Upon approval, this action will result in an annual salary and benefit cost increase of approximately $2,495,390 with $567,916 in pension cost included. These positions will be fully offset by 100% Public Health State Funding.
The Department is requesting these positions to permanently staff and strengthen the Public Health Division's Quality and Accreditation programs, and Communicable Disease and Emergency Response programs. The future plan of Public Health funding includes replacing time limited funding for existing positions covered by COVID related grants; replacing project positions with permanent positions for long term sustainability; and replacing time limited funding for existing positions covered by Public Health Workforce Development, other Public Health grants, and permanent positions that need on-going funding.
Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS) is requesting to add the following 8 positions within the Public Health Division:
-One (1) Infection Prevention and Control Manager position
-Two (2) Disease Intervention Technician positions
-Two (2) Clerk – Senior Level positions
-Two (2) Public Health Program Specialist I positions
-One (1) Administrative Aide position
These positions will be assigned to the Public Health Communicable Disease and Emergency Response programs to increase the capacity of the units in order to effectively respond to current and future disease reporting, tracking and mitigation. The current disease workforce includes project and temporary positions supported with Covid specific and time-limited funding. The future of Public Health funding will be leveraged to create permanent positions to support on-going disease response workload increases.
The department is also requesting the addition of the following two positions for the Personnel Unit to aid in the recruitment and hiring of the expanding public health workforce and ongoing needs:
-One (1) Clerk – Senior Level position
-One (1) Departmental Human Resources Analyst II position
The two (2) Administrative Services Assistant II positions requested will support programs in the monitoring of contracts and grants. They will support programs with complex grants and reporting requirements, alleviating the administrative burden on the program managers. The Public Health division is experiencing a growth in grant opportunities and has been unable to support their Finance division at an adequate level. These positions will ensure that programs are meeting internal and external deadlines and tracking expenditures/invoices in a more timely manner.
Additionally, the department is requesting to add three positions to assist the Public Health Quality unit with the Public Health Accreditation process, a multi-year initiate to strengthen the public health practice by champion performance improvement, strong infrastructure, and innovation. The accreditation process requires departments to develop a quality plan, community health assessment, division-wide improvement strategies, workforce development plan and other initiatives. The following three positions will support in all aspects of this process:
-One (1) Health Services Systems Analyst II position (PH equity-focused data analysis in BI)
-One (1) Planner and Evaluator - Level B position
-One (1) Public Health Program Specialist II position
If this request is not approved, these positions will not be properly allocated to the Public Health division and other departmental divisions providing various administrative supports, and will negatively affect Public Health's future plan of funding and program activities.