Pueblo County health department outlines food-inspection workload and warns of pending state fee increases

Pueblo County health department officials told the Board of County Commissioners on Feb. 25 that the county’s retail food program is inspecting more facilities, offering certification classes to reduce closures, and is awaiting state legislation that would raise license fees over three years.

The presentation, led by Chad Wilma of the health department and Program Manager Vicki Carlton, detailed inspection counts, training efforts and a triannual review process that recommends phased fee increases beginning in 2026.

The county’s food-safety mission, Carlton said, is to ensure food prepared and served to the public is stored and handled to prevent foodborne illness. Carlton said Pueblo follows the 2022 FDA Food Code under authority delegated by the state and cited the program’s statutory authority in the Colorado Revised Statutes. “We inspect restaurants to ensure that they’re properly handling food, keeping it safe for consumption,” Carlton said.

Why it matters: Local inspections and training are the county’s primary tools to prevent outbreaks; changes to fee structure would increase revenue the department says it needs to cover rising personnel and overhead costs.

Health department data in the presentation showed Pueblo County had 892 food facilities on its inventory, up from 872 the prior year, and completed about 1,500 inspections with 44 reinspections. Carlton said closures fell in 2024 (13 closures cited) and attributed the decline in part to training: the department ran 18 certified food protection manager classes with an 82% pass rate and 17 basic food-safety classes last year.

The department described how inspections are risk-based by menu, volume and population served. Under the statewide scoring system Carlton summarized, facilities “pass” if they score fewer than 50 points, “fail” in a mid-range that requires reinspection, and can be closed immediately for an imminent health hazard.

Budget and fee proposal: Georgia Alfonso, the department’s budget and finance director, presented the program’s revenue and expense snapshot and said most revenue comes from license and plan-review fees and some state per-capita funds. Alfonso said personnel are the largest expense and that indirect (overhead) costs are not covered by city/county direct contributions; the county and city cover only the direct local funding portion of the program.

Alfonso outlined a triannual review process that culminated Nov. 1, 2024, and recommended statutory and categorical updates plus license-fee increases. Under the proposed schedule shown to commissioners, license fees would rise about 25% in 2026, then about 20% in 2027 and another 20% in 2028. Alfonso said the triennial review is the only public-health program where the legislature — not just the state board of health or local boards — regulates the fee adjustments and that the recommended changes need a legislative sponsor to proceed.

Alfonso said stakeholders, including restaurant representatives and local public-health officials, participated in the triannual review and that while there was broad agreement on the recommended fee structure, the measure had not yet found a sponsor in the legislature. “We finished this triennial review Nov. 1 and needed a sponsor,” she said.

Commissioners asked about facility growth, local fiscal impact and whether restaurants view fees as a barrier to opening. Department staff said facility counts grew roughly 7.35% year over year and that most individual license increases would not be in the thousands of dollars; Alfonso said local city and county direct funding to the program is roughly in the range of the mid-hundreds of thousands but that the shortfall from indirect costs has been absorbed with grants and city/county funds when needed.

The presentation included examples of enforcement issues (pest infestations, lack of hot water, severe grease discharges) and a reminder that foodborne-illness investigations are opened whenever complaints suggest patron illness; Carlton cited norovirus investigations tied to employees in some cases and emphasized the importance of strict sick-employee policies.

Department staff asked the commission to consider weighing in if the triannual-review legislation reaches the General Assembly and to support finding a legislative sponsor.

The county manager introduced the presentation and commissioners thanked the food-safety staff for training and inspections that officials said had reduced closures.

Ending: Commissioners had follow-up questions about local costs and legislative sponsorship; no formal action or vote on county support for the fee changes was taken during the meeting.