Towns offer Health District ‘Verbal Commitments’ to 10 Percent of Announced Aid

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Ledge Light Director of Health Stephen Mansfield told CT Examiner on Saturday that he had secured a “verbal commitment” from nearly all of the 9 municipalities in southeast Connecticut served by the regional health district to share 10 percent of recent federal funding to be distributed among the municipalities.

Gov. Ned Lamont had announced, in a Thursday press conference, that the state’s Office of Policy and Management would distribute the $45.5 million of federal CARES funding within the week. The announcement did not direct funding to health districts.

Mansfield said that increased staffing costs, and state subsidies amounting to just $1.85 per capita, had put the health district in a difficult position of either raising rates or securing additional funding.

He said that the district has been documenting the additional financial burden of the pandemic in an effort to prepare for additional reimbursement if it becomes available. Since the spring, Mansfield said that the district has devoted four staffers to the work fulltime on the public health crisis and had hired needed additional staff.

Mansfield said that his organization had received federal ELC funding, but that it was “money in and money out,” and “not adequate” to the cost of responding to the pandemic.

He described town officials as receptive to his request for a portion of the aid.