Executive/Council Action Form (ECAF)
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Ordinance 21-068, an Interlocal Agreement between the Snohomish Health District and Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management for Incident Management Assistance within Snohomish County for mass vaccination efforts
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DEPARTMENT: Emergency Management
ORIGINATOR: Jason Biermann
EXECUTIVE RECOMMENDATION: Approve
PURPOSE: The purpose of this Agreement is to set forth the terms and conditions under which DEM will assist the District in implementing its mass vaccination plan, and for which the District will reimburse DEM using FEMA grant funding.
BACKGROUND: In July of 2020 the Snohomish County Vaccine Task Force, a joint effort co-led by the Snohomish Health District (SHD) and Snohomish County's Department of Emergency Management (DEM), began planning for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines via high throughput (i.e., mass vaccination) sites. SHD focused on its regulatory responsibilities for the vaccine, which range from procurement to distribution. DEM focused on its logistics and planning capabilities to establish the seven mass vaccination sites ultimately used by the Task Force to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of Snohomish County residents. In January of 2021 mass vaccination efforts became reimbursable through FEMA's Public Assistance program. Historically, the Public Assistance program works through the state's emergency management system, managed by the State's Emergency Management Division in conjunction with local emergency management agencies. In this instance, Washington's Department of Health assumed responsibility at the state level and directed local health jurisdictions to be the local entity responsible for distributing the FEMA reimbursement funds. This interlocal between SHD and DEM accounts for DEM's role in, and the associated costs for, establishing the mass vaccination sites. It also provides an agreement by which DEM can provide its expertise to SHD in support of the Public...
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