Springfield voters decide Tuesday whether to abolish
the city’s 170-year-old health department and entrust its employees,
property, and services to the Sangamon County Department of Public Health.
The Sangamon County Board has promised if the merger
is accepted, there will be no decreases in jobs, salaries or services
— a promise that proponents say makes the merger question a
no-brainer.
The fine print on the offer, though, makes it clear
that several of the most attractive elements of the deal are set to expire
after two years.
The details are spelled out in an
“Intergovernmental Agreement” drafted by the County Board and
adopted March 8. This agreement outlines how the merger will proceed if
city voters and the Springfield City Council approve the consolidation. The
referendum on the April 5 ballot is officially non-binding, but council
members have already said they will abide by the decision rendered by
voters.
If the two health departments are merged, the
consolidated department will be governed by the Sangamon County Board of
Health, a panel appointed by the County Board. According to the
intergovernmental agreement, the County Board will reserve seats on that
panel for two City Council members chosen by Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin
— but only for two years from the date the agreement is signed.
The intergovernmental agreement also promises that
the county health department will hire everyone currently working at the
city health department and place them in “comparable” positions
with salaries and benefits “equal to or above” the salary and
benefits they had received from the city. No city employee can be fired,
according to this agreement, without the vote of a “special
tribunal” of the Board of Health. The tribunal would comprise the two
City Council members of the board, and the board’s president.
However, this promise also expires within two years.
This two-year clause has been all but ignored in news
stories and editorials about the intergovernmental agreement published by
the State Journal-Register. The SJ-R’s editorial board has endorsed the merger.
The agreement doesn’t set an expiration date on
the County Board’s pledge to maintain all services currently provided
by the city health department; rather, it says the services will be
maintained “for the period of time that it remains reasonable and
appropriate to provide the services.”
Other elements of the merger would be irrevocable.
For example, the City would permanently relinquish its certification to run
a health department.
The merger has been cast as a political battle due to
the County Board’s overwhelmingly Republican membership, contrasted
with the officially non-partisan City Council’s 6-5
Democrat-Republican split.
The merger was proposed in November by Ward 1 Ald.
Frank Edwards, a Republican, after Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz, a Democrat, said
he would cross party lines and support a merger — if the county
government could prove a merger would be in the best interests of
Springfieldians.
The city health department currently draws about $1.4
million from the city’s general fund, and previous merger proposals
would have required the city to continue financing a portion of the merged
department. The March 8 intergovernmental agreement sweetens the deal by
making no such requirement.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2005.
