Snohomish County has drafted and presented its 2025 Legislative agenda for council consideration (Legistar File#: 2024-2794; Exhibit A). The primary two health department related items are:

Foundational Public Health Services: Snohomish County recognizes the importance of public health and supports continued and increased state funding for public health. The state must begin stabilizing the crumbling system and fill the most critical gaps in core public health services that support the entire governmental public health system in Washington and that threaten the health of Snohomish County communities.  The requested funding will restore key functions that have already been lost and improve local public health’s ability to respond to the threat of communicable and chronic diseases.  These are core public health services that need to be available to every community in the state.

Snohomish County also asks the Legislature to ensure full funding for Foundational Public Health remains intact if budget cuts are made.  

Data Sharing Across Jurisdictions: We support creating policies and procedures that allow local health jurisdictions and health departments to access de-identified data and limited datasets created or maintained by local, county and state agencies.

We also support the establishment of a work group to determine the minimum requirements necessary for a universal data sharing agreement that respects the relevant policy and statutory controls (e.g., HIPAA, 42 CFR) that currently are in place to safeguard personal and protected information. We also support creating a standard data sharing agreement that can be used across and between all government agencies at the local, county and state level.

Snohomish County Council is tentatively scheduled to consider this agenda item on November 13 as part of the General Legislative Session.