EPHRATA - Ephrata Mayor Chris Jacobson plans to ask for a cut in the city's donation to the health district.

"I think we're doing great things over there, and we're all going to be doing great things with less money, including the city," he said. "So just to give you a heads up, when that $2 thing comes by, I'll be talking to these guys about cutting that thing in half ... because we're starting to have tough times too."

Jacobson made the statement after a presentation by district Administrator Jeff Ketchel at a recent city council meeting. The city normally donates $2 per resident to the district, roughly equaling about $14,000.

Ketchel started with the pertussis outbreak in the county. The district has recorded 54 cases of the disease during the 15 months since the first report of the disease, he said.

"Every time we get a case, we interview (patient) or the parents of the (patient) to find where the individual was when they were contagious," he said. "Then we follow up with those people to find out their vaccination status."

Tracking the outbreak has cost the district more than $100,000, Ketchel said.

Ketchel continued, moving to the Healthy Communities Initiative the district started in Ephrata. The district started the pilot program in 2011, aimed at preventing chronic disease.

The initiative focuses on five strategies to help make people in the city healthier - workplace wellness, increasing information about healthy living, active living, healthy eating and creating safe routes for children to walk or bicycle to school, according to a draft proposal.

"Some of these proposed projects include community gardens and other things to not only encourage people to eat healthy, live actively and avoid tobacco, but also to bring the community together because there is a social aspect to health as well," he said.

The amount of "temporary food inspections" rose during the past year as well, Ketchel said. Temporary food inspections include inspections at fairs, fundraisers, farmers markets and community events.

"In all of last year, we had just over 800 of those inspections and already, to date, we've had over 900," he said. "So we often have one, maybe two staff working on the weekends to do these inspections.

Ketchel pointed out the district's funding falls into two categories - categorical and flexible. Categorical funds, from items such as grants, are limited in what they can be spent to do.

"The permits we charge for restaurants we can only use that money with regards to food safety or an illness investigation," he said.

The flexible funding can be spent on a wider range of items, Ketchel said. District officials look at the needs of the community to determine where it can be spent.

"Also, we don't have a specific fund for communicable disease and sexually transmitted disease, and so it's the flexible funding that is the most important," he said. "The governor is proposing to cut our flexible funding. It's already been cut in the last legislative session by about $50,000 and they're cutting it another $79,000 and in the worst-case scenario, an additional $160,000."

Ketchel pointed out the district has a $1.7 million budget.

"I wasn't going to talk about it tonight, but the city money is that much more important, because (that is) the money that funds our communicable disease program," he said. "We've had a very busy year with pertussis. Influenza is in there too, and chicken pox. These are the types of things that harm the most vulnerable of us, but also can spread to any of us quite easily."