Drafter
Clerk 09/07/2007
Title
AN ORDINANCE approving the Public Health Operational Master Plan.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. The county is responsible for providing regional public health services to the one million eight hundred thousand residents of King County, as well as the hundreds of thousands of workers and tourists who enter the county each day.
2. Examples of the wide range of public health services currently provided by the county include: ensuring food and water are safe for consumption; monitoring, preventing and controlling communicable diseases and environmental health threats; assessing the health of the public; providing vaccines and assuring the immunization of children and adults; assuring emergency preparedness and response; promoting healthy behaviors and preventing chronic diseases and injury; and assuring personal health care services to uninsured and underinsured individuals.
3. Regional public health services are supported by significant contributions from the county's general fund, state funds and a variety of federal sources.
4. Over the past decade, revenues supporting public health services, such as the motor vehicle excise tax, have been eliminated, reduced or limited, requiring reductions in public health programs and significant increases in the level of county general fund resources.
5. The significant increases in county general fund resources to support public health are not sustainable over the long term.
6. The cost of providing public health services is increasing.
7. The need for and scope of public health services provided is increasing as new mandates are instituted, new communicable disease and environmental health threats emerge, health disparities within the population of King County intensify, the number of medically underserved increases and the burden of preventable chronic disease grows.
8. In Ordinance 15083 adopting the 2005 King County budget, the council authorized funding for a Public Health Operational Master Plan ("PHOMP").
9. A PHOMP is intended to guide development of a sustainable operational and financing model for the provision of regional public health services.
10. The county through Motion 12122 approved the multi-year two-phased workplan for the PHOMP.
11. By Resolution the King County Board of Health approved the PHOMP workplan.
12. The PHOMP was a two-year planning effort conducted in two phases. Phase I established broad policies regarding public health services in King County and Phase II resulted in recommendations regarding operational implementation and funding.
13. The adopted workplan created a PHOMP Steering Committee including representatives from the department of public health, the board of health, the council and the office of the executive.
14. Phase I has been completed and the King County council and the King County board of health adopted by Motion 12475 and Resolution 07-02, respectively, A Policy Framework for the Health of the Public.
15. The King County council through Ordinance 15652 and amended by Ordinance 15873 required by proviso the office of management and budget and the public health department to submit to the council operational and financing recommendations developed through Phase II of the PHOMP and that such recommendations shall include a process for working collaboratively with the community on strengthening the safety net.
16. Phase II has been completed and includes an amended Policy Framework for the Health of the Public and Operational and Financing recommendations.
17. The operational and financing recommendations contain long term, short term and four year implementation strategies for the three functions of public health — which are protection, promotion and provision — and organizational attributes and financing.
18. In response to Ordinance 15873 the PHOMP steering committee convened an expert panel on the provision of health care in King County.
19. The expert panel met four times and developed recommendations on how the department of public health could work collaboratively with the community to strengthen the health care safety net and improve access to care.
20. Through the extensive work done thus far by the PHOMP and the expert panel, the executive, the King County council and the board of health have collectively come to realize that the proper role of the county in the direct provision of health services is intimately tied to development of a broader vision and plan for provision of health care to the uninsured in our county.
21. Work on the broader plan is proceeding.
22. In recognition that the development of the broader plan will take time, on May 4, the King County council and the executive announced that five million dollars will be reserved to guarantee funding for all ten of the public health centers through the end of 2008.
BE ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. The Public Health Operational Master Plan A Policy Framework for the Health of the Public - July 2007, and the Public Health Operational Master Plan Operational and Financing recommendations, the outcome of Phase I and Phase II of the public health operational master plan, Attachment A to this ordinance, is hereby approved.