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County health department reviews services, accreditation timeline and community programs
Summary
Somerset County Department of Health deputy director Mike McCarthy briefed the Franklin Township Board of Health on departmental roles (inspections, epidemiology, emergency preparedness), last year’s outputs (inspections, case counts, MRC volunteer rebuild) and ongoing accreditation work with an expected August review and prospective 2026 accreditation decision.
Mike McCarthy, deputy director of the Somerset County Department of Health, told the Franklin Township Board of Health that the county health department organized its work into six sections—consumer health, health education, environmental compliance, epidemiology/nursing, public health emergency preparedness, and childhood lead prevention—and staffs about 30 people when fully filled.
McCarthy said the consumer health team handles retail food, pools, tattoo parlors, daycare and septic inspections and that retail food inspection reports are published online for public review; residents can also file complaints directly to the department’s online system. He noted 125 environmental investigations or inspections reported for Franklin in 2025 and summarized the communicable-disease caseload—dominated by COVID-19 with Lyme disease, hepatitis and Campylobacter among the other tracked illnesses.
On preparedness and volunteers, McCarthy reported 4,418 COVID kits distributed countywide in 2025, 23 new volunteer applications and 56 approved Medical Reserve Corps volunteers. He said the department has distributed flu and monkeypox vaccinations and contracts with partners such as ID Care and Robert Wood Johnson Somerset for TB and other clinical services. McCarthy also described lead investigation tools (X-ray fluorescent meters) and said Franklin’s elevated-child blood-lead caseload is low; no abatement-required environmental cases were recorded for Franklin in 2025.
In response to council questions, McCarthy clarified that the communicable-disease graph reflected case counts (not persons multiple times) and offered staff contacts for ServSafe course access and for community vaccine coordination. He described the county’s public-records process and said retail food inspection records and complaint-status information are available on the county portal, while residential complaints remain available via OPRA/Just Voya requests for privacy reasons.
McCarthy closed by noting the department’s public health accreditation work; staff expect the accrediting board to meet in August, and they hope to achieve accreditation in 2026.
