The exterior of the facility with the street sign at the Ascension Parish Health Unit Thursday June 29, 2017, in Shown here, the Ascension Parish Health Unit in Gonzales has recently renovated a portion of its space to offer more exam rooms and a larger lab for the St. Elizabeth Community Clinic that treats uninsured parish residents.
The exterior of the facility with the street sign at the Ascension Parish Health Unit Thursday June 29, 2017, in Shown here, the Ascension Parish Health Unit in Gonzales has recently renovated a portion of its space to offer more exam rooms and a larger lab for the St. Elizabeth Community Clinic that treats uninsured parish residents.
Ascension Parish voters will be asked Saturday to settle a runoff for justice of the peace and to renew the parish health unit property tax.
The health unit tax, which expires at the end of the year, is up for a 10-year renewal and would generate an estimated $3.1 million per year. On a $250,000 house with homestead exemption, the tax will continue to cost homeowners $35 per year.
After a surviving a three-person primary vote on Nov. 13, two Republicans, Lynelle Johnson and Kim Landry, are vying to replace former Justice of the Peace John Hebert in the 3rd Justice Court. He resigned in January. The small claims court covers primarily the eastern half of East Ascension.
Ascension’s sole health unit in Gonzales distributes food commodities and child nutrition services for the poor, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and offers vaccinations and family planning. The unit continues to play a role in coronavirus vaccinations. 
John Diez, parish government chief administrative officer, said the health unit tax also pays for mosquito control, mandated medical services in the parish jail and funds a new wellness center at the Council on Aging.
On the books since 1952, the 2-mill health tax has seen some of its previous budgetary demands shifted to new revenue sources or cut entirely since the tax was last renewed in 2011.
But Diez said parish officials are eyeing a new west bank wellness center modeled on one in Thibodaux and new wellness programs to address obesity problems in Ascension if the tax is renewed. He said Our Lady of the Lake Hospital’s health assessment for Ascension continues to find obesity as the No. 1 health concern in the parish.
Diez said parish officials plan to use some of the health unit revenue to offer more preventative programing to keep people healthier, such aerobics, yoga or other kinds of classes at parish community centers.
“That’s kind of on the horizon what we want to do with it is kind of take health care upstream and not just wait for people to walk in the health unit but offer wellness classes for them,” he said.
The new wellness center in Donaldsonville would combine the services of past health and mental health units but also focus on preventative care that keeps people healthier.
“I mean that’s where you really impact health care, when you catch it upstream,” Diez said.
The health unit fund ended 2020 with $4.2 million surplus, a parish audit says. 
When the tax was last renewed by voters a decade ago, it also supported the parish animal shelter, animal control services and more health units than it does now.
Outcry over the conditions of the parish-run animal shelter in the mid-2010s led to nonprofit management of the shelter services — now CARA’s House — and adoption of a new 1-mill property tax in late 2018.
All animal services are now funded through the 1-mill animal shelter tax and completed the shift from the health unit tax budget to the animal services budget in 2021. 
Local health units, which once also had ample funding from the state, have closed across Louisiana through the years due to past budget cutbacks. The units had been aimed at providing a suite of limited primary care services for the state’s poor and under-served populations. 
At one time, more than two decades ago, the Ascension health unit tax and state dollars had funded three health unit buildings in Gonzales, Donaldsonville and Sorrento. The Sorrento building closed and was converted to a cancer screening facility in 2000.
The Donaldsonville health unit closed in 2014 under former Parish President Tommy Martinez, around two years after a newly built, federally qualified health center had opened across street from the parish health unit on Catalpa Street. The nonprofit clinic leases parish government-owned land.
At the time, the parish was also having to make up the difference in recent state cutbacks to keep two health units open.
The then $1.4 million Capitol City Family Health Center also enjoyed support from local officials and legislators and funding from the state but also offered many of the services that the next-door health unit did, plus others. The facility is now known as CareSouth Medical and Dental.
The new wellness center, Diez said, wouldn’t be aimed at duplicating the nonprofit clinic’s services but filling another need.
Email David J. Mitchell at dmitchell@theadvocate.com
Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.
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