Trisha Gardner, the county public health officer, is leaving the Cascade County City-County Health Department effective Dec. 24.

She’s headed to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services in their immunization division.

The Board of Health and County Commissioners were notified earlier this week of her planned departure.

Commissioners have not yet responded to questions from The Electric as to their planned process for filling the position, but the newly approved temporary agreement between the city and the county designates a governing body as the one that hires the public health officer. That body, under the agreement, which is in place through June, is the County Commission, plus one City Commissioner.

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Gardner said during the Dec. 1 health board meeting that she’s meeting with the CCHD leadership team next week to finalize a transition plan and name an interim director.

The department hired a deputy health officer earlier, Bowen  Trystianson, this year and Gardner said he’s the logical choice for the interim health officer.

She said she and the leadership team are looking at the division of duties internally and longterm planning and she’s also leaving her thoughts on the structure of the board of health and a new agreement between the city and county for management of CCHD as those entities work through that in light of a new state law.

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The CCHD has been operating under a 1975 agreement between the city and county that hasn’t been updated since.

Health Board Chair Owen Robinson, a city commissioner, said that “I want you to know, from my point of view, it’s not only been a pleasure, it’s been an honor to serve with you. What you and this whole board have gone through with the pandemic has not been easy.”

Gardner said it was a difficult decision, but “I can’t say thank you enough to this board for the support, encouragement, expertise and guidance that you all gave. I’m really going to miss working with all of you.”

Tom Moore, superintendent of Great Falls Public Schools and a health board member, said he appreciated Gardner’s support and understanding in navigating the pandemic for schools and their health protocols.

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“This has been a volatile crisis. You’ve handled that environment very, very well. Your advice and guidance to me has been invaluable.”

Matt Martin, a dentist and health board member, said “you’ve done very well through a very difficult time.”

County Commissioner Joe Briggs, the county’s representative on the board, did not attend the meeting.

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Gardner said that the top challenge in her time as public health officer was the politicization of COVID and public health matters.

“I can say that very definitively,” she told The Electric.

Staffing issues are also a challenge, in recruiting and retaining qualified staff. But that’s been a challenge across the medical field, she said.

But, Gardner said she’s excited to see where CCHD goes in the future and that there were positives to come out of the pandemic.

She said there’s now a better, though not full, understanding of what public health is and what they do on a regular basis, particularly from the County Commission and Board of Health.

“Not that they didn’t know but that’s been strengthened by this, on the necessity of a health department and an independent health department and the services we provide. I believe that’s in a much firmer stance now that when I took this position.”

She said that over the years she’s been the health officer, there’s been some internal restructuring at CCHD to create positions such as the deputy health officer, which didn’t exist previously.

The hardest part of leaving the job, Gardner said, is “one, I really believe in the mission of what the health department does and love the services we’re able to provide to the community. But it’s also the people who work here. They have that heart and that passion. They want to see our community safe and healthy and happy. That’s something I’m so proud to say I was part of. They’re still here and doing that. That’s what makes it a bittersweet departure. I will miss them.”

There have been national conversations over the last year or so as to whether the pandemic is causing people to leave public health or be drawn to the career field.

Gardner said she’s seen a bit of both. Change isn’t bad, she said, and new blood and fresh eyes can be advantagous to the CCHD and public health in general.

She said she’s seen burnout, but also who see the challenges and want to take them on.

“But my hope is ultimately that because public health got put more in the limelight that more people are attracted to going into it and got interested because of it.”

Gardner was named public health officer in November 2019, just months before the COVID pandemic hit the county.

At that point, Gardner had worked for 10 years at CCHD and most previously was the interim prevention services division manager and privacy officer.

The position had been vacant since Tanya Houston left to work for Alluvion in March 2019, though the county contracted with Alluvion for Houston to continue filling the health officer role until August 2019.

In 2019, county officials have had numerous discussions about the future of the city-county health department and over the summer, the county was moving forward with plans to outsource some public health functions to Alluvion.

Those plans crumbled when some county commissioners started asking for financial details from Alluvion and shortly thereafter, Alluvion withdrew from consideration in favor of other projects it was pursuing.

Over the summer of 2019, the city-county Board of Health, which governs the health department, wanted to hire a new health officer, but Commissioner Joe Briggs had reservations and during a September 2019 meeting presented financial figures to argue that the department was not sustainable as it’s currently structured. He said during that meeting he wanted discussions on outsourcing or reorganizing.

By the end of that September meeting, the consensus was to revise the health officer job description to include a core responsibility of reorganizing CCHD with a focus on prevention services and infectious disease.

After the job was revised, the county received six applicants, according to the Board of Health chairman in 2019.

The county did not revise the overall structure of CCHD since then.