The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday heard the department's $260 million budget plan. Senate Bill 2004 includes more than $95 million for continuing the state's pandemic response, or 36% of the budget, the biggest piece. The COVID-19 items are budgeted for the entire 2021-23 budget cycle, which begins July 1.
"Nothing really highlights the importance of public health more than a public health emergency," said Brenda Weisz, the department's chief financial officer.
Major COVID-19 budget items include:
— $48.6 million for testing costs
— $20.7 million for contact tracing, case investigation, vaccines and surveillance
— $10 million for local public health units
— $7.2 million for lab workforce and related costs
— $1.9 million for personal protective equipment
The money for the pandemic budget items includes $54.5 million from general funds, $35.5 million in federal funds and $5 million from the Community Health Trust Fund, which is funded through a legal settlement years ago with tobacco companies.
Weisz said building the budget was challenging due to the pandemic's "ever-changing" nature. She outlined plans for testing, beginning with a mix of 4,000 lab and rapid tests per day from July to December, then decreasing to 3,000 tests per day in 2022, and going to 2,000 per day from January to June 2023.
State lab testing operations would move from 24/7 to weekdays only after June 2022, Weisz said.
Three senators were assigned to a subcommittee to handle the budget's development. No subcommittee meetings are scheduled for this week.
Sen. Ray Holmberg, R- Grand Forks, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the COVID-19 proposal "a starting point."
"We really have to look at No. 1, what they have in the budget, but No. 2, we also have to keep an eye on what is going to be coming down the pike from Washington, D.C., and what kind of things they're going to be doing," Holmberg said. "We will do the best we can with the information we have, send it to the House and then hopefully in April we'll have a much better idea of what the feds are doing."
Federal funding can be difficult to account for and is usually based on estimates, state Office of Management and Budget Director Joe Morrissette said.
"Here there's so much unknown about what additional federal response there might be, but it really adds a lot of uncertainty to the federal fund estimate that we're using," he said.
The 2019 Legislature approved a $160 million two-year budget for the Health Department. The state received $1.25 billion in federal CARES Act coronavirus aid last year.
Reach Jack Dura at 701-223-8482 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.
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