Washington County poised to hire deputy as EMA manager

WASHINGTON — Washington County appears poised to replace a former department head with a sheriff’s deputy, delegated the same responsibilities.

A sharing agreement passed by county supervisors last week in a 4-1 vote established the means to appoint the county’s emergency management coordinator authority to a sheriff’s deputy. While the agreement is now on the books, officials still haven’t announced an official hire for it.

Advocates say the move will improve efficiency and build disaster response system redundancies. But others have raised concerns about how an officer would compartmentalize their duties between departments, and whether the county ought to instead hire a different, unnamed finalist for the position with a college education in emergency management that the deputy in consideration lacks.

New emergency management director would be a deputy

City of Washington Police Chief Jim Lester is familiar with the setup, having himself been a chief deputy tasked with emergency management in Wright County from 2008 to 2019, where he was also a jail administrator at the time. The county has a population a little over half of Washington County’s, and hired a full-time coordinator when Lester left.

If Washington County follows Wright’s model, Lester said the deputy would still operate as a uniformed officer — driving a marked car, carrying a service weapon, and expected to take action to prevent and stop crimes — even as they went about their responsibilities as an emergency manger.

“It was kind of a balancing act, but it worked well,” he said. “You’re on the clock as a deputy sheriff, and one of your assignments as a deputy sheriff is to be emergency management coordinator … You’ve just got to be flexible.”

The position would be funded using both the sheriff’s office and emergency management department’s budgets.

Police argue shared role would improve efficiency

Sheriff Jared Schneider said a deputy had applied for the emergency management job when it was posted several months ago, when it was advertised as a stand-alone, full-time position.

After several rounds of interviews with the emergency management commission — a board comprised of elected local government officials from around Washington County — that unnamed deputy was one of two finalists in the running. Schneider said the job interview performance sparked conversations about consolidating the emergency management responsibilities.

The sheriff argued a sharing agreement would create “redundancies.” While the previous emergency management coordinator, Marissa Reisen, ran a one-woman show at the department, Schneider said a deputy could train other police officers to take his place in case he was out of town or sick when disaster struck.

“We’d be using one person as the coordinator, but also have some other people trained up within the sheriff’s office that could step up, if need be,” he said. “Their primary responsibilities would be emergency management … not being out on patrol on a daily basis.”

While the department would likely hire a new deputy to take on patrol duties previously assigned to the presumptive emergency manager, the EMA official could still handle other part-time tasks for the county’s police agency, according to Schneider. That list might include courthouse security duties, among other things.

Schneider said last week he expected the deputy would focus on their emergency management duties “75-100% of the time” for at least the first year, but said things might eventually level out at a different ratio.

“We can make sure those hours are getting utilized,” he said. “Making sure the emergency management function is covered, but then also, if there’s time, to use that employee to do other things within the sheriff’s office that hopefully improve the efficiency of both.”

Chief Lester, speaking from his own experience, has endorsed the sharing agreement.

In an interview last week, he said an existing deputy would have preestablished rapport with the numerous fire departments, ambulance crews, police officers and volunteer groups they’d have to work with in their new role.

“You’ve got a deputy that is familiar with the county, familiar with responder services … and can help coordinate all those things in the event of a disaster,” he said. “The connection is already there, it helps. Emergency management is a lot about working with the various organizations and personalities that are involved in EMS and fire, and I think the deputy that’s interested in this will work well in that role.”

Supervision of coordinator proves a sticking point

In a recent public meetings, Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. — the lone vote against the sharing agreement — said he was skeptical about delegating emergency management leadership to a deputy for several reasons.

For one, he said the proposed model would consolidate too much authority under one department.

“Once you’ve got your teeth into that emergency manager, they’re yours, they really don’t belong to the emergency management commission,” he said to Sheriff Schneider, at the meeting earlier this month. “I’m a little leery of giving you that authority, and that power.”

Schneider, however, argued that he was the ideal source of supervision for the emergency manager.

Previously, the EMA department head reported to the emergency management commission. But with the group holding regular meetings only once a month, it didn’t have especially frequent check-ins with the former department head. Any deputy would likely see Schneider several days a week.

“It’s my employee that I’m supervising on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “We would also use the EMA commission and myself to work together and do what everybody wants …

Others worry about separation of duties

In addition to his concerns about supervision authority, Seward said the emergency management and deputy roles were “apples and oranges,” and didn’t lend themselves well to a joint position.

“The emergency management coordinator needs to be an emergency management coordinator, and not a dual-hat kind of deal,” he said. “I’m hesitant to support making a deputy sheriff the emergency coordinator, and having it mixed up like this.”

Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young expressed similar concerns in a brief interview earlier this month.

“I thought it should’ve been kept separate,” he said. “Is he going to be a deputy or is he going to be an emergency management coordinator? Separating that duty when you need to be one or the other, how do you keep that straight?”

Young ultimately voted in favor of the sharing agreement last week, though he noted the arrangement could be terminated if it goes awry.

“If it doesn’t work out, we have an option to get rid of it,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Qualifications also in question

In another point of contention, officials said the non-deputy finalist for the emergency management job had all the qualifications requested in the job’s description, including a degree in emergency management.

Supervisor Seward said he was worried hiring the current deputy without that academic background might prompt litigation, if handled incorrectly.

“If you don’t hire the person that was a civilian, that has the qualifications, a degree in emergency management, I think we’re opening ourselves up to a load of trouble,” he said. “I don’t disagree that the sheriff’s department is deeply involved in emergency and disaster situations … the advertisement said you’ve got to have an emergency management degree, and I think only one of the remaining applicants has that.”

County Attorney Nathan Repp said the county should officially end its search for an emergency management director before establishing the sharing agreement approved last week. The agreement was already passed by the Emergency Management Commission prior to the July 22 supervisor meeting.

Doing so, he said, would keep officials in line with any rules against altering a job description after it’s posted, even if the agreement could leave the non-deputy applicant with the impression they were rejected in favor of a less qualified candidate.

“There’s no requirement that anybody necessarily be hired in this phase of the job hiring process, from that particular job posting,” he said. “A job can be reposted, or other formats of the job can be put in place … we need to be clear this is Plan B, not necessarily an alteration of Plan A, Plan A being the original job description.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com