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Interim health officer outlines $22M budget, $13M in grants and county behavioral-health efforts
Summary
Interim Health Officer Champ Thomas Cutty told the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 29 that the health department operates on roughly a $22 million annual budget, manages about 72 grants totaling approximately $13 million, and is prioritizing behavioral-health access including mobile crisis teams and programs for pregnant people with substance-use disorders.
Champ Thomas Cutty, interim health officer for the Calvert County Health Department, delivered the department's semiannual State of Health update during the board's Oct. 29 meeting. He said the department employs roughly 270 people — approximately 230 full-time equivalents — and runs a mix of clinical fee-for-service programs and grant-funded services.
Cutty described a portfolio of roughly 72 grants totaling about $13,000,000 and said the operating budget is “approximately 22,000,000,” funding core public-health operations and programs such as reproductive health, immunizations, and a mobile crisis team. He identified behavioral health as the department's largest division and said many services are delivered through a mix of in-county and regional partners.
The presentation highlighted several programs aimed at reducing poor maternal and infant outcomes: a Healthy Beginnings initiative for pregnant people with substance-use disorders that combines reproductive-health services with behavioral-health follow-up up to one year after birth. Cutty said those targeted interventions have reduced neonatal abstinence syndrome and downstream foster-care placements in the county.
On substance-use response, Cutty said the county's mobile crisis and SOAR (state opioid response) funding support 24-hour crisis response and jail-based programs aimed at timely assessment and linkage to care on release. He said naloxone distribution remains important even as some overdose metrics improve: “We could be looking at a 10 year low [in fatal overdoses], coming up,” he said, while noting holiday seasons can bring clusters.
Cutty also described prevention and chronic-disease programs — diabetes prevention, tobacco cessation and school-based behavioral-health clinicians — and noted the department's role as a conduit for state grants while the county supports facilities and in-kind services. He invited commissioners to request deeper briefings on any specific program area.
The board recessed the health session and reconvened the commissioners later in the meeting.
