The Nodaway County Health Department Board of Trustees met December 8 and December 15 to finalize the 2022 budget.

At the December 8 meeting, Administrator Tom Patterson went over a rough draft of the proposed budget for the board to consider.

Mosaic Medical Center – Maryville President Nate Blackford shared current happenings at the hospital, challenges and insight into the future.

At the December 15 meeting, the board approved the 2022 budget along with a two percent pay increase for the employees. The projected income is $743,108 which includes $1,000 United Way pass-through funding for school nurses.

Patterson doesn’t expect to continue the Go NappSac contract. He also didn’t include Nodaway County restaurant permit fees. The COVID Cares contract has been replaced for 2022 with ELC Cares, COVID increasing adult immunization, a new contract for COVID outreach and offsite education, and the COVID Coop Agreement.

The Missouri Health Disparities contract for $50,000 is pending approval. The health department will partner with Northwest Missouri State University to apply for funding to support COVID contact tracing and education as well as improve university communicable disease testing capabilities to improve health outcomes.

The 2022 projected expenses are at $743,382.70. The WIC coordinator Deanna Bowers is no longer going to be the COVID planner so will be two days a week instead of full-time. Patterson is planning to add up to a day for Bowers to do community nutrition.

Patterson is planning on adding a Northwest student as an intern to the health department. His project is going to focus on working with the university to support immunization tools and to create education awareness among students.

The 2022 holiday schedule was approved with 14 holidays.

The 2021 budget was finalized with income of $524,669.65 and expenses of $483,350.12.

“We are seeing some flu cases whereas last year there were none at this time,” Patterson said in his communicable disease report. “Last year was odd. We probably had around a dozen cases at this point. COVID-19 case numbers are holding in the teens for the last week or so. We should anticipate an increase following the holidays but hopefully that will be limited.

“The Omicron variant is being found in Missouri. We could expect this variant to spread in many places at the same time as it is very transmissible.

“There is still a lot to learn about the variant but early reports have indicated it may be milder than Delta. There is a possibility it will out-compete Delta and be milder, which would be an interesting development. The extent of its impact is not yet known, however, we should anticipate a lot of focus on Omicron in the next month.”

The health department is continuing to provide COVID and flu vaccinations. Demand has been steady, especially for the COVID booster.