Updated: Council Votes to Stay With Ledge Light

The Ledyard Town Council voted 7-1 Wednesday to continue its membership in the Ledge Light Health District after hearing a lengthy presentation from Patrick McCormack, Director of Health of the Uncas Health District. 

The decision was contingent on Ledge Light holding its per capita cost to $6.85, the same amount charged by Uncas Health District. Council member David Holdridge cast the lone dissenting vote.

Ledyard has been a member of Ledge Light Health District since 2001. But citing spiraling costs, the town gave notice to Ledge Light in December that it intends to withdraw.  It has been engaged in talks with five other towns in the region about the possibility of creating a new, less expensive health district.

The Uncas Health District serves 80,000 residents in the towns of Bozrah, Griswold, Lisbon, Montville, Norwich, Sprague, and Voluntown. Its $6.85 per resident cost compares favoably to the $7.41 that Ledyard now pays as a member of Ledge Light.

McCormack spoke frankly about the services that the Uncas Health District could provide, as well as the costs, conceding that the town may decide that they would not be a perfect fit. “I don’t think everything has to be us against them,” McCormack said, downplaying any competition between Uncas and other health districts.

Some services that Uncas Health District would provide include blood pressure clinics, immunizations and lead screenings.

“A lot of things we’re doing is to try to get out into the community a bit more,” McCormack said. He noted that with present-day communication systems, it is less necessary to have people in the office then it once was. “My cell phone is on 24/7,” he said.

Tom Marien, who handles the accounting for Uncas Health District, explained the breakdown of the operating costs, for which 78 percent is staff. Adding Ledyard to their district would create a position for a full- and part-time sanitarian, an office manager and a part-time public health nurse.

Marien underlined the importance of grants as a source of income for the health district. Currently, these make up 35 percent of all the money they receive. Another 40 persent comes from the towns and 12 persent is from the state.

“We all know in these challenging times, grants are seeming to be harder to come by,” Marien said.

When the presentation opened to discussion, Council Member David Holdridge wanted to know why the Uncas Health District was more expensive than other plans. “Why can Northeast do it for 3.70?” he asked.

McCormack replied that the Northeast District Department of Health, in Windham County had to make reductions on its staff and raise rates for individual services, such as septic system inspections. “There’s a give and take for everything,” he said.

The proposed new health district that would include Preston, North Stonington, Stonington, Franklin and East Lyme, is aiming provide basic public health services as mandated by the state for about $4 per resident.

On the question of salaries, he said he favored higher, more competitive salaries for administrators such as himself in order to foster commitment and reduce turnover. “There’s a liability to not doing things in a professional way,” he said.

Mayor Fred B. Allyn Jr. asked about what need there was to add extra staff to the district were Ledyard to join. McCormack said that the advantage to adding staff was that they would take the burden off of other departments in town, which would not have to take on as many duties.

Other discussions at the town hall meeting Wednesday included a presentation on road maintenance from Director of Public Works Steve Masalin and Tony Garro from BETA Inc. He proposed that Ledyard put more effort into maintaining roads that were starting to deteriorate instead of focusing exclusively on roads that were already in serious disrepair.