Lynch Defends Lead Paint Cuts

Two years ago, the Governor pointed with pride to his effort to crack down on lead paint poisoning.

“Lead paint poising remains one of the most dangerous yet preventable public health hazards for our children. It is time that we take action to reduce lead paint poisoning in children, and this budget provides the funding to do just that.”

But that, as they say, was then. Here’s what the Governor sounds like now.

"I, um, was a big proponent of lead abatement, it was a priority for me. But unfortunately we’ve had to make some tough decisions."

Those tough decisions were staff cuts that yielded $480,000 in savings, but cost the program more than half of its staffers and 3 of its 4 lead inspectors. Last year the state reported 140 children under the age of 6 with newly elevated blood lead levels; and the state currently has a backlog of 190 cases in which children were reported to have elevated blood-lead content. The grim arithmetic is well known to state health officials. Last week, Health and Human services commissioner Nick Toumpas told lawmakers he’d already acted to slow that backlog by raising the blood-lead threshold that would trigger state involvement in poisoning cases.

“We changed the level for reporting for childhood lead, rolled that back --the implication on that would be that there would fewer test that would need to be done in our public health lab.”

Toumpas later said he misspoke -- and admitted that he could not take such a step without a change to current law. But the commissioner also said he planned to introduce a law to achieve the rollback, and that he’d raised the issue with the Governor.

“We would try to do some legislation that would put it at a level that would be consistent with our ability to perform that with the resources that we do have.”

The Governor says he doesn’t back that proposal and that he won’t support any other measure to ease current lead law. But at the same time Lynch did not indicate any inclination to revisit the lead program’s budget cuts, either. He says he expects the program to work more slowly, but get the job done.

“As I said, we will do everything we can to ensure we are protecting children.”

Such as what?

“We’re going to make sure that children continue to be protected; you know there will still be one individual in that department, that individual will have to prioritize the workload available to them.”

Is there any way that people could be added back?

“I’ve got to run.”

Luanne Speikers may soon also be running, as the government’s sole remaining lead inspector, she’ll now be covering the entire state. With 15 years on the job, Speikers has a pretty good idea of what she’s in for, and she doesn’t see it working out.

“I can’t even picture what that will look like at this point, on 7.5 hour per day. The kids are going to lose, because we are not going to be able to reach all of the kids.”