State quiet on health officer’s departure
Ayers was asked to resign during pandemic
Gov. Tony Evers’ administration is refusing to say why one of the state’s top public health officials was asked to resign in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
State Health Officer Jeanne Ayers says she was asked to resign from the Department of Health Services in early May and wasn’t given a reason why.
Now, Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm through a spokeswoman won’t answer questions from the Journal Sentinel about Ayers’ departure.
The refusal by Health Services officials to explain why Ayers was asked to resign comes after the department in at least two cases didn’t release information about vital issues of public interest, like which nursing homes and meatpacking plants were experiencing outbreaks and how many residents and workers at each facility tested positive for the virus.
The department didn’t notify the public of the resignation and replacement of the state’s health officer, despite holding weekly media briefings. The Journal Sentinel learned through an automatic email response that said she was no longer with DHS.
Ayers told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview she was asked to leave the job that she held for 14 months in a short phone call on May 10 with Palm and Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk.
Ayers told the Journal Sentinel she wasn’t told why she was asked to resign and that she hadn’t received any warnings about the quality of her work. She also said she wasn’t aware of any disagreements in how she was handling the fight against the epidemic.
Ayers was paid $62.51 per hour and was replaced on an interim basis with Stephanie Smiley, the department’s bureau of communicable diseases director, according to DHS spokeswoman Jennifer Miller.
Ayers worked as administrator of the department’s division of public health since March 2019 and was a key health official in the early days of the state’s response to the virus outbreak, which be
gan spreading in Wisconsin in early March.
Ayers said Monday she served at the pleasure of Palm and the Democratic governor and it’s their prerogative to choose who they want in their team.
In March, Ayers appeared at news conferences and briefings for lawmakers about the virus outbreak. In recent weeks, she has been absent from such events.
Ayers submitted a resignation letter to Palm on May 12, writing she was drafting the letter “as requested,” according to records released to the Journal Sentinel under public records law.
“Times of great uncertainty and change create an urgent challenge for leaders to bravely lead with clear aims and values. During my tenure as State Health Officer I have worked hard to meet that challenge,” Ayers wrote.
“I’m disappointed that I will not be able to continue that work in the Evers administration, but I wish you and the (division) staff nothing but the best as you carry on the important work of public health,” she wrote.
In her role as the state’s health officer, Ayers oversaw programs related to communicable and chronic diseases, environmental health, emergency health services, aging and disability services, among other duties, according to a biography published by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Ayers said she was proud of the work that she and her team did, with a focus on advancing health and racial equity that, she said, they were able to bring into their response to COVID-19.
DHS has refused to share key information related to the virus outbreak before.
The department refused to release the names of the state nursing homes with coronavirus outbreaks until federal authorities announced they would publish them, keeping residents and family members in the dark about the risks they or their loved ones faced.
Even now, DHS is declining to say how many residents got infected or died at each facility or to provide names of assisted living facilities with outbreaks.
A DHS spokeswoman said then they weren’t releasing the information for privacy reasons.
DHS has also failed to provide for weeks the names of all meatpacking and food processing facilities with coronavirus outbreaks, or the numbers of food processing industry workers who have tested positive for the virus or died due to the illness.
The lack of data effectively hides the scope of a problem that especially affects vulnerable groups: immigrant workers with modest incomes and the communities where they live.
Now, DHS hasn’t answered questions about why Ayers was asked to resign or what impact the resignation had on the state’s response to the virus outbreak.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said the unanswered questions raise concerns among his caucus, some of whom have already called for Palm’s resignation.
“There are worries about the followup related to some of these issues arising at the Department of Health Services from the COVID crisis in Wisconsin,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “Governor Evers would be wise to clean up his agency in a hurry.”
Fitzgerald said the administration should “at least assure taxpayers that they’re managing the money responsibly” following a USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin report showing the state spent $15 million in April for 1,500 ventilators the state hasn’t yet received.
Miller and a spokeswoman for Evers did not immediately have a reaction to Fitzgerald’s comments.
Republicans in the state Senate have so far refused to hold a vote to confirm Palm’s appointment, which Evers made in January of 2019.
Chairmen of the Legislature’s health committees did not immediately have a reaction to Ayers’ resignation.
You can reach Maria Perez and Molly Beck at maria.perez@jrn.com and molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow on Twitter at @mariajpsl and @mollybeck.