From left: Director of the Dane County Regional Airport Mark Papko, and Director of Human Services John Schlueter.
Welcome to Dane County! From left, director of the Dane County Regional Airport, Mark Papko, and director of Human Services, John Schlueter.
After more than three years without a permanent director, the Dane County Department of Human Services has a new leader.
And the county has a new airport director, too.
The Dane County board on June 12 unanimously confirmed the appointment of Mark Papko as Dane County Regional Airport Director. The board also approved John Schlueter as director of the Department of Human Services. Papko will receive $239,000 annually, and Schlueter $203,000.
“It’s really important that we get this permanent director in place,” said Supv. Heidi Wegleitner, chair of the Health and Human Needs Committee, referring to Schlueter. “[It] will really help our staff, really help our county executive and county board move forward with what’s going to be a very difficult budget process.”
Schlueter, an area director of the Social Security Administration for Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, will lead the Department of Human Services, which provides behavioral health and family services, disability services, assists in helping residents sign up for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and more. The department has a $313 million budget and more than 800 employees. Schlueter replaces Astra Iheukumere, who has served as interim director since 2022, when then-director Shawn Tessmann resigned.
Wegleitner recognized the contributions of Iheukumere over the last three years: “That’s a long time to be in that role — it’s a long time for her, it’s a long time for the board, it’s a long time for department staff to not have permanent leadership.”
Schlueter is coming to Dane County due to ongoing federal upheaval.
“This is one of the hardest times that the Social Security Administration or any federal agency has faced ever,” Schlueter said at a June 9 meeting of Dane County’s Personnel and Finance Committee. “I would’ve continued there… but I see more of an opportunity to do on-the-ground work, to roll up my sleeves, at this level.”
The three-year effort to find a new human services director has been rocky. Former County Executive Joe Parisi’s appointment to fill the position, Democratic Rep. Shelia Stubbs of Madison, was rejected in a 27-2 vote by the county board in 2023. Supervisors raised concerns about her managerial experience and the verbal haranguing from supporters, who pressed the board to confirm her. Parisi and Stubbs criticized the scrutiny as excessive and racially driven.
County Executive Melissa Agard appointed Amy Everett to the post in January, but Everett dropped out of the confirmation process after Wegleitner asked her questions about a past employer, a Colorado nonprofit hospital that was subjected to multiple state audits over patient treatment. Agard blamed Wegleitner for Everett’s recision in a Feb. 7 press release, saying that “certain members of the Dane County Board upended the process they created in 2023.”
County Board Chair Patrick Miles and Wegleitner, in their own press release, called Agard’s statement “misleading and destructive” and questioned Everett’s reaction.
“The Human Services Director will face tough questions in their role, given the complexity and importance of that department,” Miles said. “If the act of asking these questions truly led to the candidate’s decision to rescind, they may have found this position very challenging.”
Papko, former director of operations and projects for Duluth International Airport, replaces Kim Jones, who retired as airport director in April, shortly after Agard took office. Papko will oversee Wisconsin’s second-busiest airport, which had more than 2.3 million passengers in 2024 and is currently seeking to offer international flights.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported in February that a 2023 investigation of Jones’ leadership found she regularly ignored emails from her own staff and, in one instance, representatives of Southwest Airlines. The State Journal also reported it was unclear what improvement measures, if any, were adopted after the investigation.
Papko told Dane County’s Personnel and Finance Committee on June 9 that he has worked at five airports and “couldn’t be more excited to have this opportunity in front of me.”
Supvs. Sarah Smith and Yogesh Chawla, who is not a member of the committee but was invited to ask questions, inquired about water contamination from PFAS use at the airport and noise mitigation efforts for the F-35 fighter jets used by the Wisconsin Air National Guard and stationed at the airport. About $18 million in expected funding from the Pentagon for noise mitigation efforts was rejected in March. The airport director has an advisory relationship with the Guard but no formal authority over their operations.
“You never guarantee a check's coming until it's in the bank account and you get it,” Papko told Chawla. He said he plans to work with the state Department of Military Affairs, which submits the application for the funding, to “make sure that their application is a strong one” in the now-open second grant application cycle and to advocate for the funding with Wisconsin’s federal delegation.
Papko also said the airport has transitioned away from using PFAS but must accept whichever responsible party is identified for clean-up and hold itself and its government partners to account.
“The hope is that this is now a historical issue,” Papko said. “So how do we now be responsible for what we've done historically?”
