ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

The Seward County Health Department has been the subject of much discussion at many recent county commission meetings, and the health department was again a topic at the board’s most recent meeting May 18.

Prior to many items pertaining to the department, Liberal resident Rick Madden talked about one of the items in the citizens comments portion of the meeting.

That item pertained to restructuring SCHD’s budget, and Madden said after researching salaries on a government Web site, he found the salary of Director Brie Greeson was $107,446, which he said was much higher than it should be.

“According to public records, this salary was 194 percent higher than the average and 192 percent higher than the median salary in Seward County,” Madden said. “Public records show Brie Greeson worked for Seward County from 2021 to 2024. According to these public records, salary increased by $3,829 from 2023 to 2024, which is a 3.7 percent raise since 2021. The salary has increased by $60,310. That’s a total raise of 128 percent.”

Madden added the health department in recent years had been giving bonuses out, and his research showed somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 in bonuses had been given out. He said the item on the May 18 agenda called for a 7 percent increase for all SCHD staff, with the money coming from unspent money in the department’s budget.

“I don’t understand why the budget amount can’t be put back into next year’s budget,” he said. “It seems the health department has an issue with raises and bonuses. Other departments were asked to reduce their budget at the expense of losing personnel and services because of the shortcoming of funds. I’m sure other department heads would like a 128 percent salary increase in the next four years, and their employees and other departments would like bonuses and raises like the health department get. If you decide to okay this request, just remember the other employees, and they might have a reason for dissent among all other employees.”

As for the item itself, Greeson said she was merely requesting approval to restructure the health department budget without requesting any additional county funds beyond what was  already approved in the 2026 budget.

“I’m proposing with the available funding, it be redistributed to all health department staff with a 7 percent wage increase,” she said. “This restructuring is intended to assist both staff retention and recruitment.”

Greeson said in an increasingly competitive health care workforce environment, maintaining experienced staff and attracting qualified employees is essential to sustaining services, preserving institutional knowledge and ensuring continuity of public health operations for the community by utilizing existing approved budget funds and restructuring internally.

“This proposal aims to strengthen workforce stability while remaining fiscally responsible to the county, the health department was approved for a total personnel services budget of $1,046,000,” she said.

Greeson said of this, $70,000 was originally associated with funding from Public Health Incentive Grants.

“That has since been reallocated,” she said. “This results in a personal service budget of $976,000, with the internal restructuring, a 7 percent wage increase for all health department staff and the revised projected personnel services expenditures with this revision would be $973,339.54. This remains within the approved budget and leaves the department approximately $2,606.46 under the budget for this year.”

Greeson said the restructuring plan also continues to support the health department’s operational needs by maintaining the ability to hire for the two currently open positions, continue providing jail nursing services and increasing start wages for registered nurses and clerks to a more competitive level within the current health care market.

“Competitive wages are critical to improving recruitment and retention efforts, particularly in rural health care settings where workforce shortages continue to be a significant challenge,” she said.

Greeson said prior to the May 18 agenda being submitted, a nurse position for the maternal and children’s health program had been open for 62 days with only applicant.

“The clinic nurse position has been open for 104 days, has received two applicants, one of whom possibly will be coming on depending on what happens with this,” she said. “These ongoing recruitment challenges have demonstrated a need to remain competitive with compensation in order to attract and retain qualified nursing and clerk staff while still providing essential public health services.”

Greeson said efforts have been made to cross train staff, and this will delineate all duties differently.

“Prior administration has been the backup to clinical staff,” he said. “I will be taking on some of those roles when we are down. We’re hoping with these adjustments, we can actually get some people to consider coming to us.”

The county’s benefit package recently underwent some changes, and Greeson said this changed some of SCHD’s recruiting tools.

“With wage adjustments, we’re hoping we can get our services still done appropriately and still stay open the same hours and not have to reduce services and still work within our budget,” she said. “Extensive cross training’s been taking place. Staying within our budget, being creative, that’s the goal here we’ve all been working towards.”

As for the research Madden presented, Greeson said she was not sure from where those numbers came.

“I have not had a 128 percent or $60,000 increase to my wage since I started this position,” Greeson said.

Greeson estimated having the health department open Fridays with the raise would cost about $137,000 alone in wages, and this is before lights, supplies and benefits would be added to the budget. She added budgeted positions are not standardized across all positions.

“Each program has different operational demands, funding structures and staffing needs,” she said.

Commissioner John Mettlen said he felt the restructure was a good thing.

“I think the departments can work within their budget, move people around,” he said. “If you don’t have as many people, you’re losing somebody shifting to cover.”

Mettlen made a motion to approve the SCHD budget restructure and adopt the proposed wage breakdown. Commissioner Clay Louderback seconded the motion, and the commission voted unanimously to approve the motion.