PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — In Maryland, every county is legally obligated to match the state’s allocated Core Funding for public health. Calvert’s state allocation for the fiscal year was $6,460,620, requiring the county to act quickly to make up the $777,401 from other funds.
Each county in Maryland has a unique match requirement for Core Funding allocated to their health departments, a mandate that has been legislatively in place since 1995. The county received the state’s annual Core agreement in May. In order to meet the match, the county moved $777,401 from the Prior Year Fund Balance to the Calvert County Health Department General Fund. The funds stay in the county — Calvert is just obligated to match the amount.
Deputy Health Officer Champ Thomaskutty said the funds would be used in part to support nursing positions in the county and to convert the part-time epidemiologist position to a full-time role. Funds will also be used to create a public information office and go toward emergency preparedness and community health workers. Thomaskutty said the funds are “fluid,” and their use could change depending on grant funding.
The Health Department’s operating budget is almost $26 million, 55% of which comes from competitive grants. The grants are a mix of state funding and federal dollars that come through the state. The Core program is not a grant, but an agreement to share healthcare costs — it’s meant to support the ten essential public health services so each county can “thrive and excel.” The funding covers infrastructure, administrative costs, communications, infectious disease management, and more.
The department’s budget this year has been affected by federal cuts that also happen to be in areas usually covered by Core funding. Infectious diseases, maternal child health, and tobacco outreach are some examples. Thomaskutty anticipated that the county would have to find ways to close the gaps on funding for programs that had previously been funded by grants.
He also elaborated that Calvert’s required match was nearly $2 for every one state dollar, a “legacy calculation” whose origins are unclear. But even between the state and county funding, Core only accounts for about a quarter of the Health Department’s operating budget.
Public hearing was available as advertised for the amendment — one resident called in to recommend listing budget adjustments on the county website so people can follow updates throughout the year, and how matching programs like this are calculated. However, the updated Core funding amount was not included in the budget amendment that the Board of County Commissioners passed at the June 30 meeting because the Health Department had not yet received the allocation amount when the public hearing for the budget was announced. Both Thomaskutty and the commissioners said getting state allocations on time has been an ongoing issue in building the budget over the years.
The board approved the measure 5-0.
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