Murrah County Board of Health approves new public health nurse positions, revises job descriptions ahead of IU Health contract end

At a special session Oct. 7, 2025, the Murrah County Board of Health approved revisions to multiple job descriptions and a new public health nurse position to replace services the county will no longer receive under a contract with IU Health Community Health when that contract ends on Jan. 1.

The board approved four items individually: a new Public Health Nurse — Communicable Disease position, revised job descriptions for two existing positions (formerly Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator and COVID-19 School Liaison) retitled as Public Health Nurse positions, and a minor revision to the Director of Health Services description to add supervisory responsibility for the new positions. Each motion passed by voice vote.

Board members and staff said the changes respond to the end of the county’s contract with IU Health Community Health, which currently supplies communicable-disease case investigation, vaccination outreach for low-income residents, and tuberculosis case investigations. The health officer said the county will fund the new and revised positions using money that will no longer be paid to IU Health; the county expects to provide approximately 1.75 full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff in-house instead of the three FTE previously provided by IU Health.

The new Public Health Nurse — Communicable Disease position will carry lead responsibility for communicable-disease investigation, including interviewing patients, contact tracing, ensuring adequate treatment of cases, arranging testing and treatment for contacts, and entering required data into the state’s NBS disease-reporting database. The board approved the position as a Path C civil-service level and set hiring requirements to include an active Indiana nursing license; members discussed pay levels and were told the proposed salary was reviewed to be competitive. One board member said, “We believe this salary will be healthy enough to get a nurse.”

Two existing vacant positions were repurposed and retitled as Public Health Nurse roles: the former Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator and the former COVID-19 School Liaison. Those positions will provide school-health liaison services, help with vaccine outreach and medication distribution, and serve as surge capacity during outbreaks. The board voted to remove language that said the behavioral-health position could "diagnose"; members agreed that diagnostic authority was inappropriate for the nurse classifications being approved.

The board also amended the job-requirements language across the positions to require an active Indiana nursing license rather than a blanket "nursing degree," to avoid unintentionally excluding LPNs who hold state licenses through certificate programs. Members asked staff to make the license language consistent across all revised descriptions; staff confirmed the change was made in the redlined documents.

Board members discussed training and operational readiness; staff said required communicable-disease training modules and NBS case-investigation training are available through the state online training system. The Director of Health Services description was updated only to add supervisory responsibility for the new nursing positions; that director job description had already been approved previously and required a nursing degree and license as a separate matter.

Each job description was approved individually by voice vote with no recorded negative votes in the meeting transcript. The board directed staff to forward the revised job descriptions to the county council for review at its next meeting so hiring can proceed.