Recent water outages haven’t helped the Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health’s issue of already not having enough sanitarians on staff.
A delegation from the board made an appeareance last week before the Kanawha County Commission, prompting President Kent Carper to inquire as to why more sanitarians hadn’t been hired with the $200,000 the commission sets aside each year.
Interim President of the Board of Health Brenda Issac said that the budget doesn’t always allow them to raise the starting salary of $25,000 a year. She explained that many of the sanitarians hired move on to better paying jobs as soon as they can.
“We desperately need more sanitarians. It is a very difficult job; when there’s a situation like the water crisis, they get called out of their homes to come to work,” Isaac explained. “We’re going to put forth every effort to hire as many sanitarians as the budget allows us to hire.”
She said she was pleased with the new system the Board of Health has used to ensure sanitary conditions in restaurants. It was easier following this most recent water outage to get restaurants back open compared to the water contamination in Jan. 2014 from the Freedom Industries spill.
“We knew what the problem was. We knew we were talking about bacteria getting into the water,” Isaac said. “We knew what restaurants needed to do to open.”
Despite being challenged by Carper at last week’s commission meeting, Isaac remains confident they’ll be able to work something out.
“The Kanawha County Commission has always been good to us,” she said. “I’m sure that they will help us and we will work with them to get quality not just sanitarians, but other employees that we need, too.”