Finance committee reviews health‑department budget revisions, including elimination of community health worker and proposed truck purchases

Councilwoman Linda Barnes Caldwell opened the Gary City finance committee meeting on May 29 and introduced ordinance CPO 2025‑36, which would approve the 2025–26 partner services grant budget and revisions to the 2025 local health maintenance budget.

Collins Ellis, a health department representative, told the committee that the department is revising several line items after the immunization budget was eliminated in March. Ellis said she and the department’s nurse manager, Felicia, were moved onto the local health maintenance budget from the immunization funding. "We eliminated the community health worker," Ellis said, adding that the worker was paid from the immunization budget and is no longer employed by the department. She said medical assistants will absorb many of that worker’s duties at health fairs and community events.

The department also proposed reallocating funds from contractual maintenance to machinery and equipment to increase that line from $76,000 to $90,000 in order to buy two additional 2025 model trucks so four health inspectors would each have access to a vehicle. Ellis said the contractual maintenance line would be reduced from about $83,648 to $69,648 to cover the purchase and that she would provide the trucks’ make and model by email.

On the partner services side, Ellis said the state combined two separate grants (partner services and linkage‑to‑care) into a single partner services budget, moving the disease intervention specialist 3 position onto that budget and increasing office supplies, travel/education and property insurance line items because staff conduct community outreach and health fairs.

A committee member asked whether the state’s renaming from "sexually transmitted diseases" to "sexually transmitted infections" changed programming or testing; Ellis said it was a name change only and that the department continues to provide testing and services as before. When committee members pressed for clearer line‑item placement and corrected figures, Councilwoman Barnes Caldwell asked Ellis to "put it on your lines like it's supposed to be and present it back to us" the following day; Ellis agreed.

No formal vote was recorded on the proposed amendment during the meeting. The committee did not adopt the amendment at that session and asked staff to return with corrected budget lines and vehicle details for further consideration.