Our View: Why won't the county commission fund the health department?

It seems sort of simple.

Hill County received money from the federal government to help cover expenses of dealing with a worldwide pandemic and national emergency.

The Hill County Health Department has incurred major extra expenses dealing with that national emergency and global pandemic, including hiring additional staff members, incurring overtime by department staff members and getting additional equipment and supplies.

Therefore, the Hill County Commission should provide the health department with the American Recovery Plan Act money it allocated to help pay for public health expenses during the pandemic.

But with the current Hill County Commission, apparently nothing is simple.

Soon after ARPA funds became available to the county, the health department started asking the commission for money to pay for its work dealing with the pandemic. The commission ignored the request for months, then, finally, in September, approved allocating $100,000 to the health department.

But the department found out that, while the money was allocated, the commission did not authorized use of the funds.

In a recent series of bizarre meetings, the commission has denied the department money intended to help pay for work fighting the pandemic.

All the ducks are in a row and all the commission has to do is say “yes.”

Commissioner Diane McLean keeps raising specious arguments against providing the money, seeming Thursday to say that she thinks the county has more important uses for money provided to fight the pandemic than fighting the pandemic.

Perhaps worse is commissioners Mark Peterson and Jake Strissel, who seemed to be ready to sign off on authorizing use of the money Thursday morning but delayed a vote until they could talk to McLean. After McLean objected, they voted against authorizing the use of the money.

The commission has scheduled another meeting with the health department Tuesday at 11 a.m. to again discuss authorizing use of funds to fight a pandemic that has disrupted schools and businesses, put hundreds of Hill County residents in the hospital and killed 71 in the county so far.

That meeting should be short and simple. Convene the meeting, say they will authorize the use of funds, end the meeting.

We will see Tuesday if things get simpler with the Hill County Commission’s action on this.