CARBONDALE - Cuts to health services might save the state in the short term but the long-term costs they spawn will dwarf those savings, health officials warned Monday.

With the prospect of a budget that is underfunded by 50 percent upon them, a crowd of administrators from Southern Illinois health departments gathered at the offices of Jackson County Health Department to urge state lawmakers to pass a fully-funded budget.

Angie Messmer, of Southern Seven Health Department said, under the state's current spending plan, the outlook was dim for her agency, which relies on grants for 92 percent of its funding.

JCHD Administrator Miriam Link-Mullison said the state's cuts will go to core public health services, which include water, sewer and restaurant inspections, immunizations and monitoring communicable diseases.

"What would make sense for me would be to cut those core public health services last," she said.

Officials from Egyptian Health Department and Franklin-Williamson Health Department were also on hand.

Jamie Byrd of EHD singled out cuts to restaurant inspections as being particularly problematic and cited an instance where an employee spread a disease through an ice scooper as evidence of what could happen should inspections be cut.

Together, agencies claim they stand to see $1.2 to $1.5 million in funding cut from their budgets.

"That amount," Link-Mullison said, "would be devastating."

blackwell.thomas@thesouthern.com

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