OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich. — Ottawa County passed its yearly budget Tuesday night. A budget that saw a lot of controversy last year with public health funding. At the 11th hour, the board majority rejected a $900,000 grant meant to track communicable diseases.
Commissioner Doug Zylstra suggested accepting the federal dollars. He explains that having this funding now could help handle potential emergencies around the corner.
"The grant is in case we need it. If we don't need it, we don't need it. But why would we not accept something in case we do need it," Zylstra said.
Last year, the board majority made a similar move to reject a similar grant, and a few others, which totaled around $2.1 million in public health grants. A few commissioners backed by Ottawa Impact explained last year that their reason for rejecting that money was those grants addressed COVID-19.
Ottawa County Finance Director Karen Karasinski explained that this $900,000 'Infection Prevention grant' is federal dollars flowing into the state for counties to use.
"The Covid supplement, the $900,000, it was renamed. The state took all of the Covid terminology out and renamed it to make it more palatable to people," Chairperson and Ottawa Impact Founder Joe Moss said. "I am not expecting a big need for this. The county does actually have a balanced budget and a lot of cash."
Ottawa County Health Department does provide monthly reportable disease summaries. The county tracks over 60 infectious diseases.
This year's most common cases are Flu, COVID-19, and sexually transmitted diseases, according to county data. From the beginning of the year to now, the county has tracked more than 34,000 flu-like diseases, according to the most recent report.
Moss and fellow OI Commissioner Allison Miedema rejected both last year's and this year's grants.
Miedema adds that she wants to set an example for other counties nationwide. And that the county doesn't have to depend on the federal government.
"Every time that a county continues to say that it wants a grant that it doesn't need, then that money does come out of our taxpayer dollar pockets, one way or the other, whether it's local, state, federal, still comes out of our pockets," Miedema said.
Commissioner Jacob Bonnema explained his issue with this budget change comes as the new fiscal year is a week away.
"This may have unattended consequences that we are not considering at this moment," Bonnema added. "Pass it as is and revisit the issue in the coming weeks. We have time to do that."
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