County Board Rejects Board of Health’s Termination Request

Work it out. That was the message from the Champaign County Board Thursday night to the County Board of Health and the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District. County Board members voted to reject the Health Board's request that they give 12-months notice for the termination of their contract for public health services with the CU-PHD. The Board of Health wanted the termination notice to spur talks to renegotiate their five-year contract with the CUPHD. Board President Julian Rappaport says a hike in CUPHD administrative fees is too high - and that the Public Health District Board defers too much to administrator Julie Pryde - who he says doesn't listen to their concerns. "Basically they don't have to respond to us in any way they don't want to respond to us because it's a contractual arrangment not a geninue intergovernmental arrangment."

But CUPHD Board Chair Carol Elliott accuses the Board of Health of not listening to Pryde when she tells them things they don't want to hear. "The negotiations - there's a lot of tension there because we give information and if they don't agree with it, then that's when they say that we're being unresponsive." Several county board members said the Board of Health and the Public Health District Board need to work things out - perhaps with a mediator - but that a contract termination notice was not the way to encourage dialog.