Cole County Commission approves up to 12 new contact tracers for schools
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Cole County Commission approved the hiring of up to 12 new contact tracers that will specifically work to watch the spread of COVID-19 in schools in Cole County.
This comes after school leaders across the county, both public and private, asked the commission to consider hiring more with CARES Act Funding.
The commission met with school leaders from Jefferson City Schools, Helias Catholic High School and Blair Oaks on Tuesday after sending requests to potentially hire contact tracers.
According to the Cole County Health Department's weekly dashboard updated on Thursday, 18 percent of the 1,210 cases were under 20 years old. There have now been 1,318 reported cases in Cole County as of Tuesday, with 111 active.
School leaders expressed the amount of time it takes to follow up on a single case takes away from other important factors in the school day, so having dedicated tracers could help out.
Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman said schools have been a top priority to receive CARES Act funding since the beginning.
"This is what the money is meant for," Bushman said. "I think when the superintendents came they expected it was going to be a long drawn out discussion, and we're all like, 'no, what could we do to help, how quickly could we make this happen?'"
Superintendent of Blair Oaks School District Jim Jones was there representing the other small school districts in the county. He said the greatest need for schools right now is contact tracing, so it is a good use for those federal dollars.
"We're trying to be good stewards of that money and find ways to most efficiently use that for the benefit of all Cole countians," Jones said. "We feel like this is our greatest need right now."
The up to 12 part-time contact tracers will work for the Cole County Health Department. Bushman said the hires would likely cost around $125,000 of CARES funding.
The tracers will likely be assigned to certain schools and districts across the county, but Bushman said since they are hired through the Cole County Health Department, they can move around if needed.
"If we have a spike at one of the schools, we can send quite a few people there and we can get it taken care of pretty quickly," Bushman said.
The jobs have already been posted, and Bushman said they could be hired within the week, then after 1-2 days of training, could start work.
ABC17 News reached out to the Cole County Health Department about the new contact tracers but did not immediately receive a response.
Watch ABC17 News at 9 and 10 for the full story.
