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Henry County agrees to move two health‑department positions into general fund, shift insurance funding
Summary
Commissioners and the health director agreed in principle to transfer two positions out of the Health First Indiana (HFI)/perpetuation funding structure into the county general fund and to realign group insurance funding; staff will confirm exact levy impacts and technical budget entries.
Henry County commissioners and Health Department leadership reached a consensus during Tuesday's budget work session to include two positions in the county general fund budget for 2026 and to realign how the department's group insurance and liability costs are paid.
The changes discussed would add an existing public‑health nurse position and a director‑level health promotion position to the general fund payroll. Budget staff and the health director used the meeting to map the dollar impact: the public‑health nurse position presented for inclusion was $56,079 and the director position $61,536 (salary lines as discussed in the meeting). Commissioners also discussed removing the department's group insurance line from the Health First Indiana fund and instead funding insurance through the county's centralized health insurance line. During the session the group discussed zeroing out roughly $240,000 of group insurance budgeted in the HFI fund and moving smaller liability and workers' compensation amounts back to the commissioners' insurance budget.
The health director explained the department had restructured roles in response to recent funding changes and retirements; she also said she intends to retire at the end of the calendar year and would like overlap time to train a replacement. Commissioners said they were generally supportive of preserving the staffing needed to maintain services while reducing the practice of paying full‑time, recurring county positions out of perpetuation or special‑purpose funds when that creates uneven treatment across departments.
Budget staff cautioned that moving these lines between funds affects the department's November levy calculations and will change the slice of the county levy allocated to the health department; staff will produce technical adjustments showing the net levy effect. Commissioners asked the auditor and budget office to verify that the proposed fund shifts would be essentially net‑zero to the county wide resources (money moving between levy buckets rather than increasing total county tax draw), and to bring back finalized figures for approval.
Next steps include formalizing the two position lines in the general fund budget pages, zeroing the designated HFI insurance lines, and preparing the state technical forms and levy paperwork to reflect the transfers.
