The state is pulling thousands of dollars in oral health services funding out of Orange County, and elementary school students could feel the pain.
Because the state health director was faced with budget cuts, the county will lose its public health dental hygienist as well as programs aimed at reducing dental disease in county students.
Mike Kelley, chairman of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, gave the news to Orange County Commissioners at a Sept. 23 meeting with the county’s two school districts.
“They chose several counties they felt were high-wealth and stopped all services,” Kelley said at the meeting. “We’re one of those counties.”
Rebecca King, chief of the state’s oral health section, said the N.C. health director was charged with eliminating $900,000 in positions, and the oral health section was chosen to bear the brunt of the cuts.
“He went to us because we do have a higher percentage of state appropriations,” King said. “It’ll reduce our services by close to 20 percent.”
The oral health section will lose eight positions, two of which remain vacant from summer retirements.
As a result, state oral health services will end in the coming weeks for 11 counties, including Orange.
“Orange County tends to come out as one of the lower-need counties,” said King, who added staff members looked at factors like dental disease levels, the dentist to population ratio and median family income.