Layoffs begin at Ottawa County Health Department after millions in budget cuts

OTTAWA COUNTY — The Ottawa County Department of Public Health has laid off half a dozen staff members after the board of commissioners cut the department's budget by $4 million in September.

OCDPH officials confirmed this week six people were notified on Friday, Sept. 29, their employment was ending. All of the positions terminated were tied to grants the Ottawa Impact-controlled board rejected for the 2024 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

Ottawa Impact is a far-right fundamentalist group formed in 2021 over school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group currently controls six seats on the 11-member board.

More: In contentious meeting, Ottawa County approves budget with health department cuts

After two months of meetings, debates and changes, a pre-meeting protest and more than six hours of public comment and debate Sept. 26, the board voted 7-3 to approve the budget — one commissioner abstained.

Board Chair Joe Moss, founder of Ottawa Impact, said he wanted to see the elimination of all COVID-19-related grants in budget, which accounted for $2.2 million in funding, health officials said.

Moss and County Administrator John Gibbs have said repeatedly during finance committee and board meetings "the pandemic is over," citing the Biden Administration's ending of the federal public health emergency declared in January 2020. They argued it was appropriate to return the health department budget to “pre-COVID levels,” although no other departments saw cuts — and some saw increases.

COVID-19 has not been eradicated and remains prevalent, according to federal health officials.

The Sentinel spoke with three employees whose positions were terminated. Two spoke on condition of anonymity over fears of retaliation.

One employee described the leadership change within the county as whiplash.

"We had a board where they recognized your work and you had just so much pride," they said. "And then to go from that to a board where basically employees are treated as the enemy, and their main goal is, 'How do we punish the enemy?' And if you're at the health department, you're at the top of the enemy list."

Despite positive leadership from embattled Health Officer Adeline Hambley and Deputy Health Officer Marcia Mansaray, the employees say, morale hit an all-time low in the waning weeks of September, as budget negotiations dragged on.

Many employees became especially paranoid with the department's social media accounts were taken over by Moss and Gibbs in September.

"I mean, we're all scared all the time ... and always paranoid," the employee said. "You don't have Zoom meetings or Teams meetings, because the company could be secretly listening in. You don't want to email anything they can misinterpret, in case they're going after your emails.

"You don't want a message or anything that could be misinterpreted. When they come to the brown bag lunch, you don't want to even attend because you don't want to say something that could be seen as angry, and you're so frustrated and you want to ask questions, but you don't want to do it because you don't want to get on their radar."

As cuts loomed, the first employee said the department became "toxic and paranoid work culture, because you're terrified all the time."

"I mean, it was so bad (human resources) sent an email on Friday to all public health with a mental health crisis line ... to have more counseling sessions available. I'm like, what kind of work culture is it when HR is telling you here's a mental health crisis line? It's not good."

Those feelings were compounded when OI-backed commissioners made statements on their official pages.

"They're saying what a good job they did to get through the budget, and I'm like, 'Hey, I lost my job, and you're patting yourself on the back?'"

The second employee said their concerns mounted when the board took aim at the health department months ago. Among allegations were Moss’ erroneous claim the department sponsored Grand Valley State University’s 2023 Sex Ed Week and that it was inappropriate for the department to have a presence at Pride events because children were vulnerable to "grooming."

"It was really interesting to see the wave of political transition with OI, but it was just very hard towards the end to feel validated in the work we were doing," the second employee said. "Because the only voices we heard were theirs. And we knew there was public support, but it was really hard to stay true to that. Some days it was just constantly like layers of concrete being poured on top of us again and again and again."

Aaron Stauffer, a health educator, also lost his job in the recent layoffs.

His greatest frustration is the claim by Gibbs and Moss that Hambley didn't try to work with the board during the budget process — which Moss now says proves Hambley's neglect of her duties and, therefore, is a fireable offense. Moss filed a notice last week that he'll hold a hearing of removal for Hambley on Oct. 19; Hambley is next due in court for her ongoing lawsuit against the board on Oct. 11 before the Michigan Court of Appeals.

"Our leadership has just been almost absurdly positive and just incredibly good-natured towards this whole thing of hoping to work with the board," Stauffer said. "And they're kind of getting slandered as if they haven't been working with the board at all, which is completely the opposite."

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Stauffer said he doesn't hold a personal grudge over the layoff, because he knew his role was always temporary, but he said it's difficult to see grant dollars not getting used in ways that could help the public's health.

"I know about Moss and his gripes about the mask mandates. I was part of the people talking to schools, getting complaints about that particular school, not wearing masks. So, of course they're not going to like anything with COVID in the name," Stauffer said.

"But it's a little frustrating to know that we've got all these grants that are just going to get wasted. It has COVID in the name, but we were using it in a ton of other ways that were beyond just COVID. We were able to use it for initiatives for schools, providing generic disease prevention stuff like sanitizer and tissues and thermometers — things that the schools were really grateful for."

The most important thing, the employees said, is for locals to take elections seriously.

"You've got to vote," the first employee said. "You have to realize how important local elections are."

"I still remember the morning after they were all elected, and it was just like, 'Oh my gosh, this couldn't have happened. This couldn't have happened.' And I guess it brings back the importance of people knowing about local elections and what kind of consequences those may have for the future," the second employee said.

The second employee added OI commissioners should be cautious as they proceed with future decisions.

"It's something that my dad has reiterated to me again and again and again, with everything going on," they said. "Bitterness destroys the container it's in."

— Sarah Leach is executive editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter@SentinelLeach.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Layoffs begin at Ottawa County Health Department after millions in budget cuts