Salina-Saline County Health Department Ask for Funding Increase in New Budget
Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 18:00 CDT
By April Middleton, The Salina Journal, Kan.
May 24--A proposed Salina-Saline County Health Department budget asks that both the city and county give the department more money in 2007 to fund a budget that would be 8.8 percent higher than this year.
The 2007, $3,505,704.94 budget, which the board of health approved Tuesday at its monthly meeting, includes some salary increases, more money for health insurance and a decrease in income from grants. The 2006 budget was $3,222,384.
The budget was approved contingent on the county and city's approval.
The budget asks for $980,894 from the city, up from $885,506, and $750,364 from the county, up from $661,69.
Total cost of salaries will increase from about $1,959,716 to $2,143,699, or about 9.4 percent. Ten positions, including home health aids and lab aids, are scheduled to receive raises.
Yvonne Gibbons, director of the health department, said it's "been years since we've done salary adjustments," and the department is now trying to increase the salaries for a few positions at a time for its 62 employees.
Gibbons said the department expects to pay about 5 percent more for employee health insurance.
The department budgeted to receive about $17,000 less in state grants than it did this year. Because those grants haven't been awarded, Gibbons said, she had to use her "best estimate" based on what she's heard so far.
The department also budgeted to give up $30,000 in tobacco grant money that paid for half the salary of the department's health educator, Del Myers. The grant money is administered by the Kansas Central Foundation, 1805 S. Ohio. That agency would have to find someone else to do tobacco education.
"We would like to pull her (Myers) back into the health department," Gibbons said. "We think there is a lot of need for general health education."
Fees collected from the Salina Animal Shelter are budgeted to jump from $90,000 to $175,000. Gibbons said the increase comes from higher adoption fees that were implemented to cover the expense of a new spay and neuter program. Most of that increase in revenue, though, will cover the cost of paying the veterinarians to fix the animals.
Through the program, animals are spayed or neutered before they are adopted.
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Source: The Salina Journal
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