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Pacman--the city's preferred plan is to merge the local independant(also very functional and efficient) health dept. with Hamilton and Butler County. The other(less desired) options are to be taken over by Butler County or to leave things as they are.
IF WE MERGE:
We would appoint local reps to serve on the combined board. This gives us a voice(at least) in what happens. Also, most current employees might be placed within the new system(still at some expense), though there are no guarantees about this. Bennies would have to be re-negotiated within the new system as the carried-over employees would no longer be working for Middletown city.
IF WE ARE TAKEN OVER:
We pretty much lose voice in everything, and current employees are pretty much on their own unless assimilated into other areas of the Middletown city admin. This is the LEAST desirable approach by everyone currently involved in the system. The County Dept. has not been responsible or co-operative in dealings and issues over the last few years, and imo seems reasonably disfunctional.
IF WE STAY AS IS:
The preferred action of the current board make-up(imo). Our city staff and director work very well together, and provide LOCAL services far beyond what we would recieve from either option mentioned above. The city health dept. is very frugal, and annually comes in way under budget(and will be WAY under this year--check the stats, Mike P et al), though imo most city dept.budgets are far above necessity. This option will be very hard to pull off, mainly due to the huge grant $$ cuts up-coming from the state and feds.
Well--Council, Ms.G, and the health director ALL favor the merger, which may be the only salvageable option. So--I am not sure exactly what power the local health board has. I doubt board members' votes can save this dept., though the votes to do so are there.
Since the city has decided to keep Section 8 lhere under local control, and we have such disproportionately large #s of section 8 vouchers. City decided it would be too much of a hardship for voucher holders to communte to Hamilton to do business.
So--could they think differently about health care issues for these same individuals, who are most likely to be shut out of the Atrium and local doctors, therefore needing the current local health options? Keep them here for Section 8 to maximize that funding, but freeze them out concerning medical/wellness/preventative measures? Doesn't make sense(especially for children), does it?
The up-coming loss of outside funding/grants is a huge hit towards maintaining the status quo. It may not be possible, regardless of local citizen/employee desires. A county takeover would probably be the worst answer, since the county seems to be struggling with what they have currently, and is supposedly not interested in adding the local dilemma to their responsibilities since our demographics are un-favorable and the potential need for services could be beyond their scope.
All of this is very un-settling to my thinking.
We seem to be sacrificing vital public services now, basically to protect the wage/bennie structure of current municipal employees. This, to me, is totally backwards and a slap in the face to local taxpayers entitled to the basic city services to be performed. Instead, we need to focus on the REAL OVER-POWERING ISSUE of a wage/benefit system dominating our city's financial resources. Why cut all services simply to maintain employee costs? When willl these costs be realistically addressed towards being brought in line with public sector conditions, or at least similar to the cutbacks we are now seeing in local municipalities and throughout the nation?
jmo as usual
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