Royal City Council votes to support GCHD

ROYAL CITY — Royal City will kick in to fund the Grant County Health District this year, the Royal City City Council affirmed March 5.

“Every fall I send a letter out to all the cities with an agreement asking for $3 per resident for public health services in your community,” Theresa Adkinson, GCHD administrator, told the council. “As of today … we’re already at $139,000. So our cities have really stepped up.”

The county government fills in a great deal of the gap as well, Adkinson said. The county kicks in $140,000, as well as the building at 1038 Ivy Ave. in Moses Lake and all the maintenance for that building.

“Basically, I have a rental agreement with the county and then a forgiveness from the county,” Adkinson said. “So it's a pretty substantial investment on their part as well.”

Most of the district’s support comes from the state for programs that are mandated, Adkinson explained. There are also federal grants, and those are tightly earmarked, she said, such that money for one program can’t be shifted to another no matter how great the need is. The money collected from the cities goes to cover flexible costs that aren’t specifically covered by state and federal money.

“We have things like communicable disease (which) has no dedicated funding source,” she said. Our assessment data staff have no dedicated funding source, so I pull these monies where I can.”

“What is on (the district’s list of services) that you charge for, like permitting food establishments and inspections?” asked Council Member Perla Garcia. “Clearly you’re going to charge for those things. 

Is that all that you charge for?”

“We have fee-for-services for all the permitting that we do, but it's a set rate,” Adkinson said. “So if you got a septic permit from us, and it ended up being more complicated, or you're further away from our office so we’re driving further, that has to come out of our flexible dollars to cover the remainder of those costs.”

The district sometimes has to move quickly, and those flexible dollars are crucial for those times, Adkinson said.

“Communicable disease is a challenging one because you never know,” she said. “We had a mumps outbreak out here in Royal City in 2017, and it cost us over $100,000 from beginning to end to mitigate that outbreak in H2A housing. So it just goes to show you just have to always be prepared to respond … Your public health system truly is a first responder, and we have to be able to pivot very quickly when we're dealing with an outbreak of disease. Smoke, we've brought masks out to your community for smoke events so that the farmers can still get their folks out where we can keep them safe.”

Not all cities contribute $3 per person, Adkoinson explained. The amount is at the discretion of the city. Moses Lake and Ephrata also contribute $3, but some smaller communities just assess a flat rate.

“Is your department running in the surplus as far as your budget goes?” asked Mayor Michael Christensen. “Are you keeping up?”

“We are in a financially in a much better place (than previously) Adkinson said. “But with state dollars, I do have to turn back those dollars if for some reason, we don't utilize all of those dollars … It's only what do we end up using. It's not actually like in our bank account. We have our reserves; we’re bigger now so we've maintained three months of reserves, and we do have surplus in a rainy day account.”

The council voted unanimously to send the district $3 per Royal City resident.

Joel Martin may be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.