OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — Following a meeting of its Finance and Administration Committee on Monday, Ottawa County is looking to cut spending to its Department of Public Health - cuts that the county's top health official said could endanger the continuity of the department.
After the meeting, County Administrator John Gibbs requested that the department create a new budget that could operate on $2.5 million from the county's general fund. This would be down from the $6.6 million that the department originally requested - a 63% decrease.
"The health and safety of our community is truly under threat with this sort of request," Ottawa County Health Officer Adeline Hambley said to 13 ON YOUR SIDE Thursday afternoon.
In one scenario outlined by the department in a response Thursday evening, the department would close 4 weeks following the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. In said scenario, the department's response, attributed to Hambley, said that it would only be running minimum essential services and mandated public health administration.
In a second scenario detailed in the response, the general funds would be applied solely to five essential services that cannot charge fees: the department's hearing screening, vision screening, immunizations and waivers, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment and communicable disease programs. These programs, Hambley said, would be able to operate for 7 weeks.
Other programs including its food, onsite wastewater and drinking water and real estate transfer evaluations programs, the response said, would continue under this second scenario. However, their services fees would increase to cover their full operations costs.
Following administrative costs, the response detailed that the department would only have $585,011 for operating expenses for the year. It's an 88% decrease from what was available in the department's initial budget request.
Hambley believes the move could be retaliation for vaccine and masking measures taken by the department during the pandemic - measures that multiple county commissioners opposed in their bids for office.
"Every public health program will be at risk under the unreasonable general fund budget allocation requested by Administrator Gibbs on behalf of the Board of Commissioners," Hambley said in the response. "While the impact of the Board of Commissioners' actions may not be felt immediately, these actions will have lasting and long‐term effects on individuals, business, organization, and the entire community as they risk the health of each person who lives or works in Ottawa County."
Some commissioners, however, have asserted that the desire for cuts is, rather, in the interest of fiscal responsibility.
"I think that would be a very, a very wise use of taxpayer funds and still allow all the essential services to function just fine," Ottawa County Commission Chair Joe Moss said on Monday.
"It is perfectly reasonable to expect that the Department of Public Health's budget and general fund contribution match their average levels over the pre-COVID period 2009-2019," Gibbs said in a statement to 13 ON YOUR SIDE. "Returning to those historic budget levels, which fully met all service level requirements in meeting the health needs of our citizens, demonstrates fiscal responsibility that would save taxpayers millions of dollars."
Numbers provided by the health department, however, list that the $2.5 million allocation would be lower than any general fund allocation to the department between 2009 and 2020.
Hambley said the county's request, paired with inflation and a growing county to serve, could hurt both the department as well as county residents.
"We do get some state funding for the essential programs and the required programs that the local governing entity or county's required to provide to its citizens," Hambley said. "And so, failure to fund at a level that the state requires could result in not receiving any state funds as well. If that happens, then we're talking the county health department would close its doors, we wouldn't exist anymore."
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