District Approach to Health Will Not Move Forward

Although the state of Connecticut has been making a push over the last few years for towns to regionalize their health departments, Windsor officials recently opted to keep the town's health department local.

However, local town leaders agreed to keep discussion about the issue open.

In 2009, the state Department of Public Health eliminated funding to local health departments that serve less than 50,000 people. As a result, Windsor officials began analyzing the services being provided locally by the Windsor Health Department and potentially by the regional West Hartford-Bloomfield health district.

The analyses included proposed time frame for joining the district, and short and long-term costs and benefits to the town should it decide to join the district.

Responses were mixed.

“This was an opportunity to examine how we deliver public health to our community,” said Town Manager Peter Souza, at the council meeting. “Seeing that trend, if you will, moving in public health, we thought it would be appropriate to look at."

The council's Health and Safety Committee met on three different occasions to review the proposal.  It was determined that a savings of only $12,000 would be realized during the first year.  In addition, two Windsor Health Department staff members would also have to be transferred to the new district.

Town Councilman Matthew Marzi, a member of the Heath and Safety Committee, said he was in favor of moving to the health district model. 

“I think that in the future when things change and people retire, that is definitely something we should look at,” Marzi said. 

Deputy Mayor Al Simon said that “we really need to open up our minds,” and that a lot of services are “moving towards regionalization.”

Mayor Don Trinks sat on the other side of the issue.  

“If I thought the delivery of services would be better, I would be 100 percent for it. Quite frankly, I think we have the best that’s out there,” Trinks said. “It’s all about personality, repoire and trust.  People who need our health services do that because of the trust they feel in those folks.” 

 “I just don’t see an advantage to the service-end of it,” Trinks said.

Councilor Eleveld says it is inevitable that this will occur.  “I am in favor of going into the district, just not this year.” 

Town council members considered the fees for service rendered such as inspections and licenses, which in some cases would increase if the town joined the health district.

In the end, elected officials opted to keep the health department local and not regionalize.

“The Town Council will continue to look at this but, for that amount of savings, they didn’t feel comfortable moving forward,” Souza said.  “As we get through the first six months or so of the fiscal year, we will probably re-visit the issue."