DULUTH — Virginia-based commissioner Keith Nelson and Frank Jewell, representing central Duluth, sparred Tuesday as the St. Louis County Board considered alternatives ways to fund a contract with an outside nursing agency for $450,000.
St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services does not maintain sufficient staffing capacity to conduct all of its COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics. Instead, it supplements its efforts by using nurses from, in this case, the Hermantown-based SISU Healthcare IT Solutions.
The board went back and forth for an hour about how it could either assign a small portion of its $54 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the contract, or use internal dollars first while saving federal pandemic funds to “backfill” as necessary.
The debate was complicated by the absence of Commissioner Keith Musolf, who was out ill, it was said at the meeting.
Seemingly innocuous, the debate drew metaphorical blood, as Jewell wondered if Nelson had achieved a majority on wanting to use internal funds and was willing to propose a delay of the day’s vote until Musolf returned to the board.
“That would suggest there has already been a conversation with four members of the board,” Jewell said, referencing a majority of the seven members.
Nelson said Jewell was accusing him of holding illegal meetings — with what has effectively become a familiar voting block featuring the three Iron Range commissioners and Musolf, who represents Hermantown, Proctor, Rice Lake and rural areas outside Duluth.
“Unless you have some justification for doing that I suggest you don’t do it again,” Nelson told Jewell. “Or, I am going to seek other action. This is absurd that you would accuse another commissioner of that.”
The two commissioners, Nelson and Jewell, have often been on opposing sides of issues. Jewell has already said he will not seek reelection in 2022.
Board Chair Paul McDonald urged commissioners to rise above what he termed “pettiness.”
Public Health Director Linnea Mirsch weighed in to say the federal COVID-19 funds were “clearly eligible” to cover nursing expenses, because the monies, while strictly audited, were aimed at pandemic response and recovery.
She also confirmed there was nothing preventing the county from doing as Nelson proposed, which could have the effect of preserving federal dollars for other targets.
Nelson noted there were “an awful lot of needs not being addressed” by pandemic funds.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get some things done, and I’m all done being told ‘no’ in 25 different languages,” Nelson said.
He concluded by adding he would not be a “rubber stamp” for county administration.
In the end, a resolution passed unanimously, 6-0, to provide funding for the nurses. The expectation was that Nelson would initiate a process to formally reconsider the resolution once Musolf returned from his absence, presumably at the Feb. 8 meeting in Duluth.
“My opinion is to try to stretch the ARPA dollars as much as we can,” McDonald said, seeming to support Nelson’s position.
The county’s American Rescue Plan Act money has to be committed by Dec. 31, 2024, and spent by the last day of 2026.
