Monroe County posts three nursing jobs to bridge public health service gap, looks to Morgan County for help

Monroe County’s health department has three nursing positions open, which it needs to fill by Jan. 1, 2026—to cover the public health services gap at the start of the year, that will be left when a longstanding contract with IU Health ends. IU Health announced the termination of the contract earlier this fall.

The jobs are now listed on the county government’s jobs webpage. The job posting was part of Monroe County health administrator Lori Kelley’s update to the board of health at its regular Thursday (Nov. 20) meeting.

At its meeting, the board was asked to ratify the change in job descriptions, which the county council had approved at its meeting two days earlier. At its Tuesday (Nov. 18) meeting, the county council had approved the job descriptions as well as approved the hiring of the positions—which required an extra approval from the council, in the context of a hiring freeze it has imposed as a budget austerity measure.

The council’s action came only after the fiscal body had, at its previous meeting, approved a request for the review of the changes in job descriptions by WIS (Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele & Associates), which is the county government’s HR consultant. The council’s WIS review by the council came only after the council in mid-October balked at the request from the health department, because some councilors wanted the department to consider the possibility of simply pursuing a contract with a vendor other than IU Health.

Across all three positions, the kind of work the nurses will do includes: communicable disease investigations; contact tracing; vaccinations; health screenings and testing; health education; responding to public health emergencies; providing school health services; referrals to clinical care; and trauma and injury prevention.

One of the big concerns that has dominated the back-and-forth between the county council and the health department is the urgency of filling the positions, so that the new hires can be trained up on the tasks they will be expected to perform—because they’re not necessarily a part of a basic nursing education.

The health department is now looking to Monroe County’s northern neighbor, Morgan County to help make the transition. At Thursday’s board of health meeting, county health administrator Lori Kelley got a green light from the board to pursue an interlocal agreement with Morgan County, for their public health nurses to help out in Monroe County.

“We’re actually working on seeing if we can come up with an interlocal agreement where they could be helping to provide some of those services during a transitional period,” Kelley said. Under the hoped-for arrangement, Morgan County staff could provide vaccinations and health screenings, working on-site in Monroe County a few days monthly—with Monroe County paying an hourly rate for those services. But Kelley cautioned that Morgan County’s health department is also short staffed, there’s only a limited amount of help would be available.

After the meeting, Kelley told The B Square that her talks with Morgan County had included using them as a resource as Monroe County’s new hires start their jobs. But the formal training of nurses will be provided by the Indiana Department of Health. Kelley said that she is still working through the terms of the interlocal agreement, but indicated that Morgan County is open to working with Monroe County. Kelley said that Morgan County can’t be locked into too many specifics because their staff have to cover their own county, too.

The interlocal agreement between Morgan County and Morgan County for public health nursing services will likely be put in front of the county council and the board of county commissioners in the next few weeks.

Job Postings

From the Monroe County job postings web page for the health department as of Nov. 21, 2025.