We can’t say enough good things about former San Juan Basin Public Health Executive Director Liane Jollon’s exemplary emergency response to COVID-19. In this new frontier that was the pandemic, Jollon built programs for testing and sites, contact tracing, exposure protocols, mask ordinances and everything else related. Balancing best practices and peer-reviewed research, she acted carefully with incomplete data and continually changing information, all at a hurried pace.
It’s unknown how many more residents would have died had Jollon not responded so fully.
All the while, Jollon was relentlessly harassed. For months, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers demonstrated in front of her home. We’ve heard of potentially dangerous moments, too, with ski-masked people just outside her windows.
Yet, as an exempt employee who received 25% of emergency compensation payments, amounting to $215,745 in addition to her salary and bonuses, Jollon could have done a better job documenting detailed descriptions of EC time logged. Policy says employees “shall maintain accurate records of all hours worked during the emergency.”
Jollon was very exacting in her job but not, apparently, in reporting specifics for EC payments. This erodes public trust.
Around the country, departments are being accused of misspent COVID-19 funds. (SJBPH alone had 25 sources of funding.) This situation feeds the anti-government narrative gaining momentum before our 2024 elections. And it doesn’t help La Plata County as it builds its new public health department.
As SJBPH’s intense COVID-19 response effort began to wind down in March 2022, its emergency declaration continued until May 2023. Along with EC payments.
Why exactly?
Maybe Jollon was buried in reports and preparation for an audit. There’s scant documentation to know. It would have been a good time for Jollon to say, hey, this is all taking longer and I’m logging more hours than expected. Is this OK?
Juxtapose this within the context of COVID-19. Jobs gone, businesses closed, housing costs’ mercurial ascent. Lives lost.
We want explanations on minimal records for sizable paychecks.
We’re not saying Jollon didn’t earn this money. We’re not at all alleging fraud. It’s just not a good look for a supervisor to be responsible for approving her own timesheets. The Board of Health had a broader supervisory role, not overseeing granular details behind numbers. Because recording-keeping was minimal, considering payments Jollon received, it’s difficult to know whether EC was judiciously used.
As reported in The Durango Herald on Monday, Jollon said: “Our response was expensive. But there were no secrets to what we were doing.”
True. Jollon had weighted responsibility, while writing the playbook. She was fairly compensated, too. By August 2022, Jollon’s pay was $176,600, in addition to two $10,000 retention payments. She left the department in May 2023, before she was eligible for the second $10,000 bonus payment. Again, not counting EC payments.
If Jollon had stayed and asked for more money, she very well may have received it.
This editorial went to press before quickly scheduled meetings to consider the how, when and why here. No recordings of meetings might have addressed this.
All this business came to light soon after receiver Bellann Raile’s forensic accounting required for the dissolution of the SJBPH. Raile received a request from Jollon that she be paid for sick paid accrued, 450 hours or $40,000. Raile then examined emergency duty compensation pay from March 2020 to March 2023. She denied Jollon’s request.
Jollon was awarded the American Medical Association’s Award for Outstanding Medical Service and honored as the Outstanding Woman of the Year at the Southwest Colorado Women in Business. She was recognized and thanked elsewhere. Jollon deserved all of this.
But Jollon did not closely follow policy for EC payments. We’re curious to learn more.
