Pottawatomie County health officials hope federal money will allow them to upgrade much of its infrastructure going forward.
Health Department Director Leslie Campbell presented an application request to the county commission for a $221,000 federal COVID-19 ELC Expanding Infrastructure grant. Campbell proposed several items including $25,000 for temporary staff for case investigation and $10,000 to create a mobile vaccine clinic.
“The idea would be to take one of the transportation buses that are going to go out of service, retrofit it with a table, make sure the benches work the way they should so people can come into there, get a vaccine and it would be mobile,” she said.
The bus would be multipurpose for other things like flu shots and other clinics as deemed necessary by the health department.
All requests are subject to amendment by KDHE and the commission would have final say over any purchases above $10,000, and each request is subject to amendment. A point of contingency for commissioners Monday was the expense of a $50,000 proposed generator for the Wamego Senior Center to have a permanent satellite site for emergency operations.
Commissioner Pat Weixelman expressed hesitation toward such large purchases because when it comes time to repair, the county may not have room within its budget to pay for such maintenance.
“So you get the $50,000, but you’re also buying future time on taking maintenance on it or replacing it. This is what I have a hard problem as far as spending money that’s just falling from the skies,” he said.
Both Weixelman and Commissioner Dee McKee said they’d prefer, before signing off on any large purchases, to see a spelled out long-term plan for a proposed satellite site. McKee brought up that in the past the Senior Center hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of sharing such space with local health officials.
Commissioners approved the application. The grant period is from June 2021 through June 2022.
A list of the requests can be found below.
| Salary SFY2021 | Temporary Staff for case investigation, return to work and school letters, support for administration staff, vaccine support staff for scheduling, printing and scanning consents | $25,000.00 |
| Salary SFY2021 | Overtime for Nursing Staff – Disease Investigation and Documentation of Vaccines in WebIZ | $15,000.00 |
| Salary SFY2021 | IT Contract staff to upgrade server and mitigate lag time in connection to internet, update Clinical Management System connection speed | $12,000.00 |
| Salary | HD Assistant Director –Nursing Supervisor % of wages | $16,333.00 |
| Salary | HD Director % | $20,300.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Insurance Card scanners | $1,250.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Totes with wheels | $1,000.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Headsets with mic for phone system | $1,800.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Security System for Health Department Building | $3,400.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Large digital Clock | $400.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies SFY2021 | Laptop | $1,400.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies | IT Hardware and Software – Upgrade Server – 8 years old | $12,000.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies | Laptop | $2,800.00 |
| Equipment/Supplies | Supplies – Cleaning Products, wraparound services, under the counter refrigerator, Zoom Subscription, | $18,955.00 |
| Training | Electronic Health Record Training Cost | $5,000.00 |
| Other SFY2021 | Adobe Pro Licenses | $1,260.00 |
| Other SFY2021 | Furniture for Temp Staff | $1,500.00 |
| Other | Adobe Pro Licenses | $1,260.00 |
| Other | Retrofitting a Mobile Transportation Bus for Covid Vaccine | $10,000.00 |
| Other | Generator for permanent satellite site along with wiring and placement | $50,000.00 |
| Other | Temperature Guard system for permanent satellite clinic | $700.00 |
| Electronic Health Record system (EHRs) | implementation late SFY22-January 2023, Scheduling System for self-scheduling of appointments – Reminder for Second Shots | $20,000.00 |
| $221,358.00 |
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