Public Health rejects retroactive experience pay

Washington County Public Health will not retroactively pay employees for experience before their hire date, despite employee calls to do so.

“At the last board of health meeting, there was the question of, ‘Can we account for previous experience that was accounted for at the time of hire, can we account for that previous experience now, and if we could, how would we do that objectively?’” Public Health Director Emily Tokheim said at a meeting last week.

Tokheim said the county had consulted human resource professionals, who advised against retroactive pay for prior experience.

“I brought that information to the committee … and we had that discussion,” she said. “The consensus we came to is we can’t fix what’s been done in the past, we can’t fix how things have transpired in the past … what we can do is correct that going forward.”

Still, the wage committee has plans for change down the road.

“We are going to be looking very closely at how we do our evaluations in the department,” Tokheim said. “If we want to ensure that we are adequately compensating staff going forward for their job responsibilities, their job performance and their job duties, we need to have a system in place for performance evaluations and rewards based on those.”

Earlier in the meeting, the Board of Health did unanimously approve changes to its current longevity pay policy. Instead of receiving 20 cent hourly raises every five years, department employees will now get lump sums on their anniversary date: $500 for years 5-10, $1,000 for years 11-15, $1,500 for 16-20, and $2,000 for every year after that.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com