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Morrow County public health director flags federal COVID funding cuts, updates nitrate work and community health assessment
Summary
Public Health Director Robin Canaday told the county commissioners that federal COVID-era funding is being reduced, but county operations are not yet affected. Canaday also reviewed a new community health assessment, progress on a nitrate roadmap project and staff changes at the health department.
Robin Canaday, Morrow County public health director, told the Board of Commissioners on April 2 that recent federal reductions to COVID-era funding could ripple down to local public health programs but are not affecting day-to-day services at this time.
Canaday said the county still has COVID vaccines available and noted the funding cuts mainly affect work carried out during the pandemic — for example contact tracing — that the county no longer uses. “We currently are not really utilizing [that funding], and we're going to have to pay it back,” she told commissioners, adding that finance staff have been looped in to watch for impacts.
The director also reviewed the county’s five-year community health assessment produced with EOCCO (the Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization). Canaday said the report compares Morrow County metrics to regional and state measures and flagged one discrepancy: while the county’s share of children eligible for free or reduced-price school meals was high (about 70%), the EOCCO-estimated rate of food insecurity among children was not correspondingly higher. Canaday said the eligibility number reflects the EOCCO population sampled, not the whole county.
Canaday briefed commissioners on nitrate mitigation work, including a roadmap project being developed with GSI and the county planning department. She said state partners recently met in person with county staff to coordinate efforts, and staff are tracking numbers of households with test results above 10 milligrams per liter and households receiving water deliveries or reverse-osmosis systems.
Other items in the director’s update: the county’s transit operator moved into shared space at the Boardman complex, an immunization exclusion day in February that placed nurses at all school sites, continued monitoring of measles and pertussis (no local cases reported), and an upcoming all-hazards public health emergency preparedness plan that Canaday expects to present next month. Canaday also said the county’s contract for family planning services with Amanda Roy ends this month and staff are working to establish a replacement contract so the program continues.
Canaday noted staffing changes: an open clinic registered nurse recruitment remains difficult; two recent hires include a part-time Spanish medical translator, Anna Maria Rodriguez, and a public-health access specialist, Edith Velasco, funded through the nitrate project. Canaday said the translator is pursuing medical-translation certification and that the nitrate-funded position is state-funded and not expected to be reduced by the current federal cuts.
The update covered several continuing outreach activities run by the health department and asked commissioners to be aware of potential budget impacts if federal cutbacks to pandemic-era funding persist. Canaday said she will report new developments as they arrive.
