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Supes cut vector control assessment
By Joe Naiman
The Alpine Sun
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Board
of Supervisors voted 5-0, July 24, to reduce the vector and
disease control benefit assessment base rate from $6.36 to
$5.92.
“Once again we’re reducing a fee,” said Supervisor Pam
Slater-Price. “It is always appropriate to only recover the fees
that are incurred and nothing more.”
The primary goal of the county’s vector control
program, which is administered by the county’s Department of
Environmental Health, is to prevent vectors from reaching public
nuisance or disease thresholds by managing vector habitat while
protecting habitat values for vector predators and other
beneficial species. The vector control program’s functions
include early detection of public health threats through
comprehensive surveillance, protection of public health by
controlling vectors and exposure to vectors, and appropriate and
timely response to customer service requests.
The California Health and Safety Code defines a vector
as any animal capable of transmitting an agent of human disease
or producing human discomfort or injury. This includes rodents,
bats, and other small vertebrae along with insects such as
mosquitoes, flies, mites, and ticks. The county’s vector control
program identifies vector species, recommends techniques for
their prevention and control, and anticipates and minimizes any
new interactions between vectors and humans.
The vector control program is funded through a vector
control district, which levies a benefit service charge. The
original rate when the service charge was adopted in 1989 was
$3.80 per property, and in 1995 the assessment was reduced.
Three regions were established to address differing service
levels, and from 1995 to 2005 the base rates defined as a
single-family home were $3 per property for the coastal region
and $2.28 per property for the suburban and rural regions.
In 2003 the county adopted its West Nile Virus
Strategic Response Plan, which won awards from both health and
government organizations but reduced the level of effort against
other vectors and depleted the vector control program’s
reserves. Hantavirus and plague monitoring was reduced by 75
percent, and in 2004 the county’s first hantavirus case was
discovered in Campo.
Rather than seeking additional funding only to restore
previous levels, a larger assessment to fund an enhanced program
was proposed. In 2005 the county’s property owners voted to
approve an additional assessment of $8.55, which raised $9.5
million for the program. That amount included $2.3 million of
one-time costs, which were eliminated in subsequent years and
thus allowed for a reduced assessment to $6.36 for Fiscal Year
2006-07 and $5.92 for 2007-08.
The assessment covers all properties in San Diego
County, including those in incorporated cities and those owned
by government agencies. A single-family home is assessed the
base rate, agricultural property with a house is assessed the
base rate plus nine cents per acre, and agricultural property
without a house is assessed the base rate per 100 acres.
The enhanced program increased program staff,
surveillance for the detection of plague and hantavirus, tick
testing, and mosquito traps. Aerial applications were expanded
from 27 sites in 2005 to 39 in 2006 and 42 in 2007, potential
breeding sources were treated monthly, and more than 1,800 known
mosquito breeding sites are now monitored and treated. Public
education and burrow dusting for plague were also expanded.
The average response time for complaints was reduced
from eight days to three and field responses were provided for
all rat complaints. The vector control program also developed a
rat control starter kit and implemented on-line reporting of
dead birds.
The vector control’s $8 million budget for Fiscal Year
2007-08 includes $500,000 from the balance in the vector trust
fund as well as $5.3 million from the benefit assessment and
$2.2 million from the service charge. The planned expenditures
include $3.4 million in salaries and benefits for 29 permanent
staff years and 12 seasonal positions, $1.9 million for
application, outreach, and information technology services and
supplies, $2 million for the vector habitat remediation program,
$400,000 for external overheads and other incidental costs, and
$300,000 for transportation and equipment costs.
 E-mail
Christy Scott
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