Health board keeps public out

With Shawano County facing its first cases of tuberculosis in nearly 10 years, members of the county health board are coming under question for discussing the issue behind closed doors.

The county’s board of health and veteran services has twice met in executive session to discuss the tuberculosis cases, citing a Wisconsin open meetings law exception that is typically invoked to protect the confidentiality of government real estate dealings.

The meetings occurred on Aug. 17 and on Monday at the county courthouse, with the board both times indicating that the doors were being closed for discussion of “communicable disease investigation and control.”

Immediately after Monday’s executive session, board members voted to beef up staff in the Shawano-Menominee Counties Health Department, at a cost of about $13,000, for the purposes of managing the two tuberculosis cases confirmed locally since April.

The legal authority cited for both closed-door meetings allows exclusion of the public while board members deliberate real estate deals, investment of public funds or other business transactions that involve competitive or bargaining issues. Except for such narrow exceptions, all government meetings in Wisconsin are required to be conducted in public.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said residents of Shawano County should not be excluded from discussions about how government health officials are managing cases of tuberculosis, a highly contagious disease.

“People are entitled to that,” he said. “That’s where the public has a legitimate interest.”

The penalty for violating the state’s open meetings law is a fine of up to $300, and any action taken in an improper meeting can be voided.

Shawano County Corporation Counsel Tony Kordus, who did not attend either health board meeting, said board members acted without his input in closing meetings to the public. Kordus, however, said it appeared the closed meetings were “very likely necessary to preserve information deemed as protected health information.”

Kordus also cited legal authority different from what the health board had invoked under the state’s open meetings law.

Members of the health board defended their practices, saying that they saw nothing wrong with their closed-door deliberations.

Board Chairman Jon Zwirschitz said the meetings were closed to protect the confidentiality of the two patients recovering from tuberculosis. Asked what that topic has to do with real estate dealings or public investments, Zwirschitz said, “I have no idea.”

Shawano County health officials have disclosed that one case of tuberculosis was confirmed locally in April and another in August. The two cases, which are believed to be unrelated to each other, are the first confirmed incidents of tuberculosis in the county since 2006.

Tuberculosis, also known as TB, is a bacterial disease that commonly attacks the lungs and can be spread by an infected person coughing or sneezing around others. Officials have said both patients in Shawano County have agreed to remain in isolation during their treatment to avoid spreading the disease, which can be fatal if not treated properly.

According to a health department report seeking approval to hire more staff, treatment of the two patients is expected to continue into 2016.

The report states that health officials also are treating an unspecified number of additional patients with “latent tuberculosis infections,” which means people have tested positive but not actually developed the disease.

Citing the department report that the tuberculosis episode has left health workers “overworked and stressed,” the health board agreed to hire extra staff temporarily. The action followed Monday’s closed-door meeting and came with little discussion or without any public vote ending the executive session.

The state’s open meetings law is written in a way that requires all government business to be conducted in public unless the subject matter is covered by a specific exception, such as lawsuit strategies, employee hiring and firing, or labor contract negotiations.

Lueders said there is an exception to protect an individual’s medical privacy, but it was not included in the legal authority invoked by Shawano County’s health board. That provision also would not allow the health board to exclude the public during discussion of other issues related to tuberculosis, such as the county’s approach to combating the disease and the risks of other people to become infected, Lueders said.

“All of those questions should be discussed in an open meeting,” he said.

Health board member Sue Giese said she believes the closed-door meetings were legal, adding that the public can be excluded from “anything you need to be private about.”

Another board member, Ray Faehling, said the board was following county staff direction that closed-door meetings were needed. Although he defended the meetings, Faehling agreed with the board chairman that no real estate deals or public investments were included in the discussion.

“I don’t know where they even got that idea,” he said.