8-22-23 Meeting Notes
Meeting Notes from the August 22, 2023 Meeting of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners.
Meeting Packet: https://www.miottawa.org/CalendarDocs/2023/1692645623040-packet.PDF
Meeting Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Qe9MFyKQk
Sentinel Roundup:
Sentinel Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/SentinelLeach/status/1694119549115777272?s=20
Post-Execution Ratification of Contracts: The Board ratified all contracts for the period of July 1, 2023 to July 31, 2023 currently pending on the post-execution ratification list as authorized under Section IV(D)(2) of the Ottawa County Contracting Authorization and Form Policy, as shown above.
FY 2023 Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Application: The Board approved the FY 2023 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program application to utilize $52,557 in funds to purchase a long deployment camera trailer.
2024 – 2029 Capital Improvement Plan: The Board approved the 2024 – 2029 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).
I voted yes becuase the CIP presented was a balanced, well-funded approach to our Capital Improvement needs.
Resolution on Childhood Vaccine Waivers for School and Childcare: The Board approved 9 to 2 the resolution on Childhood Vaccine Waivers for School and Childcare.
I voted no on the Resolution on Vaccine Waivers because I believe this document could have been more balanced by presenting the overall benefits of vaccinations in addition to the information offered around waivers .
A note on Monday’s Budget Work Session:
At this past Monday’s Budget Work Session, Board Chairman Joe Moss proposed the idea of a nearly 50% reduction in General Fund allocation to the Ottawa County Public Health Department. The current recommendation for FY ‘24 is for a $4.7M contribution, Chairman Moss’ proposal would place that at only $2.5M for the upcoming fiscal year. A follow up proposal called for a total reduction in overall spending, including GF and Grant funding from $17.4M to just $8.9M.
Over the last number of years, the Ottawa County Department of Health has leveraged excellent staff efforts with modestly increasing levels of General Fund investments to help create an excellent standard of community health, providing a wide range of services to Ottawa County residents to help assure both overall safety and well being.
Defunding critical health services at this time, especially when there is no fiscal need, is both irresponsible and unnecessary. Ottawa County has seen steadily increasing economic growth over the last years, and we have been fortunate in seeing healthy growth both in property tax revenue and in the amount of state and federal contributions to our general fund.
It is my hope that over the next month we can have further conversations around this proposal with residents and stakeholders alike with the goal of maintaining and improving our public health efforts, and part of that is augmenting, not cutting, our general fund investments in those efforts
