By Eric Mandel
emandel@covingtonreporter.com
Reagan Dunn received the messages.
After hearing from multiple city officials and members of the public, the King County Councilman told The Covington Reporter on Tuesday that he made a request to the council’s budget chair for full funding in 2015 of the Auburn Public Health Center.
Facing a $15 million annual budget deficit, the King County Council proposed closing the clinic on Dec. 31, along with its sister clinic in Federal Way and facilities in Bothell and White Center.
The closure in Auburn also threatens the Enumclaw and Muckleshoot Indian Reservation WIC offices, which are satellite operations of the Auburn center.
Partnerships and employee wage sacrifices helped rescue the clinics in White Center and Federal Way, but additional funding to assist Auburn and Enumclaw remains up in the air.
Dunn said he is championing funding for Auburn and Enumclaw as one of his top-three budget priorities and thinks he made a compelling pitch to Budget Chairman Joe McDermott during a one-on-one meeting Tuesday morning.
“It’s never a done deal until the votes are finally taken,” Dunn said. “I think people are taking this seriously.”
Black Diamond joined multiple other cities that opposed the clinic’s proposed closure, by passing a resolution at a meeting Oct. 16. The Maple Valley City Council followed suit with its own resolution Oct. 27.
The Black Diamond resolution stated the council “strongly supports” the clinic because it “provides valuable health care and other critical services to the public in the surrounding area, which includes Black Diamond.”
The resolution added that closure “will widen health disparities, and the entire community will suffer with increased rates of disease and chronic health problems.”
The resolution urged the King County Council to continue funding and operating the clinic’s existing services.
“This clinic and the support and primary care health services provided to the public are invaluable, and need to be maintained at the current level of service,” the resolution stated.
Dunn said city resolutions help.
“I like it when the city’s take action like that,” Dunn said. “It shows broad base support. I also like it when constituents write petitions — it gives me the tools I need.”
If the center closes, the two nearest remaining health clinics would be in Kent or Renton.
Closure of the site would mean elimination of Maternity Support Services and Infant Care Management for low-income pregnant women and some infants through their first year of life, Woman, Infants and Children nutrition services for low-income pregnant women and children ages 5 and younger and family planning services.
Of the clinic’s roughly 10,700 clients, 97 percent have incomes below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level, 59 percent are people of color and 11 percent are homeless.
The Enumclaw satellite, open once a week, served more than 1,700 clients in 2013. About 35 percent of those individuals had Enumclaw zip codes.
Keith Seinfeld, public information officer for Public Health Seattle-King County, said the Auburn Public Health Center, including those who visit the Enumclaw satellite, served approximately 50 Black Diamond residents in 2013.
“The people who use these services need them,” Seinfeld said. “We assume wherever possible, we will connect them with other providers, but not everyone can connect to other locations. … There will be some people who simply won’t get these services.”
Seinfeld said federal reductions and a lack of state funding forced the reductions.
“Public Health has not had a stable source of funding for these services for more than 10 years,” Seinfield said. “We are caught in a bind. We have to have a balanced budget. … The funding from the various revenues sources hasn’t kept pace. It’s been a challenge.”
Funding for the clinic could mean money taken away from other areas, brought from reserves or used from potential new revenue sources.
“I basically laid the marker down that that is an important item,” Dunn said. “I don’t know who’s ox it might gore moving forward quite yet, but we will see.”
Dunn said the county will continue looking for funding commitments from the cities of Auburn and Enumclaw.
“The county could get us most of the way there, but it always works better if we have municipal and private sector partners to help share the load for that important piece,” Dunn said. “It’s safe to say that it has broad base support in south and east King County. With a little heavy lifting we can get there, but we cannot make any promises at this point.”
