The Start on Closing the Health Gap

From:Cole, Laketa

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Date:

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 1:15 pm

Dear Citizen,

Roughly six years ago Council voted to support the Center for Closing the Health Gap (Center) as the result of a lawsuit settlement, which was negotiated by the previous Health Commissioner. The Solicitor has indicated that applying for the formation grant for an Office of Minority Health would be duplicative of the Center’s services. Council voted to not support the Health Department’s application for a formation grant as it is duplicative of the Center’s services and we could lose millions from the private sector.

It is important to note the potential funding is not “free”, rather it would cost the City, as the grant requires matching funds from the City, as well as requiring new office staff to implement the program.

It has been broadcast that “264,000” in grant had been awarded to the Health Department and the City forced the Department to return those funds; this is simply not true as the Department never received any funds. However, as stated by the Health Commissioner in a memo dated July 18^th, 2008 there was “potential funding that could come to the city through the establishment of an Office of Minority Health at the Health Department”, which is also untrue. In fact, the Health Department only ever requested to apply for $69,023 from Council (Council item #200800228).

This grant is a 2 year grant which states that the potential funding is up to $100,000 per year, which means only a total of $200,000, may be realized; therefore it is not possible for the Health Department to secure $264,000 in funding. In fact other cities have only received a total of $69,000 from this grant.

I believe and hope that you can agree that the Center for Closing the Health Gap is doing a great job of working toward reducing health disparities. It is not necessary for the Health Department to set up an office to deal with health disparities as they should already be doing this, especially as they receive a total of $32,065,400 ($32 million) per year, $20 million coming from the City.

I hope this e-mail helps in explaining Council’s position and our support towards combating health disparities in our city. Please note, Council’s position is to ensure we do not waste the taxpayer’s dollars by providing duplicative services and we have asked the Health Commissioner to work with the Center in their efforts to reduce health disparities.

Sincerely,

Councilmember Y. Laketa Cole