Clallam County urged state to preserve foundational public health funding; board to revise and send letter

Health department staff presented a draft letter for the county to send to state lawmakers and the governor’s office asking that Washington’s Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS) funding be maintained or, if reduced, that local health jurisdictions be granted flexibility (for example, a block-grant approach) to allocate cuts.

Kevin (HHS staff) said the letter highlights the county’s progress on overdose reductions and other public-health activities — noting the county had fallen from second to tenth in the state on a particular overdose metric — and asked the board to approve sending the letter to state representatives. Commissioners suggested edits: combine the second and third bullet points into a single request for local flexibility; avoid listing individual addresses on the letter; and, where possible, quantify the lives affected by overdose reductions (commissioners asked staff to add the actual number of deaths averted or lives saved attributable to the harm-reduction efforts).

Commissioners also suggested the letter be routed in parallel to the governor’s office and the governor’s budget director, given the state budget is where proposed reductions originate. Kevin agreed to revise the draft, combine bullets as requested, add a quantified statistic if available and submit the revised letter to staff (Lonnie) for tomorrow’s meeting. No formal vote to send the letter was recorded at this meeting; the board directed staff to return the revised draft for approval.