Vermilion board to weigh loan extension for health agency
DANVILLE – The Vermilion County Board could make things more difficult for the Vermilion County Health Department Tuesday night if the board does not extend a $300,000 loan the department owes the county.
The loan was made to the health department last year to help with its state-caused cash flow problems. The department has been unable to pay back the loan, so the board, which has extended the loan once, now must consider whether to extend it again.
The board meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday on the second floor of the Vermilion County Courthouse Annex, 6 N. Vermilion St., Danville.
If the loan is not extended, the health department could be out of business.
If it is extended, the hope of health department Administrator Steve Laker and county board Chairman Jim McMahon is that the department can limp along until the state comes through with full payment.
The department has a priority list of programs, and jobs, to be cut in coming weeks if the state does not come through. The department has already eliminated three state-funded grant programs, 12 positions and $423,000 from the department's budget as of Jan. 31.
McMahon said the department can make it until May on the money the state has sent.
But there are some members of the county board who want the department to be significantly downsized now, reducing the risk that the county might be left to pay the state's unpaid bills.
At last week's county board finance committee meeting, board member Terry Stal, D-District 4, proposed that the department keep only the federally funded programs and eliminate all state grant programs now.
McMahon asked the committee not to support the proposal, because he wants to wait until at least April before such a significant reduction in services is considered.
Stal and Chris Leigh, R-District 1, voted in favor of the deeper reduction, but the motion failed, because the other five members of the committee voted against it.
At Tuesday night's full county board meeting, members will decide whether to extend the loan and whether to approve the $423,000 reduction as is.
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