Board approves severance package

The Journal staff

Waukesha With little debate, the County Board has agreed on a $42,000 severance package for former human resources director Allan C. Walsch.

The vote Tuesday night was 26-5.

Walsch, a 24-year county employee, was the only one to lose his job when several departments were restructured as of Jan. 1 into a county Department of Administration.

Under terms of the package, Walsch would get $37,465 in pay and $4,535 in benefits. He earned about $81,600 in 1994.

In other business Tuesday, the board:

Unanimously and without debate adopted a resolution calling on the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to give counties and local government a formal say in the decision-making process on transit plans for the I-94 east-west corridor. The measure is intended to send a message to state planners that local officials have a right to vote on a recommended plan this year, before about $26 million is spent on preliminary engineering.

Unanimously approved the purchase from Links Acre Inc. of a 62.4-acre parcel adjacent to county-owned land along the Fox River in Vernon, west of Big Bend, for $125,000. Half the cost will be reimbursed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The property is for a future county park known as Fox Bend Park.

Voted 31-0 to oppose the elimination of passenger rail service between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Approved, 27-2, a 5% pay increase for Human Services Manager Mary Lou Riedy, retroactive to July 2, 1994, because of additional duties she has assumed overseeing the Public Health Division. County officials had hoped to hire a new manager for the division, vacant since last April, but so far have not done so. The pay increase, which will stay in effect until a health manager is hired, would mean an additional $245 a month in pay to the $4,900 monthly manager's pay.

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