Board of health approves 2024 health department budget
CHARLEVOIX — The Health Department of Northwest Michigan’s Board of Health approved the 2024 Annual Budget during its meeting on Monday.
Shannon Klonowski, chief financial and administrative officer, provided information about the budget, which was presented at $34.3 million. That represents a $339,646 or 1 percent increase from the 2023 budget.
Klonowski highlighted some other significant changes, including salary and fringe benefits increasing by $211,586 and travel costs decreasing by 33 percent.
Jarris Rubingh of Antrim County proposed two motions to cut specific funding and programs, but neither of those motions passed.
The first motion was to eliminate COVID-19 funding from the 2024 budget, which included $2.15 million for workforce development, sewer network, school nurse program and immunizations.
“We want the money. We need the money, and it’s never, ever enough,” Rubingh said. “And we can always find ways to spend it better that are so useful and so needed, but at some point we have to realize that it’s not the government’s job. And we keep on hearing again and again and again, whether it’s Democrats or Republicans or Independents, that Covid is over, but we can’t give up the money for it. I’ve had it. I’m ready to give it all back.”
Health Officer Dan Thorell noted that COVID-19 is not over but “we’re in a much, much better place than we were.”
“It’s still out there. We’re not in emergency response, we’re in disease management,” he said. “That’s where we are with Covid. A lot of these funding line items are ending, and as far as what will happen with the staff that are supported by these, those are things that we need to work on figuring out.”
For example, Thorell said he has heard from many partner schools that they want to continue funding the school nurse positions even after the COVID-19 funding ends.
Medical director Joshua Meyerson added that while the school nurses have provided resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have also treated everything from scraped knees at recess to working with children who have chronic illnesses like asthma or diabetes.
“The whole purpose, obviously, is to have healthy kids and to keep those kids in school,” he said. “And school nurse programs, I think, can help kids spend more time at their desks learning, and that’s really the primary focus of this.”
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Health department officials also noted that the immunizations are a mandated service.
“If we didn’t have the funding through this funding source, we still have to do it,” Thorell said. “We are required to do it. So that may mean asking counties for additional local appropriations if we did not have this specifically identified line item to cover those costs.”
The motion eventually failed in a 5-3 vote.
Rubingh’s second motion was to cut the $70,000 Harm Reduction Services item, which is for the syringe service program in Antrim County. That failed in a 4-4 vote.
The board ultimately voted 5-3 to approve the 2024 Annual Budget, with Rubingh and Otsego County commissioners Jonathan Turnbull and Henry Mason voting against the budget.
The Board of Health regularly meets at 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday of the month.
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Board of health approves 2024 health department budget
