Title
Communication from the Health Commissioner regarding a Recommended Spending Plan for the City's Bio-Terrorism Planning Grant.
Body
BIOTERRORISM GRANT EXPENDITURE PLAN
Last fall, the Administration and Finance Committee approved a grant contract between the State of Wisconsin and the West Allis Health Department in the amount of $23,297 for Bioterrorism planning. The contract was approved with the stipulation that grant expenditures be approved prior to being implemented. The following is a proposed expenditure plan for your review.
Before reviewing the actual plan, several key points need to be addressed:
1. The plan supports public health preparedness across the board, not just in the area of bioterrorism. It seems that anything related to public health these days has the label bioterrorism attached to it. The real need we hope to fill is better training and investigative methods for all communicable disease, not just those identified as bioterrorism agents. This science of disease investigation is called epidemiology. These skills are not only used to track down the cause of communicable diseases, but can also be applied to what we termed chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
2. The plan looks at emergency response as a whole city, not just one department. We know that a large scale, public health emergency may involve police, fire and other city departments. For this reason, I have consulted with our Police and Fire Chiefs and we are presenting a joint recommendation. You will see, for example, budgeting for a field exercise, a recommendation made by the Fire chief.
3. The grant awarded to West Allis was in the amount of $23,297. The State grouped West Allis and West Milwaukee together in determining the award, and the grant will be used to improve emergency response and planning over both communities.
4. This grant for local public health planning is a small part of a multi-year grant the S...
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