MONROE – Amid heightened public awareness and scrutiny of the job during the coronavirus pandemic, Green County's health officer will get just under an 8% pay raise starting in January — much less than originally requested.
Members of the Personnel and Labor Relations Committee unanimously agreed to the raise after debating it nearly an hour at their Oct. 28 meeting.
The pay raise request came from the Health Committee, which oversees Green County Public Health.
"I just think it’s a safe assumption that the world is not going to get any easier for public health. There are just plenty of challenges out there to deal with, and the health officer’s job is only going to get more complicated," Harvey Kubly, chair of the Health Committee, said at the meeting.
The Health Committee initially sought a 20% raise, arguing that Green County pays its health officer less than nearby counties, but the request was denied.
RoAnn Warden, health officer and head of Green County Public Health, is currently salaried at $37.97 per hour, or $78,977.60 annually. Salaried employees are not paid overtime. A registered nurse since 1987, Warden has been with Green County since 2006 and director of the health department since 2008.
In contrast, Iowa County, which has about one-third less population than Green County, pays its salaried health officer $42.37 hourly. Grant County, which has a population one-third larger than Green County, pays $44.05.
The approved raise for Warden will put her salary at $85,069.79 come Jan. 1, or about $40.90 per hour based on a 40-hour workweek.
It was still less than a reduced request of $42.64 per hour, retroactive to April 1, that the Health Committee brought back to the Personnel and Labor Relations Committee on Oct. 28.
The reduced request also came with a suggestion for how to cover it given the "financial restraints the county is facing," Kubly said. A public health nurse position budgeted at 40 hours weekly is actually at 32 hours, providing room in the budget for the requested raise.
But Art Carter, chair of the Personnel and Labor Relations Committee, said he was worried that option wasn't sustainable.
Carter and his committee members also expressed worry over pay equity among department heads, in particular among those impacted by the pandemic or other big challenges to their work.
"How do you choose which ones were impacted more? It's a real can of worms," Carter said. As far as COVID-19, "all departments that deal with people have been impacted."
If there was an easy "magic formula," he said, "we'd have done it."
The committee approved what it saw as a compromise.
Under pressure
Warden's raise comes as COVID-19 surges locally and across the state, and amid a politicized public health crisis that is causing heightened awareness and scrutiny of public health officials and their work.
Since the start of the pandemic, health officials across the state have reported working long hours under increased pressure and even abusive treatment from the public.
Warden said she worked 60-hour weeks during the early months of the pandemic but has since tried to keep it to around 50.
She was the target of a federal lawsuit, filed in May by two dozen Wisconsin residents, alleging she and other public health officials violated the constitutional rights of citizens by imposing mandatory public health orders or taking other steps in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit was later dismissed on a technicality, and court records show it has not been refiled.
Sauk County's health officer resigned in September, saying he had been called a “liar, a communist, a fascist” and more. In his resignation letter, he said "political gamesmanship” had led some county supervisors to “demand retraction of evidence-based public health guidance,” the Wisconsin State Journal recently reported.
Others have resigned, too, or been fired. In early September, Lafayette County fired its health officer, Elizabeth Townsend, without explanation. Townsend said she was blindsided by the firing and not given a reason for it.
Updated job description, paid leave request
At the Oct. 28 meeting, the Green County Personnel and Labor Relations Committee also approved an updated health officer job description.
The old job description is three pages long and dated 1998. The updated one is twice as long and includes a section on public health threats and emergencies. It also specifies that the position be held preferably by someone with a master's degree in public health, public administration or a related field.
Warden said the job description needed updating as the county's population has grown and new public health issues have "risen to the top," such as water quality, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and environmental safety.
"It was revised to reflect more current roles and responsibilities," she said.
In other business, the committee also granted a request from Sheriff Jeff Skatrud for flexibility in using special paid leave for employees who have confirmed COVID-19 or who need to get tested.
The situation affects jailers and dispatchers more because they work in tight quarters, where infections can spread more easily, whereas patrol deputies "can space themselves," Skatrud said. He reported a total of four positive employees in the department, with a fifth expected. No inmates had tested positive, he said.
One jail deputy was "damn sick" with COVID-19, along with his whole family, Skatrud said.
A fast turnaround for test results allows employees who test negative to get back to work faster, and Skatrud said it's vital that first responders like his employees keep working. For that reason, he's directing employees to get tested at the local county-run test site, where turnaround has been fastest.
