HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Commission convened on Thursday for their weekly business meeting and approved a $24,783 reimbursement to the Rudyard Water and Sewer District.
The funds are coming from Hill County’s allocated ARPA COVID-relief dollars and will reimburse part of the costs of a project dealing with pumps and fittings.
Also at the meeting, the Commission tabled a resolution to provide ARPA funding to the Hill County Health Department. The Commission previously promised to allocate up to $100,000 in funds but never signed off on it.
Commission Chair Diane McLean said they will put it on next week’s agenda and would like to speak with Health Department Director Kim Berg before making a decision.
Berg told New Media Broadcasters she requested the item be tabled until next week because she was tied up with work this week and was also dealing with a family matter.
“The first ask from (the Commission) came on Monday, and I was getting stuff ready for the (rapid) test distribution. And then they requested more information on Tuesday and I was up at the test distribution, and then I had a family issue that came up. So I wasn’t in the office Wednesday or Thursday. So Wednesday, I asked if they could possibly move it to the next week, because I couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to be in the office for that meeting. And I wanted to be there if they had further questions.”
Without the ARPA funds, Berg says her Department has had to use around $20,000 allocated dollars from the County’s general fund for COVID mitigation efforts from July 2021 through July 2022.
“That’s for people that cannot be paid out of my grants. Because they are very specific to certain positions. So my lead Communicable Disease Nurse, my Disease Intervention Specialist, and my Congregate Living Coordinator are all paid out of grant funding. So none of their time has come out of the general fund. It’s just been some additional contact tracers and case investigators that I had to pull on to keep up with the rise in cases that we had. And as the whole pandemic goes, we don’t know if it’s going to drop off or going to continue and we’re going to see another surge. Hopefully, we don’t see another surge, but we have to be prepared for that. And I just would like to be a good steward of the money when we have ARPA funds that are specifically able to support public health efforts in the pandemic, I feel that they should be used rather than county dollars.”
Vice-Chair Mark Peterson did not attend the meeting.
Other action taken:
- Appointment of Jake Phillips to the City-County Airport Board
- Approval of a $100 payment for annual dues to the Highway 2 Association
This post has been updated to include comment from Health Director Kim Berg
