Hubbard County Social Services Employees Demand Action After Claims Of A Hostile Work Environment

“It’s your elected responsibility to make sure each county agency runs smoothly and our agency is not running smoothly, and it’s your responsibility to fix that,” said Hubbard County Social Worker Bob Kaumans to the Hubbard County Board, as a crowd of his peers cheered behind him.

Today, the Hubbard County Board meeting was packed with social services employees who say they have been working in an extremely hostile work environment for over three and a half years now.

“It’s hurting our clients. We serve the most vulnerable clients in the county and we really just need to progress and to move forward in a positive change fore our community,” said Tracie Kosbela, a social worker with Hubbard County.

Employees say that ever since new leadership took charge, over 30 employees have left because of the working conditions. They say turnover has reached over 50%.

“Those leadership changes have unfortunately led to pretty high turnover, pretty low morale, some of our service providers are noticing that there’s a reduction in the quality of services that we’re able to provide and a lot of disunity. It’s just, I guess ‘dysfunctional’ would be a good term that we’ve seen over the last three years,” said Kaumans.

Employees say they first started bringing up their concerns with the county board and other authority figures in June 2018 to little avail. The board issued a statement today saying they want to move the conversation forward by having the county attorney look at the issues.

“The Hubbard County Board recognizes that significant issues exist in the social services department. We take these issues seriously. We are determined to take appropriate and effective action to create and maintain a well-functioning, efficient and cooperative work environment for the benefit of the residents of Hubbard County,” said Hubbard County Board chair Dan Stacey during the meeting.

While the employees say looking into the issue is a step in the right direction, they fear the county attorney could be biased and say they’d prefer an investigation from a neutral party.

“If these brave employees are coming forward today knowing that they are going to have a huge target on their backs. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way this director works. The supervisors are terrified,” said Roger Meunier, a business agent with Teamsters Local 320 who is representing the employees.

Lakeland News reached out to the Hubbard County Executive Director of Social Services for comment. We were referred to her and the county’s attorney who is out of the office until tomorrow. We will update this story online if we hear anything back.