Berrien County is being required to return $320,000 in COVID funding to the federal government.
Berrien County Health Officer Guy Miller tells us the Berrien County Health Department was notified last month COVID funding was being terminated because the pandemic is over and has been for a while. He says the health department was using the COVID money still being sent its way for multiple things, not always strictly COVID-related.
“So some of the funding that we’ve been using it for have been focused on communicable disease investigations, things like COVID-19, as well as tuberculosis, salmonella infections,” Miller said. “We’d use these fundings to employ staff that would do measles outbreak investigations as well.”
Miller says the funding from the feds passes through the state on its way down to counties. The state allows those dollars to be used for other disease investigations. He says losing the $320,000 that’s being sent back really isn’t much of a blow to the department.
“We knew that this is COVID-19 funding, and we’ve been slowly kind of weaning off of COVID funds. So the overall grant award was for $500,000 in infection prevention funds. We spent less than a quarter of that.”
Miller adds the health department would greatly benefit from having more flexible funding so it could respond to new threats, like if the measles were to appear in the county. The health department continues watching federal sources to learn if termination notices will be issued for other programs.
Meanwhile, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel his filed a lawsuit against the federal government against the clawing back of these COVID funds. Miller says some health departments have staff who are paid through that funding. Berrien isn’t one of them.
