most employees will have had an opportunity to receive the vaccine by the start of the fall semester.”

In short, isn’t JCCC spending far too much to prompt what is likely an already highly motivated workforce to get vaccinated?

In a wholly unscientific poll of my Facebook posse, I asked if $250 would push the vaccine-hesitant into getting the shots. A sampling of the answers goes something like: no, never, nope, laughing out loud, absolutely not. And that was before federal health officials Tuesday recommended a temporary stop in using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of rare blood clot issues.

“No amount of money would I get the shot!” one commented. “It’s not going near any of my family members,” said another. One friend said he even knows a guy who turned down $800 from an employer to get the shot.

Another acquaintance, KU student Ashley Sherrow, questioned the ethics of financial incentives to induce someone into a medical procedure they’re hesitant about: “I think the reason someone should voluntarily get any kind of medical procedure/product should be because they trust it and genuinely believe it is a better thing to get than not, based on the information on the procedure/product itself. I think adding an incentive only based on someone’s need/want for money is borderline unethical.”

One other caveat: Employers “should ensure that the incentive is large enough to serve as an effective incentive, but not so large that it could be viewed as coercive,” writes The National Law Review’s Melissa Legault. “The reasonableness of the amount of the cash incentive may vary depending on the industry and workforce makeup, but most employers who have implemented a cash incentive program so far have provided between $75 and $100 to each employee who receives the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Studies affirm the motivating power of incentives, of course. But by now, most folks are pretty entrenched in their view of the COVID-19 vaccine. And although cash may coax some to get it, my informal poll indicates it’s unlikely to be the deciding factor in whether someone chooses to seek out a vaccine.

I respect my friends’ hesitance. I just disagree. I think it’s clear the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are highly safe — and therefore, I chose to get my first shot Tuesday.

I agree with Sherrow, though. A little pocket money isn’t a good way to decide the matter.