Health Commissioner reviews 2024 report, upcoming events and levy at county commission meeting

Highland County commissioners Brad Roades, Terry Britton and David Daniels heard an update on past, present and future activities of the Highland County Health Department at their Wednesday, April 9 meeting. The HCHD is celebrating National Public Health Week and the release of their 2024 report while also promoting an upcoming levy.

The meeting marked commissioners’ first in their temporary new home in room 106 at Southern State Community College’s central campus, as renovations are underway at the Highland County Administration Building. Commissioners anticipate meeting at SSCC until at least early August.

“I know it’s a little inconvenient for everyone, but I’ve got to say that our staff has done a pretty good job of maneuvering everything,” Britton said. “Our upstairs [floor of the administration building] where we were is vacant. There's nothing up there, so they're going to start ripping and tearing here soon.”

Their first appointment of the morning was with health commissioner Jared Warner, who distributed copies of the Health Department’s 2024 annual report and drew attention to some of “the highlights” of the past year. Those included:

• 43.26 tons (86,520 pounds) of trash removed from the community through the free “Dumpster Days” hosted by the HCHD.

“One of those programs that the commissioners have been really supportive of, and helpful of financially, is the Dumpster Days that we've offered across the county,” Warner said. “Last year, 2024, we removed over 43 tons of trash from people's houses, people's backyards and people's properties. I think that's been a really well-received project.

“We’re looking forward to continuing that this year, really trying to give people the opportunity to throw things away in a Dumpster, not in the ditch or in their back field, or wherever it is they may have otherwise thrown it. That helps us a lot and helps keep the community clean and looking nice.”

• 5,203 people reached through health awareness/community outreach events. That includes blood drives; school clinics; health fairs; partnerships for free health services such as mammograms, dental clinics, vision clinics and breast and/or cervical cancer screenings; and other special events such as the community baby shower, bike safety rodeo, water days with Paint Creek Fire/EMS, Highland County Overdose Awareness Day, Farm and Faith Mental Health Awareness, Brake for Breakfast, a Halloween expo at the Senior Center, Hidden in Plain Sight (Hobart), Greene County Guard Care event and the Highland County Fair.

“This is one of the big things that we really focused on in the last several years, trying to connect people with access to free health screenings, free health promotion events,” Warner said. “One of the things that that we consistently see in Highland County is the rates that we see of cardiovascular disease and cancer and other chronic health issues are usually pretty consistent with the rest of the state, but the rate at which we die from those issues is always much higher, and the big reason for that is we don't take advantage of preventative screenings.

“Our people tend to wait until something's really wrong and they go to the emergency room. We're trying to remove barriers and make access for those kind of screenings really readily available so people could find information out about their health quickly.”

• 2,873 office visits to their public health nursing division, which involved 3,486 vaccines administered, 140 labs drawn and 239 TB (tuberculosis) tests performed. The public health nursing division also traced 1,058 individual diseases and five reported outbreaks.

• The environmental health division performed 5,434 consultations, as well as 710 food inspections and 227 nuisance investigations.

• The vital statistics division handled 1,399 certified births and 1,218 certified deaths.

The complete report can be accessed at highlandcountyhealth.org or directly at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65772dbe251392487443aa80/t/67f41….

Many of the programs mentioned in last year’s report will continue this year, as Warner also shared a list of health awareness events for 2025. So far this year, the HCHD has provided free HPV vaccines for adolescents, free lipid panels, free condoms, referrals for free eye exams and glasses and free renal function panels, and they held a blood drive last month.

Each month has a different service featured depending on the theme of the month or week. Remaining programs for the year include: April, free condoms and free blood pressure checks; May, bike safety rodeo, free hepatic function panels and a blood drive; June, free PSA lab draws; July, free sunglasses; August, referral for free eye exams and glasses for eligible individuals and a blood drive; September, free preparedness education; October, Brake for Breakfast event; November, free hemoglobin A1Cs and referrals for free exams and glasses for eligible individuals; and December, free flu vaccines.

“We've got different programs scheduled for each month, and just trying to encourage people to take a minute, think about your health, take some action to see if you have any underlying issues you need to address,” Warner said.

Britton asked if appointments were required, and Warner said they accept walk-ins for nearly everything except bloodwork “where you have to fast.

