Grant Programs Can Be Costly
The Intelligencer/Wheeling News Register (West Virginia)
December 3, 2008
One of the more insidious aspects of growth in government is on display this week. It involves state and federal grant money.
County health department officials are being informed by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources that it is going to cost them money if they want to remain connected to the state electronic health computer network. A total of $350,000 will have to be spent by the county health departments this year alone if they intend to continue using the network. It provides various types of information, such as that about disease outbreaks and immunization programs.
DHHR spokesman John Law explained that the state agency cannot afford to cover the cost of serving local health departments with the program. Money to establish it was provided by a federal grant.
The dilemma facing local officials is not unfamiliar. It is whether to find some way to continue funding a program that, in the beginning, allegedly wasn't going to cost them anything.
Here's how it works:
A state or, more likely, federal agency announces a wonderful new program. Government entities at the local and state levels can participate. All they have to do is take money offered through a grant program.
After a few years, the grant money dries up. Local and state officials are left to decide whether to find their own money - from taxpayers, of course - to continue the program. Sometimes they decide to do so.
Sometimes they decide the program isn't worth the money they have to find to keep it alive.
Little by little, the size and cost of local and state governments grows, because of new funding at their levels for programs that originated with grants.
Is the state health network worth the cost to local agencies? We don't know. That is up to them to decide.
But the next time someone in Charleston or Washington calls with a great "opportunity" in the form of a grant program, we urge local and state officials to think seriously before agreeing to participate in it.
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