Starting the first of January, the El Paso County Health Department will be cutting back on their services.

The Health Department says they have been faced with yearly budget cuts since 2001.

They’ve had to cut spending by $1,675,500 to get to a balanced budget; this is in addition to the $500,000 cut from the County for 2009. The total reduction is $2,175,500.

The programs and services that will be affected are listed below:

Air Quality:

1. Elimination of monitoring air quality at stations located in Manitou (ozone), Air Force Academy (ozone), Highway 24 (carbon monoxide), and Colorado College (particulates).

2. Elimination of about 209 inspections of stationary pollutant sources. Each facility is inspected every 2 to 3 years.

3. Elimination of about 386 inspections of CFC (refrigerants), facilities usually inspected every 2 to 3 years.

4. Elimination of environmental planning for new construction (review of variances, subdivisions etc.), including elimination of reviewing and environmental recommendations to development proposals.

Solid Waste:

1. No response to solid waste complaints including household trash, animal waste and foreclosed properties. About 70 complaints received per year.

Vector/Zoonoses (Animal to Human):

1. No surveillance or reporting of local county WNV activity.

2. Unable to evaluate plague threats (prairie dog or rodent die off – no testing to confirm whether cause of die off was plague.)

3. Limited environmental investigation of hantavirus cases.

4. Limited testing of animals for rabies. Testing priority will be for human exposure.

Water Quality:

1. Elimination of inspections of non-community ground water systems (those outside of Colorado Springs including wells that serve rural restaurants, schools and stores). About 60 inspections are conducted each year.

2. Annual swimming pools and spas inspections eliminated. Inspections are conducted for turbidity (clarity of water), chemical/chemistry, and bacteria to prevent waterborne disease. There are about 173 facilities with 301 bodies of water in EPC.

School Safety:

1. No longer involved with education and enforcement of school safety regulations (sanitation, science rooms, chemical storage and general safety). About 78 schools inspected per year.

Child Care inspections:

1. No longer performing inspections for child care centers. Abut 400 centers in EPC. Will not address complaints unless outbreak or high risk infectious disease.

STD Surveillance and Investigation:

1. Approximately 3,200 STDs reported to EPCDHE each year.

2. No local investigation of reported infections and their contacts.

3. Anticipate greater spread of STDs – potentially leading to more complications in women.

4. STD data requests will take longer to fulfill.

6. Local medical community will end up taking greater burden but care will be fragmented because local physicians are unable to link one case to another.

Suspended Temporary Food (event) Inspections:

1. No assurance that agency hosting the event is following regulations. Risk to public increased for foodborne illness.

2. Severely inhibit any outbreak investigation should one occur because we would have no advance information about the temp event and type of food served.

“This transition process will be painful and devastating to our ability to protect the public’s health. We are going to lose very dedicated, passionate, skilled employees. However, at this time no other funding options are available,” said Kandi Buckland, R.N, M.P.A., acting EPC Public Health Director. The Health Department’s workforce will be reduced by thirty-seven (full-time equivalents, FTEs), representing an 18% reduction effective January 1, 2009. This brings the total reduction to 73 FTE since 2000. The national median number of full-time employees for public health agencies serving populations of 500,000-plus is 363 (NACCHO 2005 Report). The EPC Health Department will operate with 178 FTEs.

“We’ve been trying to maintain public health services and minimize the impacts of these yearly funding cuts to the public. Now, the Health Department is at a breaking point and will no longer be able to address many of the important health risks of our community,” said John Suits, Board of Health President. Over the past few years the EPCDHE has been reduced to the point of not being able to do a thorough job and stretched too thin in the inability of doing a comprehensive job. One example: Less than half of the required retail food establishment inspections are performed each year. EPC has the highest number and rates of foodborne illness outbreaks statewide thus far in 2008—and EPC is so far ahead of everyone else that those rankings will stay the same by year’s end. In order to do a better job with food safety in our community, this area will be given more resources by eliminating other important public health efforts completely.

Buckland adds, “We ask the public to be patient through this transition process because we will no longer be able to provide many basic public health services that the public has come to rely on our Department to manage. These were difficult decisions to make, because all of the services are important to our community. It’s not that we don’t want to continue the services, we just don’t have the resources.”

In an effort to save money and following El Paso County’s lead, the EPCDHE will operate on a four day work week effective January 5, 2009.

Since 2001, local funding cuts already had forced the Health Department to eliminate various forms of protection for the public, including drug and alcohol abuse prevention, injury prevention, suicide prevention and treatment and monitoring of sexually transmitted diseases. One key protection against infectious disease was eliminated in the last few years—treatment and follow-up for certain lower risk forms of tuberculosis.

Local public health is critical to the safety and well-being of our community and we are committed to providing high quality local public health services within our limited resources.