At least sixteen of Illinois' 97 public health departments have laid off employees or cut back service hours, and more are expected unless the state comes through with funding. It comes as flu season approaches, after regional outbreaks of Legionnaire's Disease and the mumps, and after the state announced that it will no longer pay for testing S-T-D specimens --- meaning the local departments have to take on an additional cost.
President of the Illinois Association of Public Health Administrators, Miriam Link-Mullison, says the fiscal situation is increasingly desperate.
"What is happening to local health departments is a perfect storm. It feels a little bit ... we've been brought to the edge of something with five years of cuts, and then been frozen out of the budget for three months, and then you know, unfortunately the timing on the STD happens."
Link-Mullison says she's hopeful that when they return to Springfield later this month, legislators will approve a measure that forwards the public health departments $17 million in grant money. However, the governor and his fellow Republicans have been critical of what they call "piecemeal" funding measures when the state has no agreed plan to pay for them.
A dispute over issues like workers' compensation and legislative term limits has held up funding talks.
