Vermilion County Health Dept Slashes Four More Programs, 20 Positions

The Vermilion County Health Department is cutting four more programs that rely on state grants and 20 additional jobs with it. Department Administrator Steve Laker says the County's Board Of Health was forced into this move after the Vermilion County Board this week rejected a request for an additional loan of $400,000. The state now owes the health department $500,000 - an amount expected to grow to $700,000 by June.

As of May 21st, the department's staff will be nearly half what it was the first of this year, with 32 total job cuts. The four programs being eliminated are Family Case Management, Healthworks Illinois, Healthy Child Care, and the Case Coordination Unit. Laker says that unit's nursing home pre-screenings will be among those areas missed the most. "We're going to work with anybody we can so that hopefully these services get picked up by someone else locally and facilitate that transition, "said Laker. "But we don't have any assurance of that yet."

Laker says his goal now is holding onto the Women, Infants, and Children - or WIC program, and Family Planning, which are federal programs. WIC is exclusively federally funded, while Family Planning relies partially on county money. Laker says both have been running in Vermilion County for about 40 years. "So these are long-standing practices and well-accepted pratices," said Laker. "However, right now, these are times we've never experienced. So we're being squeezed, they're (Vermilion County) being squeezed, and unfortunately, what's on the potential chopping block is these services." Cutting those federal programs would reduce the health department to minimum certified status, reducing its staff by about two-thirds, to about 20 employees. Laker says he's considering other options, including mandatory furlough days for employees. If the department does have to cut WIC and Family Planning, he notes it would have an obligation to pay those staff members their accrued benefits, as well as their unemployment, which is funded by the county.