Mayor Tom Barrett picks Jeanette Kowalik to lead troubled Milwaukee Health Department
Mary SpicuzzaThe troubled Milwaukee Health Department may soon have a new leader.
Mayor Tom Barrett has named Jeanette Kowalik as his pick to head the beleaguered agency, which has been in turmoil for months amid problems with its program aimed at preventing lead poisoning among children.
Barrett on Tuesday notified the Common Council that he was nominating Kowalik to serve as Milwaukee's new health commissioner. The appointment is subject to council approval.
"Jeanette’s extensive résumé exemplifies that she is qualified and very passionate about serving families," Barrett said in a statement. "She has strong roots in Milwaukee and she has taken on a community oriented approach to public health in her past positions."
Barrett added that he is confident Kowalik "can move the Health Department forward and tend to the health needs of our families and city.”
Kowalik, a former Health Department employee who now works for a Washington, D.C.-based public health nonprofit group, was one of two finalists for the job announced last month.
The other finalist was Sanjib Bhattacharyya, the Health Department's laboratory director.
The Health Department has been reeling since January, when former Health Commissioner Bevan Baker was ousted following news that the agency had failed to provide services to the families of thousands of children who tested positive for lead — or at least failed to document its work.
RELATED:Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker out after thousands not contacted by city after lead tests
Patricia McManus has been serving as interim health commissioner since February.
Last week, McManus told aldermen during a committee meeting at City Hall she would like to continue leading the department long enough to clean up problems there. At that meeting, McManus said troubles with the city's lead programs were just the "canary in the mine" for the entire department.
RELATED:Milwaukee consistently failed to protect lead-poisoned children in homes with paint risks
The Journal Sentinel has recently reported on problems plaguing Milwaukee's family planning and breast and cervical cancer screenings.
Kowalik, an associate director of the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs in Washington, D.C., has faced questions over her financial background. She filed for bankruptcy twice and had a Milwaukee home foreclosed on by a lender and then sold.
Kowalik provided the Journal Sentinel with a five-paragraph statement last month emphasizing the obstacles she has overcome since being born to a black mother and Polish father.
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"I can relate to many as I had to work my way up and out of poverty," Kowalik wrote. "Education was my way out."
Federal records show she first filed for bankruptcy in 2003, a year after she got her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Details of that court action are not available.
Kowalik worked for the city Health Department for six years. While there, she got a master's in public health from Northern Illinois University.
She then received a doctorate in health sciences from the UWM in 2013 while working for the Wauwatosa Health Department and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. She previously served as UW-Madison’s director of prevention and campus health initiatives.
Along the way, she bought a duplex in the Enderis Park neighborhood on the city's west side. She said she was then caught in the national foreclosure crisis.
"I was young and purchased my first home in 2007 and was impacted by the recession," she wrote. "This is not unique to most Americans who purchased homes shortly before the recession and were unable to sell due to decreased property values versus mortgages owed."
As a result, Kowalik — the single parent of a 19-year-old son — said she again needed to file for bankruptcy, which she called "a form of financial recovery that has helped many Americans."
She said last month it was legitimate to ask about the financial backgrounds of public servants expected to oversee tax dollars, but added at the time that her personal financial history "in no way reflects my future ability to run the Milwaukee Health Department."
She added, "I have demonstrated the ability to not only experience but recover from personal financial challenges which have NEVER impacted my ability to function in leadership positions, including management of million dollar budgets."