Ulster County committee adopts a package of budget, contract and appointment resolutions; drug-test resolution postponed

Legislators at an Ulster County Legislature committee meeting on March 6 approved a series of resolutions to amend the county’s 2025 budget, confirm appointments and authorize contract amendments and awards across health and social services, while postponing a resolution on field drug-test kits for social-service screenings.

The package included a budget amendment to in-house a forensic pathologist who would serve as the county’s chief medical examiner, contract amendments for mental-health providers and supportive-housing services, acceptance of multiple state allocations for social-services programs including Raise the Age and kinship/adoption recruitment, and a $200,000 contract with Industrial Medicine Associates to screen temporary-assistance clients for substance-use issues.

Committee members said bringing the forensic pathologist in-house would make Ulster County’s medical examiner office able to perform forensic pathology and reduce perceived conflicts of interest when the pathologist is affiliated with a hospital. Director Walter (Department of Health) said, “we've been contracting with Westchester or Health Alliance or Kingston Hospital, depending on the name... for a very, very long time, decades,” and described the shift as creating neutrality and improved administrative capacity because the pathologist could serve as chief medical examiner and attend scenes.

Deputy Commissioner Bridal Wood (Department of Social Services) described several state-funded allocations the county is receiving for 2025. The county will use Raise the Age funds mainly for prevention programs including multi-systemic therapy, family therapy and Family Woodstock’s DASH restorative-justice groups. Staff said the adoption and legal-guardianship recruitment allocation is a new, $25,000 award from the state to help counties recruit and support kinship and…