Pictured is a map of the planned renovation of the Union County Health Department’s (UCHD) building, modified to reflect current changes to the floor plan. The red boxes indicate areas that were in the original plans to be remodeled, but are not being considered at this time. At a health department meeting Wednesday morning, UCHD officials said there had to be cuts to the renovation plan so the project could fit on a slimmer budget.
(Graphic submitted)
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The Union County Health Department (UCHD) is scaling back its renovation project.
At the department’s board of health meeting Wednesday morning, UCHD Health Commissioner Jason Orcena said it received a new construction bid for the project from Johnson Laux Construction Ohio, totaling $631,515, 26 percent more than the budget would allow. Unfortunately, Orcena said that’s too much for the budget right now, and needs to be reduced to around $500,000.
“I think at this point, the construction may be off the table because the cost is so high right now,” Orcena said. “Can we renovate other spaces in the building potentially? Maybe that’s an option. It would at least get them into the building if not in the same service area as us.”
He said after a conversation with county officials, it was addressed the UCHD is suffering from the same conditions affecting the county: they’re both growing.
He said the health department is experiencing growing pains that have left it lacking the space for more services or staff to accommodate the rise in people.
“The county was not surprised by this, as there is too much demand for work and bid prices are escalating,” Orcena said. “We can’t afford the prices coming in.”
The board of health has removed certain portions of the renovation plan to keep costs down.
In an April meeting, the budget for the project was $750,000, but changed to $500,000.
Before, the Union Star Health Center Lower Lights Christian Health Center Inc., a federally qualified health center, was going to pitch in $250,000 on top of the UCHD’s $500,000 for the construction.
At that time, the department received a construction bid for $1.1 million from Johnson Laux Construction.
The health center’s contributions were taken out of the main construction budget because the renovation plan wasn’t financially feasible to move the health center into the UCHD.
Orcena said construction plans the department hopes to keep would be the modifications to the main lobby, “get WIC out of the closet” and to incorporate the board of elections.
He also said the department is “under the gun to get started this year” because of money county commissioners provided. Because the commissioners took money from its bonds to give for the renovation, they would incur a penalty if the money wasn’t spent this year.
“We want to still see if we can make that happen,” Orcena said. “But in the immediate future, we have some time pressure on getting something moving if we’re going to do something.”
Also at the meeting, Shawn Sech, UCHD director of health promotion and planning, announced the department received money from an opioid prevention grant to fund training.
Sech said out of a $30,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Health, $20,000 went to Memorial Hospital for screening referrals for alcohol and drug use or depression in emergency rooms.
She said the UCHD will keep $10,000 to host motivational interviewing training for those in the county who have completed SBIRT training.
That training involves an interviewer observing drug use in a person’s life and giving recommendations for treatment.
“While this is all focused on the (emergency department), this will be integrated into Memorial’s electronic medical records, so hopefully it’ll go hospital-wide,” Sech said.
Orcena said this is one of the state’s targeted interventions for helping deal with substance abuse.
He said the department chose this as a part of the community health improvement plan.
Also at the meeting, the board approved to support a grant application to the United Way of Union County funding.
Orcena said it’s an administrative requirement of the United Way. Before the UCHD can apply for funding, United Way’s grants require it to have a forum vote that says the department can apply. He said the board applies annually.
The board will meet again at 7:30 a.m. July 18.