Knox County HR outlines 2025 staffing, training and records digitization

Knox County HR presented a summary of 2025 workforce activity and current priorities at the Jan. 27 commissioners meeting, reporting the county employed 571 people and is moving to digitize personnel and medical files.

HR staff (Speaker 2) led the presentation and said the county's headcount "as of yesterday" was 571, broken down into 13 elected officials, 461 full-time employees, 85 part-time and 13 seasonal or intermittent positions. The presentation named immediate recruitment needs that include full-time 911 dispatchers, eligibility/referral specialists for Job and Family Services, an intake caseworker in Children's Services, highway workers and a jail cook.

HR staff also described outreach and training activity in 2025, including participation in local career fairs and a visit to Ohio State University's Newark job fair, and listed staff trainings such as CPR, first aid, AED, self-defense and recurring HR training. "We did partner with EMA department to perform site visits here in the building," Speaker 2 said, describing reviews of departments' continuity-of-operations plans and safety training needs.

On benefits, HR said the county worked with CCAO's benefits program and Aflac to add supplemental insurance options. Enrollment encountered initial problems, Speaker 2 said, but "once we got clarification from Aflac" and with on-site assistance from the Aflac representative, the process improved and new employees are now being enrolled automatically into county life insurance.

HR reported personnel-management initiatives in progress: the office is digitizing employee personnel and medical files and expects the project to finish in "the next month or two," and it has instituted quarterly HR partnership meetings with departmental HR contacts beginning in February 2026. HR provided year-long metrics: six employees onboarded and three offboarded in the last month, 48 FMLA cases processed in 2025 and 19 FMLA cases currently being monitored.

The presentation closed with compliance tasks under way: staff member Andrea is completing ACA 1095 reporting in coordination with SEPCO, and PIRC (Public Employer Risk Reduction Program) reports for 2025 were finalized and will be signed and uploaded by Feb. 1 for posting in county offices through April 1.

Commissioners praised HR's clarity in job postings and thanked staff for the work. The department said it will follow up on recruitment timelines and start interviews for prioritized vacancies.