Health district gets support from one local city

Electric City and Grand Coulee took different approaches to the county health district's annual request for a public health contribution - demonstrating difficult decisions, and perhaps different priorities during a time of rising costs and increasing demands on local government budgets.

The Grant County Health District relies in part on funds from the county budget set by county commissioners, as well as voluntary contributions from the 13 cities and towns within the county. 

Each council decides annually whether to set aside a little money in the budget to go toward public health. Prior to COVID-19, most communities paid anywhere from $1 to $4 per resident toward the countywide public health agency.

Electric City's council this month opted to send $2 per city resident toward the district - or just under $2,000. City Clerk Peggy Nevsimal told the council GCHD provides support for nuisance house or excess animal code violations, collects expired or unwanted medications for safe disposal, and that they gave away PPE – personal protective equipment – during the pandemic.

"If we were to have water contamination, they would help us with the alleviation and communication around that," Nevsimal said at the council's Nov. 12 meeting. "If we had a communicable disease outbreak they would help with PPE."

According to Nevsimal, prior councils reasoned that since "we get a trickle of what south county gets," they didn't want to give the full $3 requested.

"We've always felt like they could do a little more for the community," Councilmember Brian Buche said.

The $2 per resident they landed on was lower than the requested $3, but higher than Grand Coulee's contribution, which was $0.

"They hit us up every year, and pretty much every year we say 'Sorry, no, we can't,'" Grand Coulee Clerk Lorna Pearce told the council at its Nov. 19 meeting.

Councilmember Tom Poplawski moved "that we do not send them any money, based on the situation of our citizenry. We don't have the dollars to tax them or to charge them any money."

Poplawski also questioned what the district contributes to the area.

"I'd like to see what they're actually doing for us up here," he said. "Are they coming up and doing free shots? Are they giving away health things? I personally haven't seen them or heard of them."

Funding countywide public health functions didn't used to happen this way.

Once upon a time, the health district was funded by the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax. In 2000, the Legislature repealed the MVET but only backfilled 90% of the lost public health funds. Eventually, GCHD began requesting that municipalities within Grant County help bridge the gap and began receiving voluntary funds from cities and towns in 2005, on a per capita basis. 

In 2024 GCHD received $154,095 from city and town budgets, and $171,910 from Grant County's.

Councilmember Tim Snead was a Grant County commissioner from 1993 to 2004 - before and after MVET. He said the county was "quite happy when the cities started helping out."

"But $3 is quite a bit," Snead said. "And up here, I don't know if I've seen a whole lot. Down in greater Moses Lake, yeah, but I don't see them up here."

"They don't reach out," Clerk Pearce said. "This is the only time we hear from them."

The health district did in fact host a community listening session at Grand Coulee City Hall this past July, seeking input from residents and health care partners about what public health and accessibility concerns feel most urgent to address in the Grand Coulee Dam area. The session was attended by representatives from Coulee Medical Center, Renew Behavioral Health, Rural Resources and others. County Commissioner Danny Stone attended and addressed the event.

GCHD is developing a Community Health Improvement Plan based on these listening sessions and based on the findings from their recently completed Community Health Assessment.

According to a document GCHD gave to both cities, 12 out of the 13 cities and towns in Grant County have contributed to the public health district. Grand Coulee appears to be the exception.

Neither Okanogan County Public Health District nor Chelan-Douglas Health District fund their programs this way, so Coulee Dam and Elmer City don't receive these annual requests.