Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Maternal Child Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Umatilla County public health seeks state rural-health funds to expand home visiting to NFPX
Summary
Umatilla County Public Health presented plans to expand its Nurse-Family Partnership program to NFPX, seeking $303,000 in rural health transformation funds and proposing a half-time supervisor and a full-time bilingual community health worker; staff will wait for Oregon Health Authority approval before requesting new county positions.
Joe Kumar, Umatilla County public-health director, and departmental staff outlined a grant-driven proposal to expand the county’s Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) home-visiting program into the broader NFPX model using rural health transformation funds (program element 82).
Why it matters: NFP is an evidence-based, nurse-led home-visiting program shown in randomized trials to improve pregnancy outcomes, family self-sufficiency and child development. The proposed NFPX expansion would broaden eligibility (allowing later enrollment in pregnancy and not limiting participation to first-time mothers) while preserving a requirement that at least half the caseload remain traditional NFP clients to maintain program fidelity.
Funding and staffing: presenters said the county has applied to the Oregon Health Authority and — if approved — could access $303,000 tied to the project. The plan would recruit a full-time community health worker (bilingual preferred) and create a supervisory half-time nursing position (0.5 FTE supervision is a program fidelity requirement). Staff estimated the immediate additional general-fund ask could be about $40,000 in FY27 (largely a match for billing), with potential additional needs in following years if state or incentive funding lapses. The department also described possible offsets: a NFP national incentive that could cover roughly 33% of some supervisory client-facing costs for a three-year commitment, a potential payment-rate increase for target case management (TCM) under discussion at the state level, and local cost-sharing conversations with neighboring Morrow County.
Operational and timing details: staff emphasized many numbers remain provisional until OHA responds. Rural health transformation funds can be backdated to April 1 for eligible projects; some startup costs (training, onboarding) are allowable. Staff said they would not recruit or request county positions until OHA confirms funding.
Next steps: the department will return to the board after receiving formal notice from OHA and with refined budget and staffing requests. Commissioners requested the department bring a formal position-creation request only after grant approval and clearer revenue projections.
No board action was taken at this meeting; the item was for discussion and to give staff direction on next steps.
