Geary County public health board reviews grants, disease surveillance and Safe Kids relaunch

The Geary County Board of Health met and received administrative and program updates from county public-health staff, who described recent grant activity, disease surveillance trends and community outreach work.

Charles (agency official) told the board the county fixed a prior state submission problem by resubmitting the grant in the KEMS system and had an annual grant submitted with funds expected to begin flowing in July. He said the county was placed in the Building Bridges Learning Community grant, with finances routed through Livewell Geary County and reimbursements expected for staff hours and training costs.

"We submit the FSR and then we finally get reimbursed over a year later," Charles said, describing the reimbursement timeline for state grants.

The board heard that the Safe Kids program—revived after staff turnover—has a staff lead and partners lined up for two events this week. Charles said the Livewell staff member who designed state-level outreach materials was helping produce posters for local events.

On disease surveillance, Charles said suicidal ideation reports remained "between 15 and 19" and that the county had added a tracking section for overdoses; he said the majority of Geary County overdoses observed in that report were suicide-related. He also reported one active case of tuberculosis and that a second patient had moved to latent TB; staff had not identified any linked secondary cases.

Responding to a question about influenza vaccines, Charles said a national planning meeting that helps set vaccine targets was canceled the prior year, which complicated manufacturer planning, but he advised residents that flu shots still provide some protection. "People should still get their flu shots," he said.

Staff also described non-billable service volumes affecting revenue and ongoing work to evaluate a lower-cost electronic medical record (EMR) system that could reduce costs by roughly half if adopted; the county is discussing options with the incumbent vendor. Commissioners and staff discussed an employee-reward idea for cost-saving proposals and agreed to research the concept further.

The board closed the public-health portion of the meeting after the administrative updates; no formal votes altering public-health policy were recorded during the session.

The county indicated it will continue to monitor mental-health and overdose trends and follow up on potential EMR savings and grant reimbursements.