The Utah County Commission approved amending a contract for COVID-19 activities in K-12 schools with the Utah Department of Health on Wednesday.

According to the amendment document, the total funding provided would be approximately $1.8 million paid out from July 1 until July 31, 2023. The original contract ends July 31 of this year, and was funded for $800,000.

“I know this was a program that we had approved last year because the State Legislature put in the Test to Stay, so this was the ability to help keep kids in school as much as possible,” Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner said. “But I thought we were out of the Test to Stay emergency declaration, and I’m wondering why this is necessary. I also noticed not only does it increase the length, but it increases the funding quite a bit, and I’m wondering why this is necessary if we aren’t in an emergency state.”

A representative from the Utah County Department of Health and Human Services said the funds can be used for other COVID-19 related things, such as paying for a portion of salary costs for qualified school nurses.

“We didn’t utilize most of the funds last year, so we won’t unless there’s a need. But we will use it to cover up to 20% of the salaries of the school nurses for the upcoming year,” they said.

Commissioners also approved an ordinance to amend the county’s general plan to update the resource management plan for public lands related to land access, renewable energy resources, critical mineral resources, utility corridors, pipelines and infrastructure.

Bryce Armstrong, community development associate director, presented background information on the amendment, and why it’s vital to the county.

“In 2015 or 2016 the Utah State Legislature change the state code relative for land use for counties,” Armstrong said. “It required that all counties in the state adopt a resource management plan, specifically for public lands. It would be a part of the county’s general, and it was to address 28 separate elements to come up with goals and policies.”

The purpose of the plan is to communicate and coordinate the county’s desired outcomes on public lands with federal land management agencies.

“The federal process must take into consideration all county resource management plans,” Armstrong said. “It’s good to have that voice at the table when there’s an action pending from the federal level and have those policies and objectives in place. What we’ve done as staff is look through each item and see what aligns with the county’s land use policies that we already have adopted.”

Commissioner Bill Lee said approving this amendment was “extremely” important.

In the work session portion of the meeting, Utah County Health Department Mosquito Abatement Manager Dan Miller gave a presentation on mosquito abatement innovations and partnerships with other Utah County programs.

Miller said the last time this topic was in front of the commissioners was in 2015, with the idea of testing the mosquito population in the area for West Nile Virus and other mosquito-borne diseases.

“We are coming to you again today with an idea very similar to that,” he said. “This idea is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. This is innovation that has helped us to hopefully save local taxpayer dollars. It creates efficiency and effectiveness by reducing our labor costs and it’s a better method of delivery with our insecticides into the water.”

Over the last four years, drone usage in treating mosquitos has more than doubled the department’s treated acres. Miller showed data from 2018 where 786 acres were treated in total — 631 by hand, 155 by ATV and zero by air. Numbers for 2021 show approximately 2,000 acres treated with 304 done by hand, 60 by ATV and 1,697 by air.

“The larvae is in the water, and it’s much more effective to find the mosquitos in the larva and treat them there instead of having to get them in air on their wings,” Miller said. “We can kill 95 to 100% of the mosquitos in the larva.”

Drone services cost $31,700 to survey 2,000 acres in 2022, but vendor costs are going to increase $24 per acre in 2023, totaling to $48,000 for the same acreage. Miller said he wants to increase the acreage to 2,500 as the county’s population increases. Doing so would increase the price of drone services to $60,000.

He suggested taking $60,000 to purchase a drone instead of paying an outside vendor. According to his presentation, the drone would last approximately 10 years and save, roughly, between $420,000 and $540,000 in its lifespan.

No further action was taken by the commissioners.

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