Health District hires firm to aid search

Replacing the health officer they fired last fall is taking longer and costing more than some Spokane Regional Health District officials expected.

In the end, it could take nearly a year and cost more than $200,000 to find a successor to Dr. Kim Thorburn at a time when the health district’s $23 million budget is, by all accounts, tight.

“Yes, that’s true,” said Mary Verner, chairwoman of the health board and a candidate to be Spokane’s next mayor. “This is the cost of our decision. I’m just hoping that we can minimize it and get a new health officer on board as soon as possible.”

Eight months after they sent Thorburn packing because of communication problems, health district board members have hired a Dallas search firm to start looking for a replacement. The Waters Consulting Group, which has an affiliate in Seattle, submitted the lowest of four bids, at $32,500.

Meanwhile, other costs are being added to the $150,000 in salary and benefits that board members were contracted to pay Thorburn, whose contract was not renewed. Today, the board will consider adding $600 a month during the search to the salary of Torney Smith, the administrator who’s been handling the agency’s non-medical health officer duties.

That’s on top of an estimated $15,000 in interview and relocation costs for candidates, travel costs for Dr. Scott Lindquist, an interim tuberculosis official, and an already approved increase of as much as $20,000 a year in salary for the new health officer. With an annual salary of $125,000, Thorburn was the lowest-paid full-time health officer in the state.

Board members have gotten a deal on interim health officer Dr. Larry Jecha, however. His $147,500 annual salary is still being paid by the Benton-Franklin Health District in hopes that when Jecha retires, Spokane will return the favor during a search, said Tom Moak, past chairman of that health district’s board.

But the arrangement has lasted longer than anyone anticipated, Jecha and Moak noted.

“I don’t think they thought it would take this long,” said Jecha, who still doesn’t know how long his services will be required.

“If you have a good search firm, they ought to be able to have some good candidates in 60 days,” he added hopefully.

In the meantime, Smith has assumed all of the administrative duties for the health district, which prompted the resolution calling for the increase in pay, said Brad Stark, a board member.

“I’ve heard varying reports about the hours he puts in,” Stark said. “He comes in some mornings at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and doesn’t stop until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.”

Smith, who earns about $90,000 a year, agreed that he had been working more since Thorburn’s departure, but he said he didn’t request the increase. Human resources officials suggested it, he said, because of a departmental policy that allows a pay boost if a worker assumes duties of a superior. Typically, such an arrangement would be approved by the health officer or administrator. In this case, Smith’s salary increase requires board approval.

Verner said she and other board members would discuss Smith’s pay raise today. Increasing funding is “a concern, always,” she said, because the health district budget is so lean.

She and others voted to pay for a search firm, calling it the most efficient way to conduct a nationwide search. Three other firms submitted bids to do the work, including Gary Consulting Group Inc. of Spokane; Bob Murray & Associates of Roseville, Calif.; and Prothman Co. of Bellevue, Wash.

The absence of a full-time, dedicated health officer has been tolerable, so far, health district officials have said. Jecha and Lindquist have made sure to cover medical issues as they’ve arisen.

Fortunately, Jecha has said, public health emergencies have been few since November.

Bonnie Mager, a Spokane County commissioner who’s new to the board, said she didn’t want to comment on how long the search for a new health officer is taking or how much it might cost until she looked more closely at budget documents.

She said she was concerned about the process to replace Thorburn, who is now medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest.

“I wouldn’t have voted to fire her,” Mager said.