Service fees topic for Hancock County Board of Health

NEW CUMBERLAND -- The Hancock County Board of Health is in the process of updating the county health department’s service fees.

During Tuesday’s meeting the board approved to submit a proposed fee increase for public review and comment over the next 30 days. After those 30 days, Hancock County Health Department Administrator Jackie Huff will collect all comments made by the public and submit those comments for the board to review at its Aug. 6 meeting.

If approved, the new fees will be submitted to the West Virginia Bureau of Public Health for consideration before they can go into effect.

The state has already viewed the proposed fees once and gave recommendations. Hancock County officials plan for the fees to go into effect at the beginning of 2020.

The fees cannot be punitive and the cost of the service, the rate of pay and how many minutes per rate of pay the service takes have been taken into account in the process of updating the fees.

The new service fees are available for viewing in the public libraries, the Health Department’s lobby and on the Hancock County Health Department Facebook page and website. The Hancock County Health Department and the Board of Health are accepting comments through email available on the website, by phone at (304) 564-3343 and in writing by sending letters to P.O. Box 578, New Cumberland, WV 26047.

In other actions the board:

• Announced they will no longer provide seasonal health permits, because seasonal health permits are not supported by the state. If a business only intends to be open for a few months that business must apply for a year long health permit. The board will be making exceptions for seasonal permits filed before Tuesday’s meeting.

• Approved the 2020 fiscal year budget.

• Announced free radon test kits can be obtained by any West Virginia resident by calling the Radon Hotline at 1-800-922-1255. The kit takes two days and the homeowner will mail the kit for laboratory analysis. The results will be mailed back upon completion.

(Riedel can be contacted at jriedel@reviewonline.com)