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Marquette County Board urges state to boost and modernize public health funding
Summary
The county board passed a resolution asking the State of Wisconsin to increase General Purpose Revenue support for local health departments, add automatic inflation indexing, allow flexible use of funds, and reduce reliance on local property tax levies and short-term grants.
The Marquette County Board of Supervisors on June 16 adopted a resolution urging the State of Wisconsin to increase and modernize funding for local public health departments.
Introduced by Supervisors Kari Olstadt and Dave Kappel, Resolution 19-2026 notes that local health departments are required by state law (Wis. Stat. ch. 251 and DHS 140) to provide foundational public health services and that responsibilities have expanded amid workforce shortages and rising community needs. The resolution states local health departments rely heavily on limited state aids, categorical grants and local property tax levy and characterizes current state funding mechanisms as outdated, not indexed to inflation, and insufficient to cover the true cost of foundational public health services.
The resolution calls for increased General Purpose Revenue (GPR) support for local health departments, automatic inflationary adjustments, flexibility in the use of funds to meet local needs, and reduced reliance on short-term, restricted or competitive grants. It also asks the Wisconsin Counties Association to advocate for these policy changes and directs that copies of the resolution be forwarded to the Governor, members of the Wisconsin State Legislature, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and all Wisconsin counties.
The resolution text cites comparative funding data and an ROI figure to support the policy case; the board approved the resolution as part of a motion to approve Resolutions 17-2026 through 19-2026 (motion/second Mary P. Walters/John Bennett) recorded as carried in the minutes. The minutes do not include a roll-call tally for this resolution.
Why it matters: Local health departments carry legally mandated responsibilities and rely on a mix of state and local funding. The resolution expresses the county board’s formal position urging the state to stabilize and increase funding so counties can sustain mandated public health services.
The board instructed county staff to forward the adopted resolution to the listed state officials and associations. No further debate or dissent on the resolution is recorded in the minutes.
