Village Board Considering Merger of Health Departments

The Village Board will decide by March 7 whether to merge the Shorewood/Whitefish Bay and North Shore health departments into one in an effort to provide best practice.

Trustee Patrick Linnane is organizing the resolution and in a memo to the board said a task force will determine the financial advantages or disadvantages, the capacities of a combined department and whether there would be public support of the merger.

The Board of Health and a task force created to examine the possible merger will prepare an analysis by Feb. 15 for the board. The board will then decide whether to pursue the merger with the rest of the North Shore. The North Shore Health Department serves the city of Glendale and villages of Bayside, Brown Deer, Fox Point and River Hills.

Linnane said the village is always looking for ways to provide better services but leadership change within the departments helped spark the merger discussion.

"The idea of exploring a merger or consolidation of the Shorewood/Whitefish Bay Health Department with the North Shore Health Department became particularly relevant when each of the Health Departments began planning for changes in leadership related to the impending retirements of the two public health officers leading those departments," Linnane said in an e-mail.