Some communities pleased with public health services, but others see it as a pain in the budget
By Patricia Bogumil
Staff writer
Long before it became a national past time, Waterford Town Chairman Robert Langmesser has bashed the high costs of health care – especially the state-mandated kind that gets paid by local taxpayers.
And while Langmesser and other west end officials aren’t criticizing the quality of services provided by Western Racine County Health Department (WRCHD), opinions vary about the cost and what – if anything – to do about it.
“In 1991, when I first took office, that fee was $760 annually – and at the time we thought that was outrageous,” Langmesser said. “Now today, for 2011, it’s more than $40,000!”
Switch being considered
The Town of Waterford is considering alternatives to using WRCHD once the current 2011-2012 contract ends, said Langmesser
Union Grove is also looking at options.
“We’re discussing maybe combining with some of the towns and villages to provide some services we’re required to provide, at a lower cost,” said Trustee Gordon Svendsen, who chairs the Administration/Finance Committee in Union Grove.
At its Dec. 13 meeting, the committee voted to recommend that the Village Board send WRCHD a letter notifying it of Union Grove’s intention not to renew when the contract expires at the end of 2012, said Svendsen.
“We just want to provide the services that are required at a good cost,” Svendsen explained. “With all the tightening of the budgets, it’s just something that has to be done.”
Stay the course
But Alderman Katie Simenson of Burlington thinks the city is getting a good bang for its public health bucks.
“My overall experience with Western Racine County Health Department these last five years is that they run a tight ship and offer so many programs,” she said.
Simenson, who describes herself as “extremely fiscally conservative,” has been the city’s aldermanic representative to WRCHD for five years.
Simenson said she considers the $83,000 paid annually by the city to WRCHD to be money well spent, especially with the high cost of doing any kind of business these days.
Just to fund one traffic study at one corner can easily cost the city $20,000 or more, she said.
Waterford Village Trustee Roy Gawlitta said his board considers the $30,000 charged annually by WRCHD to the village to be reasonable.
“Personally, I believe that we’re satisfied with what we’re getting for the dollars spent, but the fact that this is an unfunded state mandate doesn’t please anybody,” Gawlitta said.
Besides its well-known monthly immunization clinics, WRCHD also provides services such as teen and new mother education and communicable disease help when outbreaks like flu or pertussis occur, both Gawlitta and Simenson pointed out.
“The people who work there are really doing a very good job,” Simenson said. “I think it’s extremely well run.”
Langmesser said he thinks nobody actually oversees the charges.
“I believe the majority of our board feels that we should just opt out of this,” Langmesser said. “Not now, but we may in the future if we can get ourselves set up to start our own service.”
The current deal
Cheryl Mazmanian, director/health officer with WRCHD, points out that the $6.37 annual 2010 per capita charge is much less than the $13.64 state average for public health services, according to 2009 statistics from the State of Wisconsin.
According to the current contracts, the annual fee charged is a percentage of total cost based on population; the hourly rate charged for services has not increased in four years.
If a particular community has an outbreak of pertussis or measles, then that community pays extra for the extra services it needs.
Mazmanian said WRCHD is always looking for effective ways to cut costs.
She pointed to the elimination of monthly Dover immunization clinics that were not well attended.
In addition, a half-time health aide who assisted at Union Grove High School and at immunization clinics resigned this year and the position will not be filled to try to reduce costs.
Also, grant monies are actively sought out to cover extra services that are not mandated, noted Mazmanian.
In 2010, she said the Health Department obtained $438,211 in grant dollars to provide extra services like free child car seat checks, medication collections, home visitations for families with children under age 5, a teen pregnancy prevention program in the middle and high schools, and free health care for low-income, uninsured residents.
The Health Department is limited in being able to cut costs by cutting services, Mazmanian noted, because it is mandated statutorily to provide ones such as communicable disease and environmental follow-up, which cannot be controlled.
Services mandated
At the Dec. 13 meeting in Union Grove, it was noted that west end communities now provide “Level 2” public health services, when “Level 1” services are what the state mandates, said Waterford Town Supervisor Tom Hincz.
Under Level 1, a registered nurse or physician must be the local health officer.
The mandated duties are “essentially monitoring communicable diseases and doing the appropriate reporting,” Hincz said.
If residents would also like immunization clinics offered, “we can do that,” Hincz added. “We can offer that right at the firehouse.”
Hincz said town officials figure a plan can be developed to offer what is required at half the cost now being charged.
If WRCHD can come up with an offer to cut its contract cost, “we would consider that,” said Svendsen.
Right now, Union Grove is still looking “at all our options to try to save as much money as we can,” he added.
“The wheels are turning to look at alternatives,” Hincz said. “That’s the best way to put it.”
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