The Geauga Board of Wellness has voted unanimously to enter into a cross-jurisdictional agreement with the Lake County Common Wellness District to serve as a staffing agency for Geauga Public Wellness.
The agreement will save Geauga County residents as a great deal as $600,000 annually in overall health solutions expenses, whilst keeping all the solutions they at present obtain at Geauga Public Wellness, according to a news release.
“This is not a takeover and it is not a merger,” Geauga Public Wellness Board President Richard Piraino stated in the release. “Lake County Common Wellness District will serve as a staffing agency for Geauga.
“Our agreement with Lake is the finest way for Geauga to sustain handle of the overall health solutions we give our residents whilst saving these residents important income every single year.”
The agreement requires impact on April three. Simply because Lake County Common Wellness District will be offering staffing going forward, 17 Geauga Public Wellness workers will be laid off as of March 31. They will be capable to apply with Lake County Common Wellness District to provide these staffing solutions, but no a single is assured a position, the release stated.
“We know this is painful for our Geauga Public Wellness workers, and we’re definitely sorry for that. GPH is facing a spending budget shortfall of more than $500,000 in 2024, and we had to make a extremely complicated selection,” Piraino mentioned in the release. “We have worked diligently to obtain the finest remedy, and we are getting into this agreement to assure we can continue offering the persons we serve in Geauga County with the solutions they will need and deserve.”
All Geauga Public Wellness representatives, no matter whether GPH workers or contracted Lake workers, will continue functioning on behalf of and at the path of the Geauga Board of Wellness, according to the release. The Geauga Board of Wellness, appointed by elected Geauga officials, will continue to handle GPH policies, applications and solutions and will continue to situation its personal permits, sustain its automobiles, workplace, web site and its identity.
“Geauga residents will continue to go to the similar locations to obtain the similar solutions,” Piraino stated. “None of that will adjust.”
Simply because of the agreement involving the overall health districts, the combined populations of the two counties will open the possibility to apply for bigger grants, which are important for funding overall health departments, unavailable to Geauga or Lake on its personal, the release stated. And the efficiencies that will be gained offer you positive aspects to the two overall health departments and residents of each counties.
The benefits, according to the Geauga Board of Wellness, incorporate:
• Gaining access to further applications such as outreach solutions mainly because of enhanced access to grant funding sources
• Cutting the expense of public overall health solutions to residents by funding some existing applications by way of qualifying grants
• Sharing specialty employees, such as in the locations of information evaluation, accreditation, neighborhood desires assessment, emergency preparedness, finance, and grant writing
• Improved coordination for emergency response and public overall health emergencies.
“It is clear that we can be stronger with each other and extra fiscally accountable to Geauga County residents,” Piraino stated.