By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
For eight municipalities served by the Western Racine County Health Department, a new contract will begin in 2015 with the Central Racine County Health Department.
“They’ve already verbally agreed,” said City of Burlington Mayor Bob Miller. “They just haven’t done it formally.”
While the new partnership will serve its purpose – providing an outside agency to deal with any outbreaks of illness and also provide low-cost alternatives for those in need – Miller had hopes for more.
The Burlington mayor said Tuesday that the eight municipalities – which include Waterford and Rochester – had looked into forming a new organization, but ran into a roadblock by the name of state law.
“We have to go with an existing program,” Miller said. “The state will not allow the eight existing municipalities to start their own department of health.”
The same goes with finding another medical provider to run the existing group.
If, for some reason, Central Racine says no, “then we’re in a real trick bag,” Miller said. It doesn’t appear that will happen, however.
In an ideal world, Miller would like to see Racine return to a countywide public health program.
“Go back to a county health department, which we had years ago,” Miller said. “It’s easier to do if you’re not working with two or three departments, if you have a situation that crosses municipal lines.”
That idea was extended by County Executive James Ladwig earlier this year, but he later deferred to Central Racine, which is based in Franksville.
The contract with Central Racine will be for one year, and will be renewable. Miller said the cost is comparable to the Western Racine contract, with about a 15-20 cent rise per capita, but with more services offered.
“It’s an answer to a problem that we had,” Miller said. “It takes care of the situation. It fills a need.”
Two west end communities – the Town of Waterford and the Village of Union Grove – are currently members of Central Racine.
The eight others are served by the Western Racine County Health Department, which is operated by Aurora Health Care. Aurora announced earlier this year that it would discontinue the service Jan. 1 due to conflict of interest with its local health care facilities.
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