A Zoom meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday August 18, at 7am, where the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, the La Plata Board of County Commissioners, and the San Juan Basin Public Health Board will discuss the future of the San Juan Basin Public Health District. The meeting participants will also consider a SJBPH request for special funding related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A resolution, to be considered at the meeting, states that SJBPH this year anticipates spending $1.4 million beyond its adopted 2020 budget to deal with the COVID crisis. A substantial portion, but not all, of those excess expenditures will be covered by various grants, but the La Plata Board of County Commissioners has approved a special allocation of $600,000 to help cover the SJBPH budget shortfall.
Tomorrow’s meeting will be held via Zoom starting at 7am. Attendees can click this link to join the meeting or join by phone by calling (346) 248-7799 and using Meeting ID #811-2908-5203 and password 336506.
The resolution on tomorrow’s agenda suggests an official request by SJBPH to ask Archuleta County for a special allocation of $150,000 — one quarter of the amount pledged by La Plata County, based on the fact that Archuleta County has about one quarter the population of La Plata County. Archuleta County recently received a CARES Act allocation of $1.2 million to assist with the control of the COVID pandemic; that money will supposedly be shared equally with the Town of Pagosa Springs.
From the SJBPH resolution:
WHEREAS, a proportional appropriation from Archuleta County may be used as a local matching contribution for additional state grants…
The La Plata BOCC approved its $600,000 allocation on July 15.
The Archuleta BOCC had held a work session a month prior, on June 16, and two commissioners — Ronnie Maez and Alvan Schaaf — expressed support for a task force to investigate the possibly forming a separate, Archuleta County-only public health agency, and severing the County’s relationship with Durango-based SJBPH.
SJBPH currently provides a wide range of public health services to both La Plata County and Archuleta County, at a cost of about $10 per resident, with the majority of the agency’s $6 million budget coming from grants and donations. According to SJBPH, typical Colorado communities pay about $20 per resident for public health services. Many of the health services provided by SJBPH, and the regulations enforced, are determined by state law. Some Archuleta residents — including commissioners Maez and Schaaf — have expressed concern about health regulations being decided in La Plata County, but enforced in Archuleta County. Of particular concern have been regulations and fees related to septic systems, and recent public health recommendations related to COVID-19.
In a June 18 article by reporter John Finefrock, published in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, commissioners Maez and Schaaf both argued for increased “local control” of public health services and decisions.
Commissioner Steve Wadley, however, expressed his opposition to altering the relationship between Archuleta County and SJBPH.
“I know that we’re going through a little bit of a bump with San Juan Basin Health right now, but I still think if you look at value per dollar in the services we get from them, I still think it’s a good deal,” Wadley said. “It doesn’t hurt to look around and see if there’s something better, but I think if we were self-funding this we wouldn’t get what we’re getting for the money… I’d be opposed to making a change right now.”
Asked to comment on the commissioners’ discussions, SJBPH Board of Directors President Ann Bruzzese wrote the following in an email to the SUN:
It is, of course, appropriate for Archuleta County to assess the best way for the County to meet its statutory obligations for public health. For 72 years, San Juan Basin Public Health has effectively worked to assure that both Archuleta and La Plata County residents receive a wide variety of services including things like early childhood support, immunizations, substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, health insurance access, environmental health and communicable disease control. The critical work to investigate communicable diseases is always important for the control of things like rabies, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and hantavirus, but obviously it will be especially important for the County to assess how it will deliver such services during a global pandemic…
The SJBPH Board of Health, on July 30, officially requested tomorrow’s special meeting between the health district and the two County commissions.
Former Archuleta County Commissioner Michael Whiting served previously as our community’s voting representative on the SJBPH Board, and he offered some thoughts on the controversy.
“I recently read with some dismay that Archuleta County Commissioners Schaaf and Maez are considering pulling us out of the San Juan Basin Public Health (SJBPH). San Juan Basin Public Health is unquestionably, and by every measure, an extremely well run and highly efficient organization that is our best and lowest cost way to provide critical public health services to the great people of Archuleta County and Pagosa Springs. This is not uninformed speculation. Until recently I was the County’s representative on the SJBPH Board for 6 years.
“Anyone remotely in touch with even the most basic facts and numbers on our membership in SJBPH would know what an incredibly beneficial and cost saving partnership it represents, for protecting the health of struggling Archuleta and Pagosa families. It is literally the best and the cheapest way to provide those services. All the alternatives are double or triple the cost.
“Even if there were some problem at SJBPH — which there is not — or a better alternative — which there is not — no competent or compassionate elected leader or manager would choose the middle of a public health crisis to inject even more uncertainty into the lives of the hundreds of local families who rely on these health services.
“Government should always be looking for waste to reduce, and better and less costly ways of providing services, but before you start looking for savings at the things that are working really well, you could look at the more glaring and bigger-dollar problems the are clearly known to the BOCC… and fix those first.
“The words and actions of our County Commissioners should be aimed at improving our collective health and safety, and speeding our economic recovery. This does none of those. They could correct this by simply reversing course immediately. We’ll see.”
Tomorrow’s Tuesday, July 18, meeting will be held via Zoom starting at 7am. Attendees can click this link to join the meeting or join by phone by calling (346) 248-7799 and using Meeting ID #811-2908-5203 and password 336506.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.