We share the concerns of local public health officials over a pair of bills requiring regular septic tank inspections.

We support the idea of inspections to help ensure the health of the public and the environment.

What concerns us — and officials at District Health Department No. 4, according to a recent story by News staff writer Michael Gonzalez — is who will pay for the upfront costs of the inspections.

The statehouse legislation, House Bills 4479 and 4480, allows the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy or local public health departments to perform the inspections. The legislation also allows the agency performing the inspection to charge a “reasonable” fee to cover the cost of the inspection.

However, the legislation also requires a lot of upfront work before those inspection fees can be charged, including establishing regulations for septic systems, training (and potentially hiring) staff to perform the inspections, and overseeing enforcement of the new regime, including issuing fines.

“What we want to safeguard is that we don’t have to build the plane as we’re flying it,” Denise Bryan, DHD4 administrative health officer, said at a recent DHD4 board meeting. “We really want to have a funding mechanism. Are they going to subcontract the inspections out or is it on the back of public health?”

We share Bryan’s concerns.

If the state wants to implement a new inspection requirement and ask local public health agencies to take on the burden of overseeing those inspections, the state must provide some financial assistance to local public health departments to help set up those inspections.

Eventually, the “reasonable” fees for the inspections may cover the cost, but there will be upfront costs that somebody has to pay before the inspections can begin and the fees can be levied, and the state ought to pay for it.