A workforce director to help recruit, retain and train San Antonio Metropolitan Health District’s workforce is among a dozen new positions in the department made possible through a $25.5 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The majority of the money will go toward bringing on the dozen new full-time employees and supporting 34 existing full-time positions.
The funds will also offset some costs of Metro Health’s five-year effort, known as SA Forward, which is meant to beef up the health department with resources and eliminate health disparities across the city. The plan targets six areas — access to care, data and technology, food insecurity and nutrition, health equity and social justice, mental health and community resilience, and violence prevention.
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Other new positions include a nurse, a vector control technician and administrative roles that will support the department.
Locals can expect to see a “better performing” health district over the next five years thanks to the funds, said Metro Health Director Claude A. Jacob.
He said the allotment is unlike any other — typically, federal funds only come in two- or three-year cycles.
“It’s an unprecedented amount of support provided by the feds, anchored to stabilizing and protecting the workforce,” Jacob said.
San Antonio’s allotment is just a slice of the CDC’s $3.9 billion in grant funding going to state, local and territorial jurisdictions across the country over the next five years.
The 34 existing positions that the funds will support are employees who will be working on the SA Forward plan efforts surrounding violence prevention and mental health.
“The funding is intended to train new and existing staff. It strengthens systems, policies and processes, as well as supporting the implementation of our grants,” Jacob said.
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Metro Health has an operating budget of $106.5 million, the large majority of which is from external grants. About $35 million of those dollars are from the city’s general fund.
Jacob said that a timeline of when the new employees will be hired on will be clearer in the coming weeks.
