PHD announces new CFO

Board institutes AI limitations for staff

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

More than a month after a slew of resignations, the Panhandle Health District announced Oct. 8 that it has hired Scott Hurlbert as its new chief financial officer, replacing Christine Crummer, who served in the position for more than 25 years. The announcement was made at the Board of Health monthly meeting, where members also voted to institute new safeguards for district AI usage.

A Coeur d’Alene-based certified public accountant, Hurlbert was most recently employed at Dimeler and Associates PLLC in Spokane Valley, Wash., but has worked with PHD and Crummer for the “better part of a year.” According to his LinkedIn profile, Hurlbert graduated from the University of Idaho in 2010 with a master’s in accounting.

“Aside from the fact that he’s an intelligent CPA, he has demonstrated a mental capacity and spirit of character to pick up the gaping wound that was left in our financial department and he has performed admirably,” said interim-Director Thomas Fletcher at the Oct. 8 meeting.

Hurlbert takes over from Crummer, who resigned Sept. 3 alongside former-Director Erik Ketner and Human Resources Director Sandee Riggs for undisclosed reasons. Public Information Officer Jennifer Ekizian told the Reader previously that PHD is conducting “an ongoing internal review of the former PHD leadership,” but has not released any specifics or findings regarding the investigation.

In addition to his new duties as CFO, Hurlbert is currently working with staff and outside auditors to perform an audit of the district’s financials, which he stated is “going really well.”

“Christine [Crummer] was great, as far as accounting goes. I have nothing negative to say about her,” said Hurlbert. “Her methodology is impeccable and we’re going to keep that up, but we’re going to make it a little easier to present, a little bit more transparent, and we’re going to try to incorporate a little bit of a comparison aspect to it during prior periods and maybe come up with a pro forma for the agenda so we can kind of figure out where we think we’re going.”

Following Hurlbert’s brief presentation, the board discussed implementing a new AI policy for PHD staff that would ensure workers aren’t inadvertently sharing private information. The policy limits AI usage to Microsoft Co-Pilot and the design software Canva, on the advice of representatives from the internet, phone and IT service provider Intermax. 

According to Board Member Joel Noland, who worked with Intermax on the policy, Microsoft will “sign agreements for HIPPA and other stuff like that” to protect any medical information input into the software from users outside of PHD.

“I think AI is here whether we like it or not,” said Noland, later adding, “[W]ith Intermax, one of the main issues that they were bringing up is both basically a security point of view and also making sure that we’re sticking within being able to keep the information that we’re supposed to keep private, private — like personal health information as well as anything else that we might do.”

The AI policy seeks to treat “different silos of information” separately, keeping medical records private while sharing more general information that could be obtained with a public records request.

The Board of Health voted unanimously to adopt the policy.

For more information on PHD, or to view Board of Health meeting agendas and recordings, visit panhandlehealthdistrict.org.