LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Carolyn Huddleston, Liberal
Does the leadership of the Seward County Health Department want to work more than four days a week? Yes, every other Friday a nurse practitioner goes to the Health Department and has appointments with some pregnant women who are being seen under the Maternal and Child Health grant. Some staff must be showing up for that. But the clinic is not open to the general public on Fridays, and the most any of the staff have worked per week in the last three years is 36 hours, so to get to 40 hours per week, they all need at least four more hours. I have been told that there isn’t the funding for staff to work any more than they do, but there is clear evidence that isn’t the case.
At the end of 2023, the Health Department had $240,440 left over from the amount they had budgeted (plus another $51,250 was given in bonuses that year). Just the $240,440 could have more than paid for all staff to work 40 hours per week. They could have offered a full day of services on Fridays. However, that year the average for all staff was 34.5 hours of work each week. Why??
Then at the end of 2024, the Health Department had $72,967 left over from the funding that had been budgeted for them, plus another $45,000 was given in bonuses to staff that year. So there was a total of $117,967, which could have been invested in wages. That money wouldn’t have brought the staff up to 40 hours per week, but close to it. It would have financed five more hours each week, and the women were working 34.1 hours per week on the average that year. Working half a day on Fridays could have been easily covered.
Next we come to 2025. I don’t know if there will be any extra money in the budget. That data isn’t yet available. But I can tell you that the bonuses given out this year, which total $103,709, would have paid for four hours of work for each person if they had chosen to put that money into operations. This year the average number of hours worked from January to August was 33.9, and in her presentation to the Seward County Commissioners in June, (Director) Brie (Greeson) indicated that it might be necessary for them to drop everyone down to 32 hours per week. That is, instead of being open from 8 to 5:30 (with an hour off for lunch) Monday through Thursday, it would be 8 to 5. Yet for 2026, another $103,709 has been set aside for bonuses. That right there could give them all another four hours of work each week.
All the other county employees work 40 hours per week, and the funding clearly is there for staff of the Health Department to offer at least half a day of services on Fridays. However, the history here tells me there is going to be tremendous resistance to that by the leadership of the Health Department. So friends, is there anything we can do?
