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AJ Jones: You're listening to Morning Edition on member supported WCMU, I'm AJ Jones. The public health department that covers Alpena, Cheboygan, Montmorency and Presque Isle counties is facing a massive budget shortfall, to the tune of close to $1 million. It's led to questions about the board's financial future and how they got into the situation. Joining me now is reporter Kayla Wikaryasz of the Alpena News, who has been following this closely. So, Kayla, there is said to be close to $1 million lost. What is the board saying about why they can't account for this money?
Kayla Wikaryasz: Yea, it's a very complex, complicated situation. There doesn't seem to be straight answer to where this money is, what happened to this money. It seems like it's a mix of misreporting. There was some COVID money take backs from the state, so it's kind of a web of multiple different things happening and they're definitely in the process of trying to figure that out. They just recently hired a new health finance director and so they are kind of starting from scratch and trying to backtrack and to figure out what exactly happened.
AJ: And sort of to that end, Kayla, what is the board doing now to address the shortfall?
KW: As far as what they have let us, the public, know is that they have multiple audits happening. There's actually an audit that was supposed to be submitted by March 15th and that has been delayed significantly and it's going to be delayed further to try to figure out where these shortfalls occurred. As far as they have let the public know so far is that, like I said, there's been misreporting. Reports were not filed to the state and consequently the state had put stops on payments to the health department.
AJ: Sort of zooming out, thinking about this bigger picture, what has been the impact of the loss funding?
KW: So far, there's just been layoffs, and this began on June 14th. Our office got a tip that there had been a layoff for the emergency preparedness supervisor. This was kind of layoff that was, I don't want to say it's expected, but I think it was kind of on the horizon. The state was looking at cutting some of the money that was going towards emergency preparedness supervisors, so that was the first layoff that happened. It was kind of in conjunction of those state cuts, but also these budding developing financial challenges that the health department was facing. And then by June 18th, the board had disclosed to the public that there was another layoff: the human resources coordinator, who was actually not hired. This person was hired in due to COVID money. This position didn't exist before COVID, so again this was kind of a layoff that happened is a compounding effect of some take back money from COVID, but also the developing financial issues.
AJ: And finally, with this story as this progresses, what are you keeping your eye?
KW: Mostly we are, as far as our office, regarding my reporting, we are looking at mostly...we are waiting for this audit. I think this audit is going to be very telling. It's going to give us some answers and also give us an actual number to how much money has actually been lost. That's the term that they've been using because Denise Bryan, the health officer, she hasn't been able to comment a specific figure yet. And I think once we get those exact numbers, that will really be telling on what the impact is going to be.
AJ: Thank you. And there seems to be quite a lot to account for. Thanks for breaking this down for us, Kayla, we really appreciate it.
KW: Thank you.
