Another chief deputy medical examiner resigns

The Oneida County board’s public safety committee continues to deal with personnel matters in the county’s medical examiner’s office.

The committee met last week and following a closed session, voted to stay with its previous decision not to pay former chief deputy medical examiner Luke Johnson for paid time off (PTO) he’d accrued.

Johnson, who’d been chief deputy medical examiner since January, 2019, resigned from the position on Feb. 21 of this year. 

Just a couple of weeks prior to that, on Feb. 3, Oneida County medical examiner Crystal Schaub, who became medical examiner in January, 2019, resigned. 

Before her promotion, Schaub was hired as a limited term employee (LTE) deputy medical examiner in June of 2016.

A few days after Johnson’s resignation, the public safety committee met and, after a closed session, voted to deny Johnson’s PTO request. 

In the wake of the resignations, Ashley Roach, a member of the Arbor Vitae town board, member of the Arbor Vitae fire and rescue department and also on the staff of the Oneida County medical examiner’s office since 2021, was hired as chief deputy medical examiner. 

During the March 19 Arbor Vitae town board meeting where it was decided to send a letter to Vilas County to urge the re-establishment of the county’s own medical examiner’s office instead of Vilas County involved in the current agreement with Oneida and Forest counties, Roach, who abstained from the vote to send the letter, was asked by town supervisor Pam Carroll what she thought of the situation. 

“I can’t really give opinions on it as I’m still employed as medical examiner,” Roach said then. “What I can say is, fact wise, we had a department with five people. We now have a department with one and one hired and ... we’re doing the job. It’s currently being done but it’s a lot of work.”

‘I feel I was used’

Last week, Roach submitted her resignation to the Oneida County public safety committee. 

Hers is the third resignation from the office staff in two months. 

“I feel I have done everything I can for Oneida County and the Medical Examiner Department,” Roach wrote in her letter of resignation. “I believe I have expressed the passion, skill and interest needed for this very important job. In the past few weeks, I have asked numerous times for information and have voiced my concerns about the current state of the department. All I have ever wanted was for this department to be valued and looked highly upon by area agencies.” 

She said in the letter “the respect” the office’s staff had been working to “build over the past few years” has been dwindling.

“The loss of properly trained staff to do the very important work has wore on me,” Roach said. “The inability for the county to retain and value the skills needed is a serious issue that doesn’t seem to be addressed in the way it requires.”

What’s missing, she wrote, is “still a massive misunderstanding” of what is required “morally and legally to be a medical examiner.”

“Today, I learned there has been a new Chief Deputy Medical Examiner claiming to have been officially appointed ... without being qualified per the counties advertised prerequisites,” Roach stated in the letter. “An unqualified person appointed into this vital position, puts the department and its reputation at risk.” 

She said because of her current schedule, she was unable to apply for the chief deputy position “but had hoped I would work under someone who is qualified.”

“Unfortunately, I believe this decision will lead the office in the wrong direction,” Roach wrote. “The overall transparency of roles within the department has been disappointing. I am not able to be a part of something where I feel we are not working cohesively and openly together.”

She then expressed more frustration with what she felt had been occurring in the Oneida County medical examiner’s office. 

“I feel I was used for my skills, ability and certification; all while being misled that I was an equal,” Roach wrote. “I was betrayed and lied to .... therefore; please consider this my resignation.”

Moving forward

In a memo regarding the “next steps” for the medical examiner’s office distributed by Oneida County clerk Tracy Hartman who, along with county human resources director Lisa Charbarneau are overseeing the office until a new medical examiner is hired, it was stated the person Roach referenced in her letter of resignation who was offered the chief deputy medical examiner position and accepted the offer is Cambrya Hurlburt. 

 “Cambrya and Tracy have reached out to staff at the Sheriff’s Office to see who would be willing to train and fill on-call spots for the next 4-5 months while other staff is found,” Hartman wrote in the memo, adding she and Charbarneau will be recruiting part-time on-call staff for the office. “The goal is to get 5-10 individuals willing to assist in taking on-call shifts with Cambrya working 1/3 of all on-call rotations.”

The memo states Hartman has reached out to Lincoln County Medical Examiner Valerie Caylor, who has assisted Oneida County in the past, “to see if she would be interested in working 10 hours per week to assist Cambrya Hurlburt with death certificates.”

“If Caylor is not interested Tracy will reach out to Langlade County and other surrounding counties,” said the memo. 

In the meantime, Hurlburt will enroll in training to be a certified medical examiner and three options that were listed to accomplish that, one of those possibly through a course to train new investigators at Superior’s Northwood Technical College which may have an opportunity to do “one-on-one training with the new Oneida County employee.

The other two options are online. 

Charbarneau and Hartman are to update the committee monthly “with a final proposal/plan to come to the committee at the August, 2025 meeting.”

During the next five months, they “will evaluate the hours needed” to run the medical examiner’s office as well as the budget needed “and a recommendation on if the office should remain a standalone office or be moved under another office.”

Lastly, the memo said Hartman will be looking at the contracts with Vilas and Forest counties to determine if the contract amount can be decreased for 2026 in conjunction with a decrease in the medical examiner’s budget. 

Feeling confident

Following the April 3 public safety committee meeting, committee chairman Steve Schreier said despite the current circumstances, he feels the committee is “confident in where we are with the department as we have been since mid to late January.”

“We just feel we have a department where we want it to be,” he said. “There may even be potential for savings in the long run. that could get passed on to the other two counties we contract with.”

Schreier said the committee, Hartman and Charbarneau need time. 

“We want to discern what the staffing levels should be for this particular department,” he said. “Based on the information Tracy has been providing us, we’re pretty confident that we’re headed in the right direction.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].