ASHLAND – Voters in the City of Ashland will decide Nov. 6 whether to give city council the authority to join the city’s health board with the county’s.
The issue in question is a proposed amendment to the city’s charter.
The amendment language states, “If council should determine the Ashland City Health District should unite with the general health district in the formation of a single district, it may do so in conformity with state law providing for the same.”
Passage of the charter amendment would not actually cause a change in governance or funding of the Ashland County-City Health Department, but it would allow council members to take a vote that would change both.
If the issue passes and council does decide to make the change, city residents would start paying a property tax for health services. County residents living outside the city already pay the tax, but city residents do not pay because the city pays for its share of health department costs using general fund money.
City income tax would remain the same, but because the city would no longer pay the county for health services, the city could use the portion of general fund revenue that now funds the health department for other expenditures.
The county’s property tax levy for the health department currently is .3 mills, but county voters will decide an on the November ballot an issue that would raise the millage to .45 mills, or $15.75 annually for the owner of a home valued at $100,000.
Without a change to the charter, city law director Richard Wolfe said, the city is required to maintain its own board of health. City leaders have been considering the possibility of combining the city health board with the county health board for decades, Wolfe said, but the language in the charter has prevented the consolidation.
In April, the city’s health board began contracting with the Ashland County General Health District Board to provide health services for the city. Wolfe said that move was made with eventual consolidation as a long-range plan.
Before that, both the city and county had their own health districts that operated cooperatively in the same location with the same employees. City and county leaders said that set-up was problematic because it resulted in unnecessary duplication and would have made an upcoming state accreditation process more expensive and cumbersome.
When asked for his opinion of the amendment, Ashland Mayor Matt Miller did not endorse or renounce the measure but indicated the recommendation to place the issue on the ballot did not come from himself.
“The city law director strongly encouraged the council to pursue this course,” Miller said.
Miller and Wolfe both emphasized the charter amendment would not require city leaders to take action but would allow them to if a need arises.
“If the city decides we just want to continue to contract with the Ashland County Health District board from now until eternity, we can do so,” Miller said. “but, if we come to the conclusion it would be most efficient to combine with the health department so there’s only one governing board, this gives us the ability to do so.”
Council president Steve Workman said the council has no plan to change its arrangement with the county.
“The intention is to maintain that contract,” Workman said. “This gets us in a position to make a change if we should so decide.”
Ashland County-City Health Department commissioner Sarah Goodwill Humphrey said while she does not take a position on the city’s charter amendment, she believes having a single general health district in the county would improve administrative efficiency for the health department’s jurisdiction.
