Adams County is set to leave the Tri- County Health Department, its commission announced Tuesday afternoon, a month after Douglas County pulled out from under the agency’s umbrella.

Adams County’s Board of Commissioners will vote on a resolution “to provide notice” of their departure on Oct. 26.

The county will remain under Tri- County’s purview through December 2022. After that, the county will establish its own health department, and “there will be no disruption of services to Adams County residents during this transition.”

“Douglas County’s decisions left us no choice but to re-evaluate the future of public health services in Adams County,” Eva Henry, the commissioner’s board chair,

said in a statement. “As a result, Adams County must determine the best option to move ahead for a health board and services provided to residents.”

In an interview, Henry said Douglas County’s decision last month to leave Tri- County “pushed” Adams County’s decision because the agency had effectively “dissolved.” The move prompted commissioners to examine Adams’ needs, she said.

“It was a very difficult partnership to begin with,” she said of Tri- County. “It became too political. Politicians shouldn’t belong in health decisions.”

Henry said each of the counties has their own distinct needs that made it difficult for all three to co-exist under the same public health agency. She said she’s wanted to leave the agency for the past five years because of the diverging needs and priorities of the different counties.

“We had one county commission from another county that actually said that birth control depressed women, so she didn’t want to put any money into family planning,” she said. She declined to name that person or what county they represented. “We had two other counties who, because of the financial situation that they’re in, didn’t want to put money toward mental health. Your political philosophy does affect health in a way because it tells you where you want to put your money.”

In a statement, Tri- County wrote that it was “disappointed and saddened” by Adams County’s decision, “particularly in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

Adams standing up its own agency will be a “huge undertaking,” Henry said. The new department is projected to cost Adams County roughly $6.5 million annually, a county spokeswoman said. The county spent $3.8 million annually on Tri- County. With the departure of Douglas County, the agency would’ve needed an additional $6.2 million annually from its two remaining charges.

Of the three counties that formed the department, only Arapahoe County remains. In a statement, the county wrote that it was “saddened that our neigh

boring counties have chosen to end the productive 55-year partnership with the Tri- County Health Department.” A county spokesman said commissioners were mulling forming their own heath department and that lawmakers were still exploring “all options.”

“We have already begun to explore future options to continue delivering quality public health services and will begin developing the necessary transition plans as we form our own public health department,” the county wrote. “The Board intends to do what it can to support the many dedicated employees of Tri- County Health throughout this process.”

In its statement, Tri- County said it will “work with Arapahoe County to develop a transition plan to assure continued delivery of high-quality services to our residents.”

In August, Tri- County’s Board of Health voted to institute a mask mandate for younger students and the adults that work with them in the three counties’ schools. The Douglas County Commission immediately voted to opt out of that order, an option the agency created after another spat with Douglas County late last year.

Shortly after, on Aug. 24, the Adams County Commission also voted to optout. But the commissioners supported masking, and they criticized Tri- County’s decision to let other counties optout of the order at all. Commissioner Lynn Baca said at that August meeting that it was “clear to her” that the county needed to stand up its own department.

The Douglas County Commission voted in September to leave the department. It quickly established its own Board of Health, which in turn required the local school district — which had a mask mandate in place — to allow for any parent or staff member to exempt themselves from the policy.