Pierce County health officials say more money needed for COVID response. Who will pay?
Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department officials say they are running short of money to address the COVID-19 pandemic for 2022 and need upwards of $18 million to make up the deficit.
Where that money might come from is up in the air, but county officials expressed some apprehension in approving more funds from county coffers.
During the Board of Health’s Feb. 2 meeting, TPCHD staff estimated a $18.27 million shortfall in money needed to appropriately respond to the pandemic this year.
The Omicron variant increased anticipated pandemic costs for 2022, and staff said some COVID-19 programs could run out of funding by March.
Three Pierce County officials who sit on the board shared concerns about approving more county funds.
County Executive Bruce Dammeier pointed out that the county has been the only local government to spend federal dollars on the health department’s COVID-19 response.
County Council Chair Derek Young said there were initial asks of cities, including Tacoma, to help fund the health department’s pandemic budget, but TPCHD had “not gotten a positive response” from cities.
“We are reaching a saturation level of the county’s portion of the investment,” Young said during the board meeting.
County Council member Dave Morell said he wants to see a line-item budget proposal brought before the council.
“It will be interesting to take a look and see what the council has in the couch under the cushions, but we have gone to the well several times in the county,” Morell said.
Tacoma deputy mayor Catherine Ushka said she would discuss the health department’s budget with the City Council.
“The first round that we had in [the American Rescue Plan Act] has largely gone to expenditures that are also related to the experience of COVID-19 throughout the community,” Ushka said. “Like many of us, we weren’t looking at needing to spend this level of money this far into this year.”
The health department 2022 COVID-19 budget is currently $27.2 million, but updated projections estimate adequate response would require at least $45.4 million. Kejuan Woods with the department’s communicable disease branch said the agency has added temporary staff to respond to the pandemic.
“Without additional funding, the shrinking of our operation will be triggered much sooner than we anticipated,” Woods said.
The health department’s request for $14.4 million includes an additional $6.4 million to continue to offer contact and case tracing, data and operations staffing and community engagement after the end of the first quarter in March.
Staff also said the Omicron variant has increased projected testing expenses this year — $ 8 million more than the expected $4.4 million budgeted, and $1.9 million more for isolation and quarantine centers.
“The demand for testing and the needs for isolation quarantines have dramatically increased over the past few weeks. So this was not foreseen when the original 2022 proposal was developed,” administrative staffer Chris Schuler said. “The original proposal also assumed that our response needs for COVID would steadily taper off to the fall of 2022.”
While COVID-19 cases have started to drop, the last month has seen unprecedented numbers of reported positive cases.
Because the department has no authority to tax, TPCHD’s budget relies on various funding streams, including money from local governments, state dollars and grants. Responding to the coronavirus pandemic depends on dollars from the state health department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). County money also feeds into the health department to set up testing sites, contact tracing and operations.
By May 2022, Pierce County is expected to receive a total $175.7 million from Congress’ American Rescue Plan Act. Only half — $88 million — has reached the county, almost all of which has been allocated to help the health department, businesses and homeless programs. A total of $15.6 million went to the county’s public health response since May 2021.
For 2022, $10.78 million of the county’s ARPA dollars were set aside for this year’s coronavirus response, the health department reports.
Cities also received ARPA funding. Tacoma was allocated $61 million. Lakewood was allocated nearly $13.8 million. Cities have not contributed to the health department’s 2022 COVID-19 response, Woods said.
At the same time the local health department is asking for more local ARPA allocations, there is also a shortage of $3.8 million needed for programs that FEMA and state dollars usually fund, including vaccine clinics and vaccine education.
“When that runs out, we would not have direct funding for the vaccine clinics,” Schuler said.
Woods told board members that the numbers could change by the time the department presents a budget request to the County Council later this month.
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
