Board of Health and Local Health Officer: Roles and Responsibilities
This chart was compiled to compare the differing roles and responsibilities of the local Board on Health compared to the health officer or director of the local health department.
| Activity |
Board of Health |
Director/Health Officer |
|---|---|---|
|
Long-term goals |
Approves | Recommends and provides input |
| Short-term goals (taking one year or less) |
Monitors | Establishes and carries out |
| Annual report and plan | Approves | Assesses, develops, and carries out |
| News media releases | Adopts policy; supports public health position | Approves all media releases |
| Day-to-day operations | No role | Makes all management decisions |
| Budget | Approves | Develops and recommends |
| Capital purchases | Approves | Prepares requests |
| Decisions on building renovation, leasing, expansion, etc. | Make decisions, assumes responsibility | Recommends, signs contracts after board approval |
| Purchases of supplies | Establishes policy and budget for supplies | Purchases according to board policy; maintains an adequate audit trail |
| Major repairs | Approves | Obtains estimates and prepares recommendations |
| Minor repairs | Establishes policy, including amount that can be spent without board approval | Authorizes repairs up to predetermined amount |
| Emergency repairs | Works with administrator | Notifies board chairperson and acts with concurrence from chair |
| Cleaning and maintenance | No role (oversight only) | Sets up schedule |
| Fees | Adopts policy | Develops and sets fee schedules |
| Billing, credit and collections | Adopts policy | Proposes policy and implements |
| Hiring of staff | Hires administrator only | Approves hiring of all subordinate staff |
| Staff development and assignment | No role | Establishes |
| Firing of staff | Fires administrator only | Approves firing of all subordinate staff |
| Staff grievances | Establishes a grievance committee | Follows grievance procedures |
| Personnel policies | Adopts | Recommends and administers |
| Staff salaries | Allocates budget line item for salaries; approves yearly percentage increase | Approves salaries with recommendations from supervisory staff |
| Staff evaluations | Evaluates administrator only | Evaluates supervisory staff |
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