Rifts grow, nepotism accusations fly as fractious County Commission approves $20M worker bonuses

Sedgwick County commissioners on Wednesday approved $20 million in COVID bonuses for county employees who worked through the pandemic, but not before an ongoing rift between two Republican commissioners publicly widened.

That continuing battle stems from a Wichita Eagle investigation into top-down dysfunction in the county’s Emergency Medical Services division.

That issue led to the ouster of the then-head of the county’s EMS and sparked continuing accusations of conflicts of interest and nepotism between Commissioner David Dennis and Commissioner Jim Howell.

The $20 million will come out of the county’s $100 million award from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package meant to speed the recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s part of a plan to retain county employees that — along with signing bonuses and short-term raises for some employees — is aimed at improving essential government services.

Significant employee shortages in EMS, Emergency Communications, the Sheriff’s Office, Corrections and Comcare have diminished the services provided by Sedgwick County and placed additional stress on the employees who have remained.

The staffing shortage in EMS has also limited the number of ambulances on the street and resulted in dangerously slow response times.

But Dennis, who reluctantly voted for the bonuses after his motion to delay the bonuses died for lack of support from any of his colleagues, complained that the decision was made without enough public comment.

He said the money might have been better spent on something else.

“It is going to benefit our employees, but the community as a whole is not going to get any benefit from it, except maybe some sales tax money when they (county employees) go spend the bonus,” Dennis said.

Both Democratic Commissioners Sarah Lopez and Lacey Cruse countered that the broader community would still benefit from the premium pay plan.

“Supporting our employees doesn’t necessarily mean that we aren’t supporting the community,” Cruse said. “I think it means that we’re stepping up and showing our employees how important they are.”

Sedgwick County is losing workers “like crazy,” Cruse said, and they are working under stressful conditions in the pandemic.

The county workers serve the whole community, Lopez said, and it’s important to retain them.

Commissioner Pete Meitzner said he’s heard about the ongoing staff shortage at the Sedgwick County Jail, and that Sheriff Jeff Easter told him premium pay would go a long way in helping them address the problem.

“We need to do something immediate and forward-looking for our employees,” Meitzner said.

Dennis-Howell clash continues

Dennis also clashed with Howell, escalating a dispute that has festered for several months over how to handle a workforce shortage in several public safety divisions.

Howell has supported raises, bonuses and improved working conditions for county employees, but Dennis has accused him of only taking an interest because his daughter in-law works for EMS and Howell’s son is a Sedgwick County firefighter.

That accusation broadened Wednesday when Dennis raised questions about whether Howell should be disqualified from voting on the ARPA funding to give bonuses to county employees.

County Counselor Mike Pepoon said there’s nothing in the Kansas conflict-of-interest law that requires disclosure or forbids taking official actions that financially benefit an official’s child or the child’s spouse.

Howell said he has a large family, and many of those family members have undertaken careers in public service. The raises will also benefit far more employees than just his children, he said.

“If you want me to, Commissioner Dennis, I’ll recuse myself,” Howell said. “But I don’t think it’s inappropriate that the commission considers this today, and I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest in any way. I am bothered greatly that you keep attacking my family.”

“They are firefighters, they are paramedics, they have worked in the Sedgwick County jail. They have worked in the election office. And on it goes.

“So, the reality is my family, they are adults. They are not me,” he said. “They have the right to provide services to the people of Sedgwick County and secure those jobs. In fact, when they applied for the jobs, I asked our counsel, is there any conflicts of interest, and they said no.”

Pepoon told Howell Wednesday that he could vote on the bonus funding.

“Just because I think a commissioner has a family member working for the county, does not bring them into the state conflict of interest laws. And I don’t think a commissioner would have to recuse him or herself from voting on a budget or any other issue,” Pepoon said.

“If it only, maybe, directly, and only, applied to maybe your family member, you would want to do that,” Pepoon added. “But when it applies to a broader class of individuals your members are also a part of, I don’t think that is considered a conflict of interest.”

Dennis also voiced frustrations over an Eagle story showing how four out of five commissioners had failed to disclose nonprofit board memberships in their statements of substantial interest disclosures, calling it “one little sheet of paper.”

“That seems to me to be kind of very trivial,” Dennis said. “But one of the other things that we were talking about during the ethics discussions was is any of your decisions as a commissioner going to impact you financially or any of your relatives financially. Is that not correct?”

Premium pay for county workers

Sedgwick County employees who were required to interact with others throughout the pandemic will receive extra, premium pay after county commissioners voted unanimously to spend $20 million in federal funds on workers.

“If we continue to lose staff at the rate we have been, then we won’t be able to offer the services that we do now, and they would be severely lacking in many ways,” Lopez said.

Workers would generally be eligible for the additional pay if the county needed them to maintain essential infrastructure.

The county defined essential work as involving regular, in-person interactions or regularly handling items that others have touched, Sheena Schmutz, director of human resources for Sedgwick County, told commissioners.

The premium pay would be retroactive from March 13 last year to March 24 this year.

“The purpose is to provide essential workers some level of relief due to the higher levels of exposure during this period,” Schmutz told commissioners.

The county will focus on people who were required to work on-site, in-person at all times, because they had higher levels of exposure to the public. Employees will also be eligible if they worked a hybrid schedule, but only for the time they worked in person.

Because commissioners voted to allocate $20 million toward premium pay, about 2,193 county employees will be eligible. If commissioners had kept the funding at $15 million, then around 1,318 employees would have been eligible.

The county will split the payments between two pay periods, county documents show. The first date could be as soon as Oct. 1 and the second on Dec. 10. To receive both payments, an employee must remain on the job through Dec. 4.

Department heads will submit positions to determine if workers are eligible for the additional pay. A committee of county administration, finance and human resources will review proposals.

The approval vote for premium pay crossed party lines, with Republican commissioners Meitzner and Howell agreeing with Democrats Lopez and Cruse.

Republican commissioner Dennis wanted to delay the vote by one week, but ultimately voted in favor of the $20 million allocation when no one else agreed to defer it.

This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 3:38 PM.