“We encourage people to schedule those with us so we're prepared,” he said. “We talk about the prep they need to go through. But a lot of these are just walk in when we're open and we're happy to help.”

Another health service that will be offered for several months is a mobile low-cost dental program from June 16-Aug. 1 at the HCHD, though a partnership with HealthSource.

“There's a real barrier sometimes between parents being able to find a local dentist that will take their insurance and be able to get them in to get their kids seen,” Warner said. “We’ve worked with HealthSource to offer this service. There are fees involved, but it's on the sliding scale, so as they go through the registration process, there's some really significant discounts that are made available if someone's having trouble financially being able to afford potential screenings.

“Last year was a total sellout. We filled every spot, so it was really well received in the community.”

The Dumpster Days events will also continue this year, with dates scheduled for April 15-16 at the HCHD; May 20-21 at the Greenfield HCCAO; June 17-18 at the Highland Holiday dump; July 15-16 at the Lynchburg Sewer Treatment Plant; Aug. 19-20 at the Mowrystown Fire Station; and Sept. 16-17 at the HCHD.

“We are excited this year to get down into Mowrystown and to get over to Lynchburg,” Warner said.

The health commissioner also shared a handout to promote their levy on the ballot for the May 6 primary. The Highland County Health Department is seeking a proposed replacement and decrease (by half a mill) of two previously existing levies.

A proposed replacement and decrease levy for the Health Department failed in the November 2024 general election. That was proposed as a 0.7-mill, five-year levy, replacing two existing levies and decreasing by 0.3 mill.

The new proposal for voters to consider in May is for one half-mill levy, as the Health Department formerly received revenue through two half-mill levies. According to Warner and Auditor Alex Butler, the levy would amount to $18 per $100,000 of the county auditor’s appraised value.

For example, Warner said Wednesday, it works out to “$33 a year” on his own tax bill.

“I think we all recognize that taxes are not very popular, and especially after some of the property tax increases, it's going to be a hard sell,” Warner said. “We’re really trying to get one step past that initial mindset, and to get people to look at the amount of money that we're talking to keep the health department financially stable for the next five years, is about one percent of a person's property tax.

“It's a reduction in the amount of money we're currently pulling in taxes, so if people are tired of high taxes, this actually reduces the amount they'll be paying on their property taxes. Half a mill represents the smallest countywide tax that we have on the books.”

Keeping in mind all of the services recapped, Warner said that he hoped people would “take a second and think past the ‘we all hate taxes’ mindset and ask themselves instead if one percent” of their taxes were worth “710 food inspections, 1,000 diseases tracked, 43 tons of trash removed.

“We have measles outbreaks across Ohio right now,” Warner said. “Is $33 enough to cover knowing that an agency's there to respond if we have something like that happen in Highland County? That's the mindset I really want people to ask.”

For another example of what that $33 goes toward, Warner told a story of a business in the county that had “the worst cockroach infestation I'd ever seen in my life.” The health department was “there with them essentially every day for two weeks, walking them through the cleanup process,” until the problem was resolved.

“That's the kind of work that we do behind the scenes that the rest of the community never hears about, and I think that's worth $33 a year,” Warner said. “You actually get a pretty good return on investment for the $33, or whatever it is in your property taxes that you pay, for the health department.”

After thanking Warner for the report, Britton asked if the HCHD has seen “any problems” thus far with measles outbreaks.

“Not at this point,” Warner said. “Anecdotally, we've seen an increase in a kind of anti-vaccine mentality, so we don't have the numbers yet that are really rolled in to show us how we've dropped X number of percentages.

“There's definitely the feeling amongst our people and our school nurses talking to them that there's a lot more people who are choosing not to get vaccinated than in the past. The nearest outbreak right now to us is in Knox County, which is not really too far from our front doors.”

Warner added that there is increased risk for the entire community, even those who are vaccinated, when the number of immunizations is on the decline.

“The thing that's concerning for us about measles is that once the overall community vaccination rate drops below a certain percentage, it really makes it easy for measles to spread through the community,” Warner said. “It's primarily going to affect people who are unvaccinated, but you can occasionally have a spillover rate that affects people who are vaccinated. The thing we especially worry about are those who can't get vaccinated for health reasons — chronic health issues, immunity or immune deficiency issues.

“There are a certain number of people in our population who would love to get vaccinated and can't, so they're especially vulnerable when something like this goes through.”

Roades asked Warner “what’s driving the fear of vaccines,” and Warner said it could take “hours” to dissect.

“Part of it is that vaccines have been so successful that we don't see the actual disease very often, and so we don't always do a great job of looking at the risks involved and understanding what they are,” Warner said. “I like to use the car analogy. In the United States, you have, in your lifetime, a one in 107 chance of dying in a car accident, but none of us, when we drove to the meeting this morning, sat there and thought, ‘am I going to die today? Is this a safe thing to do?’ It’s just something that we accept the risk of. We know there's a risk, we accept it, because the alternative is we don't get to go anywhere and do anything, so we've taken that risk calculation and we're good with it.

“We look at the risks from vaccines, it's something like one in 550,000 that you'll have an adverse reaction to vaccines, and they do happen. There's no medication that's 100-percent safe, and it's important to recognize that, but there's a disproportionate perception of the risk of vaccines, when you compare it to a lot of other things we do every day that are much higher risk. We just have this risk perception issue because we haven't really seen what it looks like for a kid to have measles in so long.”

Warner added that measles can cause a number of “complications,” including “encephalitis and brain swelling, hearing loss and hearing issues,” including making patients “absolutely miserable.

“I think, unfortunately, we may have to go through seeing some of those cases in reacquainting ourselves with the risk of measles so we can make that risk evaluation a little more clearly,” Warner said. “The risk of the vaccine is much lower than the risk of measles. I'd much rather take the one in 550,000 chance that I'm going to have a health issue than one in 1,000 that I'm going to die.”

Commissioners thanked Warner for his updates.

In other discussion:

• Wayne Howard, Rocky Fork Detachment Leader of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 082-06-10, addressed commissioners to explain the group’s purpose. After his presentation, commissioners agreed to be an “information center” by allowing the group to place brochures in their office, which is temporarily housed in the basement of the administration building.

Howard said the Auxiliary is currently recruiting additional members for their Rocky Fork Lake detachment, hoping to find more “people in the local area.” Some of their services include public education on recreational safety and vessel exams. For more information, you can contact the group at their Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572877722279.

As a thank-you for commissioners allowing Howard to give a presentation, he gave them a “certificate of appreciation.”

• Damon Lucas reported that FRS Transportation is adding 20 vehicles to their fleet this year, bringing their total number of vehicles up to 85.

• Commissioners recognized April 2025 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. For more, see the story at: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/commissioners-issue-sexual-assault….

Commissioners also made various approvals throughout the meeting, including the following:

• A motion to name county human resources director Amy Bradley as the county liaison for Hyper-Reach. Roades said that when the county implements the program for internal alerts instead of just for weather/disaster notifications as it is currently used, Bradley is “going to be the one that has control of sending out messages to everybody that is a county employee.”

• The execution of a letter to TC3 alerting them of a 30-day window to remove items stored at the North High Business Center.

• A contract among commissioners, the county engineer and Miller-Mason Paving Co. for the 2025 Highland County Chip Seal Program.

• A standard commercial security agreement and a standard fire alarm agreement, both with Greystone Systems, Inc., for the Highland County Administration Building renovation.

• The execution of a change order for HIG CR 5 New Market Road reconstruction & resurfacing.

• The execution of an application for payment submitted by Doll Layman, Ltd.

• A letter of support for a Record Disaster Mitigation Program grant application.

• An additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue within the 2605 Revolving Loan Fund in the amount of $14,021.37.

• A request from EMA for an additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue within the 2780 Emergency Management Fund in the amount of $1,017.46.

• A resolution to appoint Roades as the designee to the Solid Waste Management District Policy Committee for the year 2025 representing the Highland County Commissioners.

• A request from Probation for a budget modification within the 2665 Specialized Docket Subs Fund in the amount of $50.

• A resolution declaring listed items from the Sheriff to be surplus property and no longer needed by the County and obsolete, ORC 307-12 (A)(1).

• A resolution declaring listed items from various county offices to be no longer needed by the County and obsolete, ORC 307-12 (A)(1).

• A request from EMA for an additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue within the 2785 Right to Know Fund in the amount of $82,619.76.

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