Public Health asks board to fund small FTE increases as inspections and disease work grow

Ellie Clausen, Saint Croix County Public Health Administrator, briefed the board on department responsibilities and requested incremental FTE changes tied to workload and statutory duties. She said environmental-health agent work under DATCP/DSPS inspects 718 facilities in the county and the department’s inspector-to-facility ratio is roughly 334 facilities per FTE — above the recommended 280–320 range — supporting a fee-funded increase in a Program Associate 2 from 1.4 to 1.8 FTE.

Clausen also asked the board to preserve a 1.75 public-health nurse FTE by covering a 0.15 shortfall with levy funding when grant support ends. "This position is primary" for communicable-disease control, she said, and described recent and near-term public-health workload: a hospitalized child with pertussis, a measles exposure that required contact follow-up, three West Nile virus cases in the county and monitoring of travelers for Ebola. She detailed tuberculosis casework as resource-intensive — an active TB case can require roughly 80 hours of nursing case management plus directly observed therapy.

Board members questioned how fractional FTE is administered; Clausen replied the department codes hours across grant and fee-funded sources and noted recruitment challenges for small-part-time positions. The board requested follow-up materials and links to statutes and department reports Clausen said she would provide by email.