 No one’s entirely sure, but public health administrators on Tuesday warned state
senators some outcomes are dangerously unpredictable.
“How do you measure the cost of outbreaks that have yet to occur?” Miriam
MullisonLink-Mullison told a senate panel meeting in Chicago.
No one testified against the measure to release millions to local health
departments, but Republican committee spokesman Sen. Chris Nybo of Lombard said
Illinois has to figure out how to pay for what it spends.
Nybo noted Illinois is spending at rate of perhaps $38 billion for fiscal year
2016 with only $32 billion to $33 billion in projected revenue.
“We can’t let ourselves keep getting in the position year after year after year
where the cost of state government vastly exceeds our ability to pay for it,” he
said.
Link-Mullison, Jackson County’s public health administrator, said Illinois 97
public health departments serve four broad functions: protecting health,
preventing illness, promoting health and preparing for and responding to
emergency health and natural disasters.
A third of the state’s public health departments, she said, have been cutting
staff, eliminating programs and reducing hours of service, said Link-Mullison,
who also is the president of the Illinois Public Health Association.
One public health agency serves the the state’s southernmost seven counties and
has been reduced to offering services one day a week in five of those seven
counties, she testified.
The net impact of local public health departments is hard to measure, but the
responsibilities are wide, health administrators said.
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 Among other duties, they handle restaurant inspections, inspect
private-source water and sewage systems, investigate disease
outbreaks and arrange treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
“We need this bill and then we need a responsible budget,”
Link-Mullison told senators.
She said she’d been surveying the state’s local health departments
and essentially asked, “How long can you last?”
“The answer is none of us can last as long as it’s probably going to
take,” she said. “We need this bill, and then we need a responsible
budget.”
Link-Mullison was one of several witnesses testifying in support of
Senate Bill 2178, which would appropriate about $17.1 million in
state general funds to the state’s Department of Public Health for
local health protection grants.
Bill sponsor Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago said the amount is
identical to the previous fiscal year’s funding and was also the
amount named in the spring budget passed by legislative Democrats
but vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, R-Winnetka.
Proponents said the grant amount is a small amount of total funding
health departments would receive if there were a state budget in
place.
The governor’s office opposes the bill, which it views as another
piecemeal attempt to force a massive tax increase, said Rauner
spokeswoman Catherine Kelly.
The joint hearing of the Senate’s appropriations and public health
committees was for information-gathering purposes, and no vote was
taken.
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