By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The bug the Tristate can't seem to shake has spread from schools to businesses all around the region.

More than 40 school districts or private schools have been closed this week as many students stayed home with illnesses ranging from runny noses to bronchitis, strep throat and the flu. By Thursday, companies were starting to feel the effects, both from employees who were sick and those who stayed home with sick children.

The main effect was in juggling daily tasks to cover for those staying home.

"What we're doing is scrambling," said Jeff Rumpke, Greater Cincinnati market manager for the waste-management company Rumpke Commercial, which had about one-quarter of its office staff missing some work while sick or with sick children. "Everybody has to carry a little bit more of the load."

Diane Geiger of Monfort Heights left work early Thursday from the downtown architectural firm Michael Schuster Associates to take her 15-year-old son to get a strep throat test. She said it was "working moms who feel this the most."

"All of my sick time goes to my kids," she said. "So when I get sick, I'm out of luck."

Many companies, including Comair, Cinergy, Graeter's Ice Cream and Winton Savings & Loan, said they felt little impact of the widespread illness this week. And for most companies that did have employees missing, the absences were little more than an inconvenience.

But employees missing work because of "family issues" has grown enough to become a bottom-line issue for many businesses, particularly small ones. Those absences total 24 percent of unscheduled absences that add up to $789 an employee a year, according to Illinois workplace consultant CCH Inc.

More employees want days they can use to stay home with sick children, but not all companies offer that benefit, said Lori Rosen, a workplace analyst at CCH. At Federated Department Stores Inc., for example, workers with sick children have a choice between taking vacation or unpaid leave.

"The trend is toward companies slowly adopting paid time off, without asking why you're gone," Rosen said.

Mark Schenthal, spokesman at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said that while businesses are under strain, none has called the chamber for direction.

"It's funny you should call," he said. "I just had to bolt home to get my daughter. I think the flu is inconvenient for people and companies but you just have to make arrangements. I don't know of any company that is shut down because of sickness. But you know there is inconvenience from workers having to stay home with children."

The impact on business has spread beyond missing employees. Meridian Bioscience Inc. in Newtown said it's selling more of its kits that can detect different strains of viruses.

"We're not taking a morbid fascination, like we're glad people are sick, but we feel that by getting a quicker diagnosis, we are helping people get better faster," company president Jack Kraeutler said.

Still, the most common impact was missing employees.

Mike Andrew, manager of the Skyline Chili on Reading Road in Reading, said he had one afternoon server out earlier this week, staying home with her sick children. Andrew himself was sick last week, and several high-school students who normally work nights called in sick.

"It just throws everything out of whack," he said.

Steve Hendy, co-owner of Neal's Remodeling in Bridgetown, said hardly any of his company's 30 workers have been hit hard by the bug, but some have had to take off to care for sick children home from school with everything from stomach viruses to strep throat.

He estimated that about five employees from Neal's Remodeling have had to head home in recent weeks to help take care of their kids. Hendy said that's particularly true of employees where both parents work.

"It's definitely affected us in terms of some of the schools that have closed down," he said. "It seems like it's worse this year than in previous winters."

Sandy Miller, bookkeeper at a Blue Ash dental office that employs about 20 people, said two employees were out Thursday, one sick and one with a sick child, and several others missed time earlier this week.

"It's hasn't had a huge impact to where we'd have to shut down," she said. "But it's going around here just like it's going around everywhere."

Meanwhile, the effect on Tristate schools continued.

Carol Sauer, a first-grade teacher at Our Lady of Lourdes school and the mother of three, said finding her own substitute teacher has been tough. Her small Westwood school works from a pool of about 10 substitutes.

"As sick as everyone has been, it gets really difficult," she said. "And sometimes when I can't find anyone to take my place, I have to go to work anyway and try to find an alternate, like a grandparent, to watch my kids at home."

The 42-year-old Miami Heights resident realizes everyone is facing the same difficulty.

"A lot of parents are sending their kids back to school before they should, because they have no choice but to go to work," she said. "It's been really bad, but I can sympathize."

Enquirer reporters Mike Boyer, Maggie Downs, John Eckberg, Jeff McKinney, James Pilcher and Randy Tucker contributed to this report.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com