La Plata County commissioners are preparing to vote on a resolution to dissolve San Juan Basin Public Health, a department that has operated in La Plata and Archuleta counties since 1948.
Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton said a vote is likely to be held within the next month. However, the dissolution has been at least two years in the making.
Porter-Norton said the dissolution stems from a fundamental difference in the worldviews of each county’s respective board of commissioners. Archuleta County initiated leaving the partnership at the end of 2020 and formed an investigative committee in April 2021 to study the impacts of such a decision, citing a desire for more local control.
Each county contributes $21.22 per resident to SJBPH’s budget. Combined, those funds consist of 23% of the proposed 2023 budget for the agency. La Plata County has 55,561 residents whose needs may differ from the 13,367 residents of Archuleta County. However, of the agency’s 80 to 90 employees, typically only five work in the Pagosa Springs office located in Archuleta County – the rest are based in Durango.
The pandemic and the mask mandates and restrictions that followed brought the differences between the counties into high relief.
“There was a lot of very difficult accusations being lodged at the public health department and at the director specifically,” Porter-Norton said. “Nowhere did I observe that the (Archuleta) commissioners really stood up for the entity.”
However, Porter-Norton is careful not to blame Archuleta County.
“I just believe that we have really different visions of public health – and that’s OK,” she said.
Porter-Norton is La Plata County’s representative on the SJBPH board. Archuleta County Commissioner Alvin Schaaf represents his county on the board and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
After Archuleta County’s investigative committee concluded its work toward the end of 2021 with no concrete resolution, on April 28, SJBPH’s board voted to recommend dissolution.
On Aug. 8, the Board of Health and La Plata County commissioners held a joint work session to discuss the future of the county’s public health agency. Commissioners directed the county administrator and attorney to look into the logistics, fiscal and otherwise, of creating a new public health department just for La Plata County on Aug. 23.
The county also hired the Otowi Group, a Denver-based consulting firm, to do on-the-ground research into the implications of SJBPH’s dissolution and how the county can continue to provide the same level of services to its residents. The firm, which is under contract for up to $111,350, is expected to return a comprehensive report sometime next month.
Porter-Norton said she hopes to coordinate a resolution on dissolving SJBPH with Archuleta County so the two entities release the decision on the same day. The dissolution must take place over a year according to state law. She stressed the priority is serving the county’s residents, and she hopes to have a new county health department up and running by the end of 2023.
If the dissolution goes forward as expected, the two counties will split the assets of SJBPH.
“We believe at this time that it will not cost La Plata County a significant amount of money,” Porter-Norton said.
The county hopes to retain all of the current programs offered by SJBPH as well as many of the current staff members.
“As the two counties have been discussing the possibility of dissolving the health district, we have been having open discussions with our staff about the potential change in how public health is delivered in our communities,” said SJBPH Director Liane Jollon in an email to The Durango Herald. “Until the respective boards of county commissioners take action on the matter, our staff is carrying on with our 75-year track record of protecting and improving environmental health – and is dedicated to continuing to do so regardless of the future structure for public health delivery.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
