Public safety panel postpones closed session on deputy medical examiner paid time off

A clerical snafu caused Oneida County’s public safety committee to cancel a closed session last week about the compensation of former deputy medical examiner Lucas Johnson.

Last month, the committee voted to deny Johnson nearly 600 hours of accumulated paid time off (PTO) because he did not give two weeks notice when he resigned. The committee was set to take up the matter again, in closed session despite Johnson saying he had requested to have the deliberations and discussion held in public, but the agenda inadvertently referred to the topic of the closed session to be about the chief medical examiner, not the deputy.

Because it wasn’t accurate, the committee decided to bump the matter to next month’s meeting and to hold that meeting earlier in the month than usual to try and settle matters.

Though the session was canceled, committee chairman Steven Schreier allowed the public to speak on the issue during the public comment period, and several people did just that, including Johnson.

The chain of events leading to the need for the agenda item began when Crystal Schaub, the chief medical examiner since 2019, resigned on Feb. 3 in a short letter in which Schaub said the resignation was effective immediately. In addition, she requested that her PTO be paid to her, which the county did.

On Feb. 21, Johnson followed suit, resigning effective immediately. In that letter, Johnson also requested that his PTO be paid at the next payroll, as Schaub had requested.

But after a closed session at a Feb. 24 meeting, the committee voted unanimously to deny Johnson’s requests for the PTO pay-out.

Speaking up

Johnson himself was first up during the public comment period, noting that he was coming before the committee to discuss the denial of the PTO and to re-request that it be considered for a number of reasons.

Johnson said he had been put into a position in which he had to cover a lot in a short time, without any direction from the county.

“There were no real answers as to when any changes could be made, or any help for me in the office,” Johnson said. “The staff that was there was part-time and could only do so much. That all fell on me 24/7.”

Johnson said he and his wife had to postpone their 20th wedding anniversary.

“We couldn’t go on our vacation that we wanted to,” he said. “That’s personal. Obviously it has nothing to do with the county, but we pushed that aside to be able to handle this.”

Fortunately, Johnson said, the medical examiner’s office happened not to be busy during that time.

“However, in the time that I started taking notes as to how many hours I put in on the 26th of January through the 22nd of February, just the administrative time, I put in 191 hours. That doesn’t include the on-call time of 252 hours as well. So I put in a lot of time there.”

Johnson said during the week he resigned, he was getting overwhelmed to the point where he couldn’t keep up anymore.

“I couldn’t continue to do it,” he said. “I brought it up to Tracy [county clerk Hartman]. I brought it up to Lisa [human resources director Charbarneau] multiple times that I needed help, and the answer I got was, we don’t have any. I kept moving forward to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore.” 

Johnson said he wanted the committee to understand the conditions at the time.

“This was a slow period,” he said. “If we were in summer, there’s no way we could have made it even a month the way we did. And I don’t know if you understand the gravity of how much work goes into this department, but I want you to be aware of what took place in the last month and how that affected me personally.”

Putting that aside as a professional, Johnson said it affected his job, and he simply could not have continued for two more weeks.

“It affected my ability to do an accurate job,” he said. “I had to be careful that I didn’t work until 10:30 at night every night to try to keep up on cases like I used to do because I couldn’t do an accurate job. There’s no way I could have continued at that rate. So I want you to understand why I did what I did. I couldn’t go any further and I had no help from this county.”

The former medical examiner, Crystal Schaub, the past chief medical examiner, offered her support for Johnson.

“I’m here to support Lucas and his request to get that PTO paid out because it was his PTO,” Schaub said. “It wasn’t money that he didn’t work for yet. That was his to collect.”

Schaub said it wasn’t fair to Johnson because the county paid her own PTO.

“I think that this county has set a precedent in not paying his out because they paid mine out without a two-week notice,” she said. “My resignation was effective immediately just prior to his effective resignation as well. So I think that it’s only fair that the county also pay his out.”

Kyle Parish, a detective sergeant with the Rhinelander Police Department, also spoke on Johnson’s behalf.

“I have worked with Luke for upwards of eight years now at different death scene investigations,” Parish told the committee. “Luke has always made my job extremely easy. He has always been extremely knowledgeable. He is going to be missed, but as a person who was always easy to count on, helped us with homicide cases when it came to overdoses, which are extremely complicated, he always stepped up.”

As a citizen of Oneida County, Parish said he would want to honor what Johnson had already earned through his PTO. 

“I know if someone tried to take something that I earned, I would want people to stand up for me and so that’s why I'm here,” he said. “Stand up for Luke.”

Shane Packard, the owner and proprietor of Weber-Hill & Packard Family Funeral Home in Crandon, said he would echo many of the comments already made.

“First of all, I am deeply upset that you’ve lost two very good medical examiners,” Packard said. “Furthermore, I would say that both of these individuals have gone above and beyond what should be expected of them. So with that being said, I think it’s extremely inappropriate to not honor what he’s earned.”

In addition, as a direct user of the medical examiner services, Packard said he wanted answers about what was going to happen with the medical examiner’s office going forward.

“In my opinion, Oneida County is failing us tremendously right now, and I’ve talked to some of the Forest County board members, and I’m hoping that there’s some sort of breach of contract because I would love for Forest County to just get back to their own medical examiner services.”

Packard said he was concerned about coverage with Oneida County handling three counties. If there was a death in far northern Vilas County and a death in southern Forest County — a scenario that Packard said does play out, especially in the summer — Packard said he could not imagine the length of time that it would take to get from northern Vilas to southern Forest.

Packard said he had spoken with county clerk Tracy Hartman about the situation but was not reassured.

“She had assured me that my services would not be interrupted based on the situation in Oneida County, and I feel that that is absolutely not the case,” he said. “Absolutely not going to be the case. I can assure you of that. I would like to know what’s going to happen.”

Packard asked the committee what it could share with him but, as is standard practice, was told the committee could not answer questions or respond to comments made during the public comment sessions.

Packard also said there had been no communication from the county with funeral services providers.

“We have no communication,” he said. “I feel that Oneida County is failing us tremendously. So I just wanted to share that. I’m deeply upset with the lack of communication and would just like some guidance.”

As was referenced during the public comment session, while Johnson’s supporters spoke up, the public did not get to hear the county’s reasons for PTO denial. That said, the public would have missed that anyway given that the committee had intended to take up the matter behind closed doors. Johnson said he had requested that the discussion and deliberation be held in open session so the public could hear the proceedings.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.