Board of health discusses mandatory overtime pay

WASHINGTON — County officials floated plans to raise emergency overtime pay for public health staff during emergencies at a Board of Health meeting last week. The suggestion follows in the footsteps of a similar policy approved by supervisors a week prior for Washington County Ambulance paramedics.

Washington County Public Health Director Emily Tokheim said the county should offer double pay for employees clocking overtime during an emergency response, as an incentive to get them back to the office on short notice. The department’s normal overtime policy pays time and a half.

“We do have policies that would require that, in the event of certain emergencies, we would have to have our staff come back, and be at work whether it’s 7 o’clock on a Saturday or 5 a.m. on a Tuesday or whatever that looks like,” she said. “We would have to be staffed to respond and provide resources to the community in, most likely, some sort of a natural disaster or some other sort of mass event.”

Tokheim said she didn’t expect the rule to come up often, if it’s enacted. Still, she argued that arranging it ahead of time would be a necessity.

“We hope it doesn’t happen, but we also look at how many times we had to have employees work well over-time during COVID to provide the necessary response,” she said. “In many other events, we would need those employees to come back, and we would want them to come back willingly.”

The public health director said other counties went further, compensating some salaried employees on an hourly basis in the wake of certain proclamations. While she acknowledged that ambulance staff faced mandatory overtime under different circumstances, she said a similar need was “felt across all health care departments.”

County Supervisor Jack Seward Jr., who is also a board of health member, said the policy might prevent staff burnout. He took a similar stance on the ambulance service’s doubled mandatory overtime pay earlier in the month.

The board of health has not yet voted on any formal policy changing its mandatory overtime practices. Tokheim said staff would further analyze the agency’s emergency response procedures before moving forward.

If those changes materialize, they would confirm the fears of Supervisor Richard Young. He voted against the ambulance’s new mandatory overtime policy, saying the change would open the floodgates for similar requests by other county staff, stretching an already tight budget expected next fiscal year thanks to statewide tax cuts.

“When we make a policy like this, we need to look and see how it’s going to affect everybody,” he said at an Oct. 17 meeting.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com