Over the last two years, the county’s public health department has become highly visible – and unaccustomedly provocative — as it has stewarded the area’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it will ask voters to keep paying the bills.
At its Aug. 2 meeting, the County Commission approved a resolution to put a ballot measure before voters this November that would maintain for six years the current 10-mill levy for public health.
The mill levy is considered a routine measure, proposed and approved by voters regularly over the years to sustain a county government function that is mandated by state law. By statute, the county cannot increase the number of mills.
The commission’s resolution estimates the impact of the levy at $27.00 per year for a house valued at $200,000, and $40.50 for a house valued at $300,000.
The levy provides nearly 40% of the current year’s $847,190 public health budget. It supports the core of the department’s operations — two full-time nurses, including Supervisor Pam Hanna, one half-time nurse, a full-time clerk, and the full-time sanitarian, Megan Bullock.
The public health department is required by the state to oversee the control, prevention, investigation, and intervention of communicable diseases, as well as of population-based diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and West Nile Virus.
This function came under the spotlight with the emergence in 2020 of the coronavirus that has since infected hundreds of millions around the world. A total of 2,932 COVID-19 cases, and 25 related deaths, have been reported in Jefferson County as of March 8.
The public health department has been charged with tracking each of those cases — identifying, where possible, potential exposure of others to the virus. It also has led a communications campaign, sometimes in the face of public resistance or apathy, geared to help residents avoid contact. And beginning in January, 2021, it led the administration of coronavirus vaccines.
The department has secured several grants in the last two years to support those activities. The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed in 2020, added $124,412 to the county’s fiscal 2021 budget, mostly to cover the cost of additional contract nurses. A Public Health Emergency Preparedness grant brought in $118,322 this year.
In addition, the county has received $60,000 in federal funds over two years to support its Women, Infants, and Children nutritional health program; and a block grant of $9,000 to support programs for children — including a school-based nurse — and women of childbearing age. Immunization Action Plan funds increased to $36,861 this year. And funding from the state Department of Health and Human Services pays the salary of emergency preparedness coordinator Jesse Hauer.
In all, the public health budget has expanded by 47% since fiscal 2020, but county support for the core nursing and administration function — including both the mill levy and a much smaller contribution from the county’s general fund — has stayed essentially flat, said Hanna and County Commissioner Bob Mullen. “The mill levy is about keeping services we have now,” Hanna said.
Hanna ultimately would like her department to expand its footprint — and to become known for more than just COVID. “Public health us usually not seen much,” she said. “And it’s more than just disease prevention and intervention.”
The public health function, she said, should be focused on ensuring clean air and water, food security, family planning, and school safety. It’s concerned with the welfare of seniors, including the growing number living independently. Access to mental health care has become a more pressing issue in rural areas, including Boulder.
“There are just so many things we could do,” Hanna said, “if we had the resources to do it.”
