GREENFIELD — Pleading to the City Council to restore the Health Department to full staff, the Board of Health chairman Wednesday cited a severe decline in health inspections as his department “collapsed” over the past year.
“Numbers don’t lie,” Steve Adam told the council. Only one-sixth of the annual health inspections have been completed this year — as the department has shrunk to one inspector since July and is heading toward zero this November following a recent resignation.
The call to action came to the council two weeks before the last day on the job for health inspector Chelsey Little.
The council held a first-reading of a motion to reinstate $50,000 to the department’s budget, which was cut from this year’s spending plan. Following its protocol, the council did not comment on the initial proposal that Mayor William Martin had called “crucial” last week.
It will take it up at a later meeting.
It’s not definite the city will be without a health inspector come November, but Martin’s Chief of Staff Mark Smith said Wednesday night, “I want to do something that is right so that we have a vibrant inspections department.”
The mayor could not make the council meeting Wednesday because of an urgent, last-minute issue, his staff said.
In Adam’s remarks during public comment portion of the council meeting, he listed the roles the health department plays, from enforcing housing and sanitary codes to issuing burial permits.
Adam said the “crisis” the health department is facing began in June 2017 with the resignation of its then director, Nicole Zabko, and has continued to the point where the city stands to have no inspector – with the resignation of Chelsea Little on Nov. 2.
“In one year’s time, the city of Greenfield’s health department has collapsed and the budget has substantially been cut to fulfill financial needs in other areas,” Adam said. “The city of Greenfield simply cannot hire qualified health inspectors on a reduced budget. Furthermore, the work the Health Department is required to do by law in a city the size of Greenfield cannot be done by a single health inspector. In fact, it can barely be done by two.”
He urged the councilors to restore the Health Department.
Longtime member of the Board of Health Dr. William Doyle said he was “very upset” about the state of the Health Department.
“You’ve cut out the legs from under us,” Doyle said. “I hope that you can find it in your hearts to basically put back the $50,000 to our organization.”
At present, the mayor is working with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments to provide inspection help for $150,000 over three years.
The cost is similar to the price of an in-house inspector, said former Finance Director Lane Kelly, who came out of retirement in August to run the city’s books on a volunteer basis.
The hired health inspector would work on food establishments, which would leave a host of work still unaccounted for in the department.