Health District Board Exploring Brookfield Merger

By John Voket

There were many more questions than answers Tuesday as the Newtown Health District board reacted to recent requests from Brookfield to fold that community and its 16,000 residents into the local multitown organization. Currently, the Newtown Health District encompasses Newtown, the Borough of Newtown, Bridgewater, and Roxbury.

The Bee reported last week that following the resignation of its part-time health director and full-time sanitarian, Brookfield was forced to call on Newtown Health Director Donna Culbert to transact emergency health measures requiring review and signatures from a qualified official. At that time, Brookfield’s newly elected First Selectman Robert Silvaggi reaffirmed a strong desire to merge with the Newtown district, thereby saving the community from having to hire its own part-time official.

The issue highlighted an initiative by the state health department to bring all communities to full-time status, either through consolidations and mergers among two or more smaller entities, or by going full-time as a single community. Director of Local Health Administration Pamela Kilby-Fox was on hand for part of this week’s special meeting, to illustrate the possible upside of Newtown acquiring Brookfield.

That benefit seemed to be predominantly financial. Early on in the meeting, nearly every board member expressed skepticism. Ms Culbert shared their concern, saying Brookfield has traditionally lagged behind other neighboring communities in enhancing health district practices.

Newtown Health District medical advisor Dr Thomas Draper said before the town even begins exploring the feasibility of merging with Brookfield, he would insist on a sanitary survey being performed by an outside consultant.

“The town may have a large number of septic systems on the verge of failure,” Dr Draper said. Saying he has a feeling residents in Brookfield are not aware of the status and history of their health department, Dr Draper suggested a merger with a highly progressive and conforming district like Newtown “could create a very adversarial relationship between the health district and the public.”

Board member Bernie Meehan spoke plainly about his concerns.

“If they buy into the health district [merger], they won’t be able to cut corners anymore,” Mr Meehan said. “After the sanitary survey, they may have to put in $100 million in new sewers.”

Ms Kilby-Fox said she had just come from her second meeting with Mr Silvaggi and the Brookfield Board of Selectmen, and said the officials still felt a possible merger with Newtown was the “best fit.”

“I hope you are interested in having them,” she said, adding that the combined district population of about 46,000 would be favorable to attract grants and matching funds for special programs or other nontraditional public health outreach services.

Ms Kilby-Fox said the Brookfield selectmen were already backing a “buy-in” rate of $15–$16 per resident to underwrite the cost of expanding services.

Newtown health board chairman Dr Robert Grossman echoed an earlier concern.

“We really want to know what the health issues are,” he said.

Ms Culbert said ramping-up Brookfield to ensure it conforms with Newtown’s existing level of excellence would likely require a significant amount of her time, especially in the first few months.

“You can’t compare them to Roxbury or Bridgewater,” Ms Culbert said. “Brookfield needs to come into this century in terms of public health practices. I don’t want to merge at the expense of [our existing communities], or mine.”

Ms Kilby-Fox then sweetened the pot, suggesting if the district merger with Brookfield moved forward quickly, she could authorize paying Newtown the entire year’s state reimbursement per capita for services. That reimbursement tops $34,000, and would be added to a one-time state merger allocation of $250,000.

If the merger is completed by the end of the fiscal year, the expanded Newtown district would qualify for another $34,000 on July 1, 2008. Ms Culbert reminded Ms Kilby-Fox that a review and likely increase in general district fees would also be applied going forward.

Mr Meehan said he thought even with the fees, reimbursements, and other windfalls that a merger would put a drain on the district’s workforce. He suggested that if food inspections have been deficient in recent years, that area alone could require significant human resources to correct.

Newtown board member Joan Crick was also concerned about Brookfield’s past practices, saying she did not want to see the community tax the existing district.

“There’s been no effort in the past to fix issues,” Ms Crick said. Bridgewater First Selectman William Stuart said he would not feel comfortable going forward until Brookfield officials came to Newtown to present surveys, population projections, and long-term plans for residential and commercial growth, including septic and water systems.

Previously, Ms Culbert said the monitoring of Brookfield’s public water systems could be a substantial responsibility for her staff if a merger goes through.

“Brookfield has the most public water systems in the state, with mostly small suppliers,” she said in a previous interview, “which could contribute to the perception of some public water quality problems that health officials would have to deal with.”

Mr Stuart then suggested the possible scope of increased responsibilities could justify an increase in per capita contributions from Brookfield taxpayers in excess of $20 per person.

“You could make it work, but you’ve got to understand what you’re getting into,” Mr Stuart advised. “And they don’t even understand the money issue yet. This could be a million-dollar health district in a few years.”

Mr Meehan said if Ms Culbert did not feel discussing the merger was viable, she would not have called a special meeting.

He then made a motion to go forward with a preliminary feasibility report on merging, with an expected completion in three months, which was passed unanimously.