Official Asks Hellertown to Support Regional Health Board

against funding such a proposal earlier this year. But in spite of that setback, proponents of a regional health board for Northampton and Lehigh counties haven't given up hope that ultimately their time will come.

As part of , Northampton County Director of Human Services Ross Marcus spoke to Hellertown Borough Council March 7.

Ross told council members that their passage of a resolution supporting the creation of a regional health board "would do a great deal toward helping us in our effort (to establish one)."

He also encouraged council members to speak to Northampton County Council members in order to advocate on a more personal level for the creation of a regional board of health.

The fact that "municipal officials have tended not to participate in the debate at the county level" has hurt the campaign for a bi-county board in the past, he said.

The overall current economic picture hasn't helped either, Marcus conceded, explaining that "prevention is always a tough sell."

Preventive medicine would be one of the major areas of responsibility for a bi-county health department, along with health inspections in establishments throughout both counties, Marcus said.

In fact, he observed, it is "the disparity of services in the Lehigh Valley" which has been a major motivator for advocates of the bi-county health department proposal.

In Allentown and Bethlehem, restaurants are regularly inspected by city-run health bureaus, but in smaller municipalities health inspections are the responsibility of the state Department of Agriculture.

The establishment of a Lehigh Valley Board of Health would ensure that inspections carried out in Hellertown are as rigorous and frequent as those carried out in nearby Bethlehem.

The total budget for the Lehigh Valley Board of Health under the current plan is approximately $10 million a year, Marcus said.

"How are you going to be able to keep costs down if we support this measure?" council member Stephanie Kovacs asked him.

In response, Marcus explained that most of the funding for the board would come from the state and federal government.

Northampton County's Department of Human Services only receives eight percent of its funding from the county, he said.

The bi-county board would not be affiliated with Northampton County's Department of Human Services, he added.

Kovacs asked Marcus to supply council with a detailed list of all the services a bi-county health board would provide, and recommended that council wait until after it receives the list to consider a resolution in support of the Lehigh Valley Board of Health.

"I think we should wait to see what the facts and figures are before we make that recommendation," she said.

Marcus promised to e-mail the information Tuesday, and Council President Phil Weber said a resolution for council to vote upon could be on its March 21 meeting agenda.