Health center gains $70,000 revenue
By Brandy Nance
Originally published 01:06 p.m., October 25, 2007
Updated 01:06 p.m., October 25, 2007
Lyon County commissioners had a light agenda Wednesday morning during their regular study session. Lougene Marsh, executive director of the Flint Hills Community Health Center, gave commissioners the Health Center’s quarterly report. Marsh said the health center received additional funding of $80,000 on a community-based primary care grant from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment but lost $10,000 in prescription assistance for a net gain of $70,000.
Marsh said the health center did not finalize a contract with Osage County to manage the health department there. Instead, Osage County hired an administrator for its health department. Marsh gave commissioners an update on Project Teen, which is a program the health center runs in the community to help prevent teen pregnancy. The program was started in 1998 with a significant grant from the Kansas Health Foundation.
“With funding from the abstinence-based program ... we’ve been able to sustain that work,” Marsh said.
The abstinence-based program funds, however, are at risk, Marsh said, because they need to be approved at the federal level.
“This is a really grave concern for us because there are many, many services that we provide that are important,” Marsh said, adding that the services have a long-range economic impact. “Teen pregnancy (prevention) is one of the programs that can avoid long-term social costs.”
Marsh said Project Teen is a program that has not received or requested county money, but she wanted commissioners to be aware of the financial challenges that program faces in the future.
In other business:
• Dan Slater, county controller, said the price of Lyon County’s audit from Agler and Gaeddert went up from $19,000 in 2006 to a base price of $22,000 for the 2007 audit.
• Commissioners will vote on a contract today with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to clean up an illegal dump site on Road R7, near Admire. The site, which is on private land, is eligible in up to $10,000 of assistance from KDHE.
• Commissioners set a new bid date on Lyon County Bridge Project FAS 230 for Nov. 28. The project was up for bid previously, but all bids were rejected last week because they came over the engineer’s estimated cost.