ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Health Department will start 2024 with a personnel shakeup, including the need for a new health commissioner.

After a lengthy closed-door session Monday to discuss employment, the board accepted Health Commissioner Tamara Hess’s resignation from that post. She will retain her position as director of nursing.

Robert Wetzel, who serves as medical director, will be stepping into Hess’s shoes as commissioner, effective immediately. Wetzel left after the first executive session, saying he had patients in his medical practice to see, but he made a few comments.

“With Tammy resigning the health commissioner position, I’m going to serve as interim while we’re determining whether I’m going to be full time or not,” he said. “I think the board did a really good job making some forward steps regarding some employee issues we’ve been having.”

The board also decided to contract with the labor relations and human resources firm Clemans Nelson Associates Inc. to conduct an employee relations audit.

The meeting room at the Emergency Management Agency was packed with health department staff observing the first parts of the meeting. They declined to comment and departed following another closed-door session to discuss compensation of employees. As a result of that session, the board gave the employees a year-end bonus of $250 each. There are 24 employees at the health department.

Hess was away on vacation.

She was appointed to the post in April, when the board split the duties of health commissioner with those of a medical director and created the medical director position. The health commissioner previously had been a doctor, since the department offered services under this individual’s medical license. The decision to alter the position was made following the resignation of Dr. George Cholak, who had served as the county’s health commissioner for 25 years.

Deputy Commissioner Robert Sproul elaborated after the meeting. He said Hess gave the workload as her reason for resigning.

He said Wetzel would be up to the added administrative and outreach tasks.

“He’s going to be an asset to the office, and again we’ll move forward,” Sproul said. “He should be able to do fine for the office. He’s been our medical director for a while now, and this is just another component.”

Regarding the audit, Sproul did not know when the health department would fit into Clemans Nelson’s audit schedule.

“Just to see how things were so we can do things better. Sometimes you have to get a third person to come in and look at how we’re operating and offer suggestions,” Sproul said.

When asked if the employees had made any complaints, Sprould said there were some “concerns.”

“That’s some of the stuff we’re trying to work through to get issues resolved,” he added.

Sproul did not provide details about any issues raised.

“Just general. When you’re in an office, there’s a lot of questions and concerns and things. Also we got through COVID and there’s been a lot of staff turnover, so just new staff coming in, learning new things and wondering why things are done a certain way,” he said.

Sproul said the board had delayed yearly compensation changes this year.

“We normally do our compensation in October, and we’re looking at our finances and trying to make sure we’re doing the right thing. That’s why we finally decided on compensation for the staff,” he said. “We normally give a 50-cent raise this time of year, but that’s less than the 50 cents. Watching the budget.”

Sproul added the combination of the medical director back into the health commissioner position is expected to save money, but Wetzel’s pay is yet to be determined.

He said one of the health department’s top goals for 2024 is to earn accreditation.

“The state of Ohio required all health departments of Ohio to become accredited,” he said, adding health departments work with the Public Health Accreditation Board out of Alexandria, Virginia.

“There are specific guidelines we have to follow, things we have to submit to them, and if they felt that we had enough, we can become accredited,” Sproul said.

According to Ohio.gov, an accredited health department demonstrates that health districts are “meeting or exceeding a common set of national standards; have the capacity to provide core public health services; and are continually striving to improve service, value and accountability to stakeholders.”

Sproul said accreditation would prove an advantage with issues such as grant applications.