As part of Grays Harbor County’s ramped up response to an increase in COVID-19 cases over the past month, the Board of County Commissioners have approved five new permanent, full-time hires for Grays Harbor Public Health.
The positions include:
– Epidemiologist III. “This position is intended to provide dedicated supervision to the extremely expanded communicable disease team we’ve had to put together in response (to the increase in cases),” Public Health Director Karolyn Holden told the board on Friday. The position pays $5,803-$6,852 a month, and will supervise the expanded COVID-19 response staff.
• Communications officer: “I talked to Karolyn (Holden) about this position and especially now we need to communicate (with the public) more and we don’t have the staff for it,” said Commissioner Randy Ross.
“We have had to really ramp up communication,” said Holden. “Sharing public information is the best control we have, and this is a high level position that requires a lot of skill and the folks I have at this level of expertise are already tapped out on response.”
The position pays $5,4040-$6,251 a month.
“As a member of the policy group and commission I’ve been inundated with phone calls and questions from the media, which I don’t mind answering, but some of those need to be vetted and answered appropriately,” said Commissioner Vickie Raines. “When Karolyn mentioned to me this position I was relieved and think it’s something we really need in the department.”
Commissioner Randy Ross said he hoped that “eventually we might be able, as things ramp down and the economy levels out, considering maybe utilizing this position across more departments at the county. At this time, the need is in the public health area.”
• Community Health Specialist: “Especially now that we ramped back up into multi-agency response again, there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into supporting the planning and making sure everyone in the response has the proper communication and marching orders to move forward,” said Holden. “Currently, the position is diverting our current specialists from grant-funded work and has amounted to a lot of overtime, and if we don’t pick that grant work back up we’ll lose that grant revenue.”
The position pays $5,547-$5,704 monthly and is responsible for organizing and documenting response planning and recruiting and managing volunteers to support sustainable public health management of COVID-19.
• Community Health Nurse or Communicable Disease Investigator: This request is for two full-time employees to identify, locate, contact, interview, educate and instruct persons with infectious diseases to identify sources of infection and decrease the spread of diseases through the community.
“In terms of population size and the amount of disease currently being reported we are required by the state to ensure adequate response to rapidly investigate and isolate (cases),” said Holden. She said current staff is overwhelmed and being taken away from its usual grant work, again risking losing those grant funds.
Holden explained the job description opening the position to two different titles allows for a larger pool of candidates, who are in more limited supply with the nationwide need for communicable disease investigation. The positions pay $4,638-$4,985 monthly.
Board approval
Each position was voted on individually, and each was approved by a vote of 2-1, with Commissioner Wes Cormier voting no on each.
“My only worry is that these are permanent positions,” said Cormier. “I don’t mind if we get money from the state to pay for these, but there is no guarantee the state will continue to pay. I’d rather they were temporary.” He’s also concerned about hiring full time permanent positions when revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over the coming years due to COVID-19 restrictions are projected in the county.
Ross asked Holden if state COVID-19 relief funding was available for the new hires, and Holden said the state Department of Health has provided a little more than $100,000 for the county’s response. “Because it’s specific to COVID it will be eligible for reimbursement,” she said.
Raines argued that, “In looking at the data it appears we could be dealing with this issue in a year, or two years, or three years from now. In this case, even if it’s a one- or two-year position you’d consider it a permanent position.”
“The fact is we don’t know what is going to happen in the future,” said Ross. “At least for the next year it looks like we’re going to be dealing with COVID-19 response for a while.”
Cormier argued that these are all based on projections. Raines argued that when the commissioners do budgets they “guesstimate how things will go, but there is no crystal ball” when making such decisions.
