Sandy Dunfee, the Marshall County Public Health Nurse, asked the County Council for approval to apply for the second round of the School Reopening Grant. The grant is for $110,000.
Dunfee said this is the second round of the same grant the Council denied last year. This grant will help schools in the county with hearing and vision screening, their communicable disease plans as well as updating immunization records and offering childhood vaccines. While the County Health Department would administer regular vaccines, if someone wanted their child to receive the COVID vaccines they would be administered through one of the two hospitals in the county.
Councilman Jesse Bohannon asked if the funds were American Rescue Plan dollars and Dunfee said she thought it was through the CDC which filtered it down to the states and the states filter it out to the counties.
Councilman Tim Harman asked if the language in the grant would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to craft requirements or directives that the county would have to abide by.
Although she didn’t directly answer his question, Dunfee said, “The language changed for the year two because we were not the only department that got a no that first time around. So, the requirements for the year two are different than the year one.”
The commissioners unanimously approved the grant application last week and the council approved it with 6 yea votes and an abstention from Jesse Bohannon.
