Over an hour of discussion was spent on whether to approve a new base pay for the Washington County Ambulance Service director and whether to pay for overtime worked in the last few months due to a staff shortage.

This October the supervisors approved pay increases for all ambulance staff to help retain employees and attract new ones to the service that has been county-operated for over a year. The supervisors approved personnel change requests for the wage increase for all but Ambulance Director Jeremy Peck, which has been on the board’s agenda the last couple weeks. His request is for an increase from $42.97 to $48.20 hourly, dated November 4th. Peck has also asked for compensation for over 180 additional hours he logged in September through November beyond his administrator duties. The supervisors voiced confusion on whether Peck is an exempt or non-exempt employee, and if an exempt employee would be able to receive this overtime compensation.

Supervisor Stan Stoops said toward the beginning of the discussion that he was not going to vote to approve added compensation for Peck during Tuesday’s meeting, not as a personal affront to Peck but because several department heads have contacted him in the last week regarding the matter. Washington County Interim Public Health Director Chris Estle commented on the strain the staff has also faced the last couple years with the pandemic, and she mentioned that in Jefferson County where she is director, all public health employees received a one-time hazard pay of $10,000 for above and beyond hours worked. Estle says she intends to put the topic of overtime pay on the Board of Health’s next meeting agenda, “I know that there needs to be some time of policy or procedure in place. However, that needs to be across the board the same for all employees regardless, because there’s always going to be times when somebody is going to have to step up and work more than that 40 hour threshold. We understand that when we take an administrator or director role.”

County Engineer Jacob Thorius also remarked on the supervisors’ confusion on whether to approve Peck’s wage increase versus overtime pay, and he recommended a work session, “I have two employees, my maintenance superintendent and assistant maintenance superintendent, during the winter months that have been putting in hours like that in that same time period. That is a whole separate discussion that I think you need to have a work session with Jeremy on and take into consideration the exempt/non exempt status and what that does for all departments.”

The board tabled action on the personnel change request, as County Attorney John Gish questioned whether the request can amend a contract if Peck has one. The supervisors scheduled a work session on pay rate and compensation for exempt county employees for 10 a.m. Monday.