Tell lawmakers not to cut Benton County health funds

The Benton County Health Department Board of Trustees and staff are asking for your help to contact our legislators and encourage them to restore funding for aid to local public health. Gov. Jay Nixon has proposed an additional 27 percent cut to our funding. Should this proposal stand, budget cuts and inflation will have eaten away about two-thirds of the value of state funding since 2001, while the population of Benton County has increased 10.9 percent in the past 10 years, which demands more resources to just maintain services. Should this cut prevail, we would not be able to continue to provide public health services in our current manner.

This funding supports very basic, traditional, core public health functions that protect our community from communicable disease, outbreak control and environmental health services such as restaurant inspections.

In 2011, Missouri already ranked 50th in the nation in per-capita state public health funding, at $7.96 per person, which is only about one-quarter of the national median of $30.61 per person. Benton County is ranked number one in the state for financially supporting our health department. We should be at our breaking point with such continued state cuts to local public health departments.

If you have questions, please contact administrator Linda Viebrock at 1238 Commercial St., Warsaw, MO 65355 or 660-438-2876, ext. 204.

Addresses for legislators:
• Sen. Mike Parson
201 W. Capital Avenue, Room 334
Jefferson City, MO 65101
mparson@senate.mo.gov

• Rep. Wanda Brown
House District 116
201 W. Capital Avenue
Jefferson City, MO 65101
wanda.brown@house.mo.gov

Beverly Rhoades
Health programs representative
Benton County Health Department