Florida counties get $138 million federal boost for public health workers
Florida’s health department released details of the state’s $138 million spending plan for federal CARES Act funds Thursday, focusing primarily on public health workers needed to respond to the state’s resurging COVID-19 pandemic.
The money is earmarked for Florida’s 67 counties to hire epidemiologists, contact tracers, nurses, data clerks, health educators and others. Most counties will receive less than $1 million, although state officials said they directed the funds to the areas of the state facing the most widespread outbreak of the virus.
More than $96 million of the state’s CARES Act spending is earmarked for 12 counties with the largest populations and most severe impacts from the disease, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, which together account for 99,719 or nearly 43% of the state’s 232,718 confirmed cases.
However, the federal funds were not distributed evenly among the South Florida counties.
Broward, where the state has confirmed 25,102 COVID-19 cases and 427 deaths, is budgeted to receive $30.5 million for 26 epidemiologists, 450 contact tracers, 90 nurses and other workers.
Miami-Dade has 55,961 confirmed cases and 1,092 deaths — the most in Florida — and is to receive $19.5 million for six epidemiologists, 84 contact tracers and 400 nurses.
About $12.7 million is budgeted for Palm Beach, which has 18,656 confirmed cases and 578 deaths, to hire 23 epidemiologists, 140 contact tracers and 76 nurses.
Manatee County, which has 4,266 confirmed cases and 138 deaths, will receive $1.5 million to hire 12 contract tracers, 10 nurses and one epidemiologist.
On Thursday, state health officials announced another agreement with Miami-Dade County to add 250 contact tracers to track people who test positive for COVID-19, find out who else they may have infected and provide them information about getting tests and services. Miami-Dade had been negotiating with the state for two months to boost its staff of disease investigators.
Alberto Moscoso, communications director for the Florida Department of Health, said the agency distributed CARES Act spending based on a needs survey of local health departments conducted in June.
He stressed that the epidemiologists, contact tracers, nurses and other workers hired with the CARES Act funds will be shifted to wherever in Florida they’re needed most.
“The funded positions ... will not necessarily be confined to those counties that initially received the associated funding,” he said.
Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 7:03 PM